Forgot to post this in previous blog........As mentioned, I hoovered up a load of coolant pipes from the scrap yard.....End result lookis like this, All the hoses have build in bends so I was able to select some that fitted the application. The T piece at the top acts as a bleed as a few of the other builders have done.

Rad, fan, and some plumbing

Not a massive amount of progress of recent, but I'm hoovering up some of the smaller jobs that need doing. I fitted the radiator some time ago, but was unhappy with the position. The arrival of the fan meant I could do some more measurements and it was too close to the chassis, so this gave a good excuse to redo the brackets.

Once again, in the interests of keeping things simple, I opted to make 4 alloy brackets that bolted direct to the wishbone mounts via the wishbone bolts. The frontal area of the chassis can be exposed, so the less drilling the better. This meant that the entire assembly did not require any additional chassis drilling.

As mentioned previously, the rad was new (for a golf mk4), and the fan was liberated from a Polo. I removed the fan from the scrap polo with the associated connectors and fan switch which meant that the install was neat enough thanks to mr VW. For the fan to fit, a stand off was required. The usual way of fitting a fan is to either use the fitting kits (which are basically ties that pass through the rad, or via some brackets that attach to the holes in the side of the rad. In the spirit of 'kit car' I devised my own which consisted of some large M6 stainless washers, cable ties, and and some old silicone tube I had lying around to act as the stand off.

One gripe I had was the material used for the cooling fins on the rad has the strength of tin foil. even if you look at it in a funny way, it bends!.

Dash and Header tank

The digital dash arrived...I ended up going for a Koso DB1R Plus...The main reason was the size. Basically, there is bugger all room above the steering column, and this was one of the few that fitted. I'm sure other J15 builders will be questioning my taste when comes to this item, and quite rightly so. The J15 has fantastic lines, and is a classic shape, and an angular digital dash is not really in keeping with the design. But, as mentioned previously, I've always wanted to keep the car light weight, simple and uncluttered, and as the Koso has rpm, speed, warning lights and fuel level, it fits the bill. As you can see, once in position, it does offer a good view of the screen. It will be a while before it's fired up, and there are a few issues with the speedo signal to overcome.



Onto the header tank....I purchased this a while ago, and it was a bit grotty, but an hour with the autosol, and it looked liked something worthy or a new car. I made a couple of alloy brackets with rivnuts for the tank attachment they were then riveted to the chassis, the tank then simply screws in via some M6 bolts.

Ive also been raiding the scrap yard for waterhoses and a cooling fan...this has worked out well, as a bag of hoses of all different types costs a fiver, and fit very well. The fan came from a polo, and needed some mods to the frame, but again, it's a top quality bit of kit, and came with the fan temperature sensor/switch, and a nice bracket for the wiring....More pics of this lot fitted next time.