Earlier in the week, I had the charge cooler arrive (with associated plumbing), and also the turbo drain pipe (which I needed to have shortened). So today, I wanted to get oil in the engine for the first time in over a year, and also turn it over.

Firstly, the drain pipe needed to be fitted. This is actually a lot harder than it sounds - and it took a significant portion of the day getting the thing fitted.

I did a quick dry-run, and came to my first problem - if I'd found (and used) a 2-wheel gearbox, then the drive shaft would've been further away from the bottom part of the drain pipe, and it wouldn't have caused me worries. However, the 4-wheel gearbox is much closer to the pipe, and the CV joints interfere with it. In order to solve this, I needed to cut a section out of the engine:

You can't really see the marks I'd made, but I did draw a couple of marks on the silver of the sump - one's just above the middle bolt pointing upwards, and the other is above the oil drain nut.

Anyway, after a bit of angle grinding and filing, I had a slot ready to take the pipe:

And next was the biggest job - getting the top part of the drain pipe in place. I knew when we removed it, it would be a really difficult thing to get back in again, and I wasn't wrong.

I thought about replacing the bolts with studs, taking the turbo off and even (briefly) using a different turbo. However, with a bit of perseverence, and knuckle-grazing, I was able to get it on. What a relief!

And after a bit of dressing, the pipe went in the slot, should no longer intefere with the CV joint.

The cable-tie is to just pull it out a bit of the way.

The next stage was to fill it with oil. Ordinarily, this is fairly simple - oil in hole. However, while I was filling it, a bit of the funnel I was using broke off and fell into the hole. It was a piece of hard plastic, about 30mm long, and 4mm in diameter, and I really didn't want it in the engine. So, I needed to find a way to get it out.

I didn't have a long-nosed pliers long enough to reach it, but I could pull it up a bit with a screwdriver. So I got another one, and grabbed hold of it. It was almost out of the hole when I dropped it - and it disappeared.

This could've been a major problem - either it would be nicely sitting in the bottom of the sump, or it would get stuck in an oil gallery, or it would find its way under something like a valve. It wasn't a happy thought.

So, I decided to take the rocker cover off (I should've done this first of all) and have a look to see if I could firstly see it, and if I could, extract it from wherever it was.

To my amazement, it had found its way under the rocker cover, and within easy reach of the long-nose pliers I had. That was a major relief!

So, I continued putting oil in it until it was between the two marks on the dipstick - and had a check to see if there were any leaks. There were none (that I could see).

And I put the battery in, and span it over. This is a video of it:

I span it over a few times, and topped up the oil as it started to go through all the galleries and filter. Note that the exhaust is wobbling a bit - I've taken the right hand mount off temporarily.

The electrics aren't quite finished yet, so it won't start, but it's promising that the engine turns!

As I'd done a lot of work on the back of the car, and I decided to finish off the electrics tomorrow. In theory, the car will start without a turbo - and that I can worry about later. So, I did a bit more work on the rear corners of the body section. Firstly, I use a thin angle-grinding disc and cut down the body filler that I'd laid last week:

And then I sanded the filler down on both sides:

I'll be putting some aluminium backing material on the rear bulkhead, so it doesn't need to be exceptionally flat.