An early and wet start of the month see's us heading for the Stoneleigh National Kitcar show just outside Coventry, a trip of around 460 miles each way.
First stop of the day for a top up of fuel was in Bucksburn at 8:15am, then we headed south
and by 11:20am we needed more fuel and a quick refreshment stop at Bothwell services on the M74, having covered 160 miles of the journey in a little over 3 hours.
Just after 1:00pm and 235 miles, we cross the border at Gretna. The first time the Coupé has done this under it's own power. The last time it was here, was on the back of a trailer on it's way home in October 2006.
We continued on, stopping once more for fuel and food at Tebay in Cumbria, Then around 5:30pm we arrive at our hotel in Coventry, the whole 460 mile trip being made with no difficultly.
After a swim and soak in the hotels pool, a quick trip out from the hotel to fill up with fuel and visit Pizza Hut was meant to finished the day off, unfortunately we missed the nearest hut and made a quick sightseeing tour of Coventry city centre and finished at the Ricoh arena before we headed back to the hotel.
The next day dawns cold but dry, and we headed off to the show. We parked up on the GTM owners club site joining nine other cars that have arrived before 9:00am.
The trip meter now reads 622miles, somewhat over my estimation but may be caused by the speedo over reading.
We spend the day meeting fellow owners, and at times draw quite a crowd, taking in the show, buying a few things, and working out how we were going to transport them all home. Before taking a few snaps of quite a line up of other GTM's that have arrived during the day.
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The trip home goes without a hitch, we do a little sightseeing this time, with a diversion to Bridgemere garden centre for lunch, the whole journey totaled 1256.5 Miles, with 132.8 Litres of fuel being used.
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While at the show I managed to pick up a few items, these were; an oil catch can, two 9" fans, a spare cut-off key, a "Schultz" gun and some door edge seals. These will be fitted soon.
Taking advantage of a nice day, I took several pictures of the Coupé at Haddo House and Tolquhon Castle.
Managed to strip the old radiator fan off, and trial fit the new pair. As the horn was mounted on a right angled spar at the right of the radiator, this was removed, to allow the fan in, and mounted on a bracket in front of the fuel tank. The second fan will need to be wired up later.
A pleasant Wednesday allows me to finish off the wiring for the fans. This meant adding a second relay to the existing wiring.
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I also made a mount for the oil catch can, and plumbed it up to the two breathers on the engine.
One of the things noticed while commuting in the coupé was that at night with wipers, heater and lights on the alternator was barely able to keep up with the current demands of the electrics. When I fitted the alternator back on the car, I never took any notice of its rating, but at the best it is a 45A Metro item.
A common modification in the mini world is to fit a NipponDenso alternator from a modern Japanese car, so I spent a little time browsing the local scrap yard looking for a suitable donor. I did fid a Daewoo Matiz, but to remove the alternator seemed to need the engine to be removed first! How ever a Proton Persona had the right style of unit, however the pulley was a multi-vee rather that the single one required. But the plan is to pull the alternator out and see it the existing pulley will fit. The Proton Alternator is capable of producing 60A a 33% increase on what is fitted. The wiring in the car needs little modification to fit this unit, which is also quite a bit smaller.
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The last day of the month see's a little more work on the alternator, having removed the old alternator. I discover that it is a Lucas 16 ACR unit rated at only 34 Amps. This explains why it is just coping with the requirements of the car.
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First job was to clean up the NipponDenso unit, so I removed the rear cover then the front pulley. The cover was given a de-grease with some petrol, followed by wire brushing, the cover and the body. The rear cover was then given a coat of paint to protect the bare metal.
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When you see the alternators side by side, its amazing the new unit size, considering it is almost one and three quarters the power.
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The pulley and fan from the old unit was removed, and the mounting boss turned down and shortened slightly. This allowed the original pulley to be used on the newer unit.
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Finally the alternator was tried in position, a little had to be taken off the mountings, and the bolts replaced with some 10mm threaded rod, the bottom mount will need a new plate made up, to allow it to hold the tension.
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