'Moose'

Making (slow) Progress
8-23 May 1999

On our latest visit up north to see how our patient is getting along, Jonathon opened the garage doors and there was our Traveller up on the hoist with the new engine proudly sitting in it's final resting place. I've got to say that I didn't believe it was going to happen until that very moment when I saw it for myself. The engineering shop that was making up the engine and gearbox mounts and fitting the Ford Escort axle had been making a meal out of it. The job that they did should have only taken about 2 weeks at the most. They had it for a month. But the car is safely back in JLH's hands now, so we should see some further progress being made.

But as always, there's still a lot of work to be done. Before Jonathon can start on the real re-construction, the car is being sent off to a stereo and security specialist who will fit the alarm/immobiliser and who will build the new rear seat-base speaker enclosures and mount the CD-changer and amplifier. They will also make up a wooden faceplate to fit the stereo into inside the passenger glovebox.

We went to see Moose at the place where it is being fitted up with the stereo & alarm and is having some other wiring and engineering work done that Jonathon felt could be done better by a custom work and modern engine expert. So, they're now in the process of tidying up some of the work that was done by the previous engineering shop that was not up to scratch. An example of the kind of work they had done was to hook up the fuel line, which has to cope with up to 90psi of fuel pressure, with a jubilee clip! This was a major fire waiting to happen. Jubilee clips are NOT recommended on high pressure fuel systems such as those needed on fuel injected engines.

They're also doing a number of fiddly bits and pieces such as finishing off the wiring loom, fitting the stereo and alarm, fitting the new aluminium radiator and other pipe work. They're is also modifying/fitting new anti-tramp bars to the rear axle which should provide even better axle location than the planned parallel items. Add a panhard rod and we should be sitting pretty. We had planned on fitting a Watts linkage, which is basically a Z-shape, attached to the diff head at the middle of the Z with the ends of the bars attached to the chassis, but there wasn't really enough room. And a panhard rod (basically half of a Watts linkage) is cheaper to fit and more than capable enough for road use.