Mick's 70 Lowlight

Been slowly chipping away at the bus. Modified the exhaust by relocating the rear hanger that the silencer is suspended from as the original location did not work that great. I simply cut off the old mount and re-welded it in a more suitable location. I also welded in the bung for my O2 sensor, I'm 95% sure it will not hit the rear valance but will have to wait and see. I also heated up and bent out the moustache bar to create a little clearance for the silencer. It's very close. The silencer is also very close to the engine hanger. 85% sure it'll be okay on that one

The old engine mounts were pretty badly cracked so I ordered some replacements. I tried looking for uprated / heavy duty mounts but found that there is nothing available for early bay busses. What i did find however, was that the DIY tuning crowd were making up their own uprated mounts using two-part urethane.

The idea is actually pretty simple. Use urethane to fill in the holes in the mounts, stiffening them up. This actually works quite well on an early bay mount. To do this I cleaned up the mounts (they were covered in paint) created a bit of a dam/mold using some gaffer tape, mixed up the urethane and poured it into the mount. 24 hours later it had completely cured. To I did a bit of a test by compressing both a stock mount and an 'uprated' one in my shop press and found that the uprated one hardly deflected at all.

Another fairly major step in the project was the manufacture of some ECU adaptor boards. These are for the EFI ECUs that I supply and make manufacture and installation much simpler as they integrate the wideband controller and fuel and ignition relays onboard. The first prototype is now ready to be installed, after I make myself another ECU (they keep getting sold).

The final step is also underway, the wiring. I've started (and mostly finished) the wiring loom. There's only a few bits of soldering / splicing to finish and then the loom can be wrapped, and that is then pretty much it. Time to get the engine in.