Time spent: 5h
Cumulative time: 110h
Main activities:  Fluids and electrics

Nearly there I think.  So it was time to start topping up the fluids.  First up was the back axle which I filled from above with a funned glued to a piece of garden hose (making use of some of the left over black glue that holds the wings on).  For some reason, the kit came with more than twice the amount of oil than I actually needed. [took this spare oil with me to the 1000 mile service so it could be used up]

I left the funnel in place for several hours to let the oil fully drain through.  A quick tighten up with the torque wrench on the filler plug and no drips to see which is good.

Next up was the coolant.  I opened the vent on the front of the radiator and pulled the under-dash knob to open up the heater and slowly topped up the expansion bottle.  It took a while to work its way through the system but it soon started to weep out of the vent which I then closed.  I spotted a few drips from one of the lower hoses which I tightened up.

Then on to the hydraulics.  I started with the clutch and filled up the reservoir.  The fluid took a while to work its way through but after a lot of pumping, the clutch actuator was starting to move.  I bought a ‘one man’ bleeding kit from Halfords.  I didn’t find it very helpful and so got my neighbour and wife both to help with the job (clearly ‘one man’ was a misnomer).

And finally for the day, I hooked up with electrics to the battery.  My kit includes the cut off switch so I turned this off to be absolutely sure nothing was going to happen.  The Assembly Guide is pretty easy to follow on this one.  My only difficulty was connecting the earth off the engine as the large bolt you are meant to connect to was a bit tricky to access.  It would be been a lot easier to do this connection before the various engine plumbing was in place.