Dammit! – I got the wrong gas when I swapped cylinders – I’ve taken home Argoshield and not Pureshield. The first is more for use in welding machines and MIG, and not TIG which is what I do. The welds are splattering a bit, and I’m getting a lot of crap splattering on to the tip. The gas with a little oxygen gives a flatter weld but not the cosmetic quality I want. I was only welding radiator brackets today so I don’t mind of they get the flap disk and are potentially a little porus. The powder-coaters can hide many sins.

I’ve only used the gas for a few minutes, so hopefully they’ll swap it for the right gas. The only balls is that I can’t weld this weekend, and that was the plan. Double-balls is if I get charged to swap – then I’ll have paid £140 for a small cylinder of the right gas, and I could have had a large cylinder delivered to my house for £120 after the delivery fee.

So, this weekend’s plan is two-fold now:

Do Some Staring at Stuff:

Get the block-sump-starter-motor in there to see if I have enough clearance to move this cross-member:

As you can see – the cross-member goes to the middle of the footwell (Ken-Smeg-Brown arrow) which is not something I’m upset about per-se. Fisher had to decide where some things go in order to give a fairly universal engine bay. However, if I can get a cross-member to clear the starter-motor and sump and join the chassis in the logical place which makes for a triangle, then I will look to chop this fellow out and put a new one in where the blue arrow is. It may mean having to rework and put new engine mount brackets in, but that’s not a monster job if tackled now.

Finally the yellow arrow points to the supporting plate which again, is large because it is universal. it’s also 5mm thick steel. Nearly all of that can go and I will bond an aramid plate on the bottom instead. Much lighter for the same strength.

Start Building the Engine

I have a cupboard chock-full of gorgeous new engine bits. I may as well start hammering it together.