Black 96 rebuild, showing differences to the 97 & 99

The original has a lot of spare capillary, I haven't tried that path down the inner wing but would guess there is enough spare in it.

Very good question, I was wondering that when masking them off, I couldn't take them out on account of the wire. From a quick look at the wiring diagrams it seems to be connect up all the way through to the dash harness but just stops there, they must have been intending to used it but didn't get round to it in the end I guess!

I haven't seen a sensor on any of the seats I've taken out of my 3 Cerbs, drivers or passenger, however I did get a look at part of a factory 96 wiring diagram & noticed a connection from the fuse board for heated seats. I've not heard of a Cerb with them but maybe it was a option, early on at least, I did see post from someone saying their Chimaera had them. So my guess would be that the seat belts wiring / switches were a second on or more importantly off switch for a heated seat option.

I'm still chasing issues with the wiring for the starter, been through all the wiring, new battery's & connections, put in a new starter solenoid & a new relay that feeds the starter solenoid but it still occasionally only clicks when I press the button, a new power supply to feed the factory relay in the passenger footwell is next on the list as the feed from the back of the car is ok:

It's the little thing like that which really take the time, chasing it is something that has been ongoing since getting the engine in a good few months ago.

Before putting it in, using stainless wire, I welded up the cracks in both the manifolds:




I don't think my welding will win any awards but I did the same to the 4.5 shortly after getting that 20 odd years ago & they are still holding fine on that.

The pipe from the filter to the engine had the good grace to start leaking before I put the engine back in:


I needed a new cooler anyway as the thread ripped off it when trying to remove the pipe, so I got got new fittings for all of it (new pipe not in this picture):


Hopefully these 3 pictures don't need an explanation!






With the the engine in I could look at the inlets & do a bit of porting so that 4.5 under the 4.2 inlets can breath better:


The sharp angle is just blended in a bit better at the bottom there.




If you look down the one with the butterflies still in you can see the big step in there I was removing at the top:


The yellow tipped can gave a circular spray pattern that was much better for these than the red, that gave a fan spray pattern:




As this thread is partly about the differences I though it would be interesting to see how much smaller a 4.2 butterfly was than a 4.5 one, so I dropped a 4.2 butterfly down into the 4.5 throttle body to see:

Not a lot in it!

I did the water rails a while ago:


Zinc primered first then Epoxy Mastic flatted back to fill the pits left after removing rust:


They were top coated in 2k silver.

No one is likely to see this again so it needed a picture! Stainless clamp & the PAS had new hoses too:


New AC condenser:


All new flexible fuel pipes made for ethanol fitted & the connection in the engine bay moved from where they were next to impossible to get at behind the top chassis rail to here in the back of the engine bay. Shown here before obviously getting covered in heat shielding:


Stainless lower water pipes & silicon hoses & everything else connected up:


I did think about trying to test run the engine before putting back into the car but as it had been running fine in the green Cerb about 6 months earlier I decided it would be better to just try it in the car.

I was caught out by the crank seal there though! So gearbox out again:


I actually bothered to RTFM:


Then was glad the kids holidays got in the way because looking back under it a week later it was still leaking (fresh shiny) oil:

Very glad for the kids delay there, it wouldn't have been fun to find that after putting the gearbox back in!

I'd been a bit too conservative with the sealant, where the red arrow is pointing - there is slight step on the back of the engine at that point:


At least having it in bits again gave a good reason to have the clutch re-lined:


I was thinking I would get it done the next time the box came out, I just wasn't expecting that to be quite so soon!

A good few weeks after first firing it up it's back together & running again, this time staying dry underneath, which is nice.....


Hopefully the next update will be the last, with a driving car

No problem, it keeps me out of mischief

Actually that is a bit too accurate, I'm too busy messing about with the black one to drive the yellow one!

Yes painted, they were stripped back, all trace of rust removed (same way as some of the suspension back on the first page by dipping then sanding to give it a key) zinc primered, epoxy mastic, then 2 pack silver paint finish, to match the colour of the chassis.

That colour looks a lot like polished metal as it called aluminium silver!

Ha, yes I bought the stainless smaller bore heater pipes from ACT in stainless new, they cleared out my back account alone!

I was very lucky, someone was selling the set of lower pipes in stainless the silicon pipes & a radiator that was still like new on eBay all for the price of a new rad that I needed anyway. They looked terrible in the pictures but they only needed a clean & they looked like new again, there was no way I could have justified dropping over £1.5k on that lot on top of the huge amount everything else has cost!!

I was thinking about trying to do something with the lower pipes as you did but didn’t have to in the end.

I’m like you & try to find the most cost effective way of fixing things myself, even if it does take three times as long!

I’m wishing I had just paid out & sent the whole starter motor to get rebuilt now though. I thought I was being clever just getting a new solenoid but after many hours replacing all the cabling for the starter & having it still just clicking occasionally I gave up & I rang the people who sold me the solenoid. They said it sounded like one of the armatures was playing up. The whole starter is off to them now, like they recommended in the first place!

I’ll be selling one of the Cerbs when this one is finished (probably this one) so I want them to be as good as they can be. As nice as it is have two you can’t drive them both at the same time & I’ve still got the remains of the crashed one to do something with…