Finally made it outside and blinking in the sunshine!
Not as simple as one would think as there were 4 other Dolomites between the Dolomega and the road, one of which was a non-runner!
Mileage count today stands at 24 miles, though I've not been more than 4 miles from home so far!
Snag count stands at..........several!
The BIG one is the transmission! It's leaking fluid from the rear seal, not a massive amount, but noticable. This can be fixed in fairly short order, if I can obtain a new seal. More serious is that occasionally, when shifting up from 2nd to 3rd, it finds a false neutral and revs it's little socks off. Sometimes if you let the revs drop, it will clonk into 3rd, or you can select "winter" mode and get 3rd that way, or drop it down to 2nd on the manual holds and then shift up manually. Once it's IN 3rd, it stays without slipping or other problems, shift up into 4th perfectly and downshifts or kicks down to 3rd fine. Other times it shifts up without drama. So I don't think it's anything fatal, but time is short now! I was hoping it was just low on oil from the leak, but, after topping it up the problem is still there, a LOT less frequent, but it's still there. I suspect there's a bit of muck or something in the valve block. it was absolutely fine when the motor and trans was removed from the donor, but that was 2013! I'm gonna ring PennAuto tomorrow and seek advice, but I reckon i'm in for an oil and filter change on the trans as a minimum.
Then, whilst it was idling on the drive and I was underneath, topping up the trans (level must be checked with engine running and trans warmed up) it blew a hose off on the water pipe to the header bottle. TBH, I think I just didn't tighten it enough the first time, it's been run up to fan-cutting-in temperature several times in the garage without trouble, so again, I don't think it's fatal, just annoying!
The steering wheel wasn't central despite my several tries to get everything there right and the steering lock and indicator canceller centralised. Putting the wheel right was easy but getting the rest back to the "new" centre will take time!
A last minute failure last week on the brake master cylinder (it started "by-passing") saw me change out the master for a new club one a few days ago. I only bled the master and the pedal SEEMED fine at the time but was rather low in service when actually trying to brake. Re-bleeding the entire system served no useful purpose and resulted in no air apparent, but resetting the rear self adjusters fixed that one.
When driving out of the garage, there's quite large step which caught the exhaust downpipe clamp and made a slight blow. This is easy enough to fix, more important is the exhaust is hitting 3 or 4 spots on the body and axle on bumps now the suspension is settling, flippin sports system! I'm gonna have to re-align the whole thing I think!
The fuel pump is disturbingly noisy, with a buzz/vibration that can be felt and heard throughout the car. I've never been happy with this pump and have already bought another as a spare (from a different supplier, though I fancy it's apples and oranges) I'll try the new one and if it's still as bad, i'll have to investigate a more insulated mounting method. If push comes to shove, i'll nick the old, used, Espace pump off the Carledo. It's not exactly silent, but it's nowhere near as loud as the one on there now!
Less important but still present, i've had to change the rear foglight switch. When I did the rewire, I put a genuine Dolomite rear fog switch into the dash in the hole previously occupied by the seatbelt warning light. Only since I screwed the dash in, has the foglight blown it's fuse as soon as switched on. Turns out, the switch was fouling and shorting on the heater control linkage! Fortunately I had a much shorter aftermarket push-button switch available and that works OK.
On the upside, it starts perfectly, handles nicely, stops as you would expect with oversize TJs and pulls like a b****y train! Kickdown performance is little short of EPIC!
Just need to iron out a few niggles!
Steve