SKCC - Southern Kit Car Club. A Club for kit car owners across Southern England. Kent, Sussex, East Hants, Surrey, Berks, Middlesex, London

Well the "quick refresh" of the interior has turned into a full scale refurb. I found the seats were only held in with two bolts & quite wobbly because when bolted down properly they don't go back far enough without hitting the roll bar.
Head restraints cut & re-shaped.

The electrics, while not as bad as the Quantum, were quite bad & the entire dash is out for replacement.

The rear of the cockpit was entirely flocked, which probably looked great when it was new, but that was 20 years ago, so it's getting scraped off & replaced with vinyl.

I've removed 12 1/2kg (& counting) of unnecessary stuff from the car.

But I think it's now coming back together faster than other bits are coming apart & I certainly know it pretty well now.

The square number plate does look better

Just seen this post. Looks like a very nice car, and a lovely colour.

oh your rear does look pretty T
colour looks fab

Update:-
The new dash is in, just needs covering when I get back from Stoneliegh with the vinyl, a fair few yards of electrical string have been taken out from behind the dash, & everything's properly attached. There's been some tidying in the engine bay, with wires & hoses re-routed, the coil pack re-sited & stuff it didn't need removed. I'm thinking of taxing it just for September & making a proper lost of winter jobs, so it might be out & about soon.

Nice one Tony, hopefully we may catch up in September

So what's been going on?

Well, bit of a disaster really. I may have mentioned that a previous owner had spent a fortune on parts for the car - I've added up the receipts & it's £8k in 2016 & 2017 alone). One of the things he bought was a fabricated aluminium radiator, the receipt says "Polo pattern" & it was £350. I have no idea why he thought this would be better than a real Polo rad for 1/10 the cost, but that's what he did. The rad is substantially thicker than a Polo rad & the guy didn't change the mounting arrangements, although as the rad is on spacer tubes it would've been easy enough, he just pulled the front valence down, mounted the rad & let the valence go. One Saturday evening I (unusually for me) checked all the fluids before the car's inaugural blatt the following morning & all was well.

Out on the road I noticed the temperature was a little high, but carried on & the needle moved between 100 & 110 - high, but crucially not getting higher. After a while I decided to abandon the run & head home, but when I was most of the way there a hot electrical smell made me pull over at which point I realised there was no water in the engine as the bodywork had cut right through the bottom of the rad! As the water leaked out slowly there was never a cloud of steam to warn me & the temp sensor (in the water rail it doesn't need) was sensing air by this point). There must've been a micron of metal left on the rad when I checked the fluids the previous day.

I got my brother out of bed & he towed me the rest of the way home & the engine started, but the small tick from a hydraulic tappet was now a much louder tick & the electric water pump - another of said owner's bright ideas - was leaking.

That was back at the beginning of September & since then I've collected a 65k mile blacktop to replace the Silvertop, had the rad welded up & acquired the parts to make the mechanical water pump work (reverse impeller & the pulley from a 3.0 diesel Audi), I've also moved the alternator to the other side of the engine (away from the exhaust) & re-arranged the wiring to suit.

The car's back on SORN & over the winter I'll take out the Silvertop, clean all the underseal off the chassis & re-paint, then fit the new engine with one or two new parts that are worth having & we'll see where we are in the Spring (sigh).

On the up-side, someone who wanted to buy the Quantum vanished into the ether when he got more information about it, so I still had a car for the Wales tour, & although a speed hump took the exhaust off on the first day & it worried me with odd sounds & smells, actually it was a little star, easily keeping up & returning 42mpg at blatting speed.

Update, I've reluctantly accepted that the Stylus is off the road until it emerges butterfly-like from its concrete cocoon in the spring.

The new engine is ready to go in now with a reverse impeller on the water pump (a pulley from an Audi 3.0 V6 diesel made a three pulley system possible), the alternator moved to the inlet side & a shiny new coat of paint. I've completely re-engineered the cooling system which now boasts a header tank & heater & the electric water pump is in the bin. The interior is mostly refurbed & real life upholsterer is making seat cushions to match, so it could be quite posh.

Shortly I'll take the silvertop out & set to cleaning twenty years of crud, grease & underseal off the chassis before re-painting & putting the blacktop in & seeing if it still works. It should do, all the engine systems have been simplified, with added resilience by - for example, moving the alternator to the cold side of the engine, adding a coolant tank, cooling fan switches now mounted on a submerged part of the cooling system as well as on the radiator. Little things that make it a little less likely to fail - though I sure it'll still manage - it's a kit car after all.

I can't wait to see you out in the Stylus next year, exciting times

Sounds like it will be loads better mate and much more reliable!