6 July 2022
Covid appeared and wiped out the weekend. I've been (over)?) thinking the drip drip whilst I've been laid up. The bottom of the fuel tank dips down quite a bit and so the drip tray has to dip down too. I've been trying to come up with ways to make the drip tray that don't involve a 500 piece jigsaw of aluminium that has to be joined together and fixed to the car somehow. My current favourite option is to make a template out of foam board then cover it in fibreglass, or take a mould from it and cast it in fibreglass. More thought to be had about that. Meanwhile in the garage I spent an hour reattaching one of the handbrake cables and searching for the bracket I had made before. I failed to find it so ended up making another one, got it cut, bent and painted. I trimmed the driving light pods flush with the bodywork. First I trimmed it closed with a cutoff wheel in my dremel, then finished it off with a flap wheel. 9 July 2022 I started by sanding back the edges of the pods with a block sander, there were some gaps so I made up some filler and filled them. Whilst I was waiting for filler to cure I fitted the handbrake cable bracket on to the PPF. That took way longer than it should have due to the awkward position of the hole in the PPF frame but eventually it was done. I then also finished fitting the handbrake cables to the calipers and making the manual adjustment at the caliper. I then turned my attention to the exhaust which has been sitting loosely assembled for a while. I undid the the centre joint applied a bit of paste and refitted it with a new gasket and torqued it up. Then I removed the backbox and sealed the flexi section with paste and clamps. I repositioned the rear support and clamped the tailpipe in position after a bit of trimming. Pretty happy how this looks and hopefully it is gas tight! Long term I'll probably get a custom system made for the car, once it is IVA'd. Back at the light pods I sanded down the cutred filler then masked up and applied som high build filler/primer. There is still one small hole I've missed so I'll need to mix up some filler for that. 10 July 2022 I mixed up some filler and filled in the holes around the driving lamps. I sanded down the filler and applied the colour coat in several layers. I also applied filler and paint to the end caps that the lamps will bolt to. I extended the wires, added a grommet, and terminated with a superseal connector. I drilled out a hole to accommodate the grommet/wiring. Whilst I was waiting for filler and paint to dry, I worked on getting the radiator expansion tank. I will need to mount the tank in a position that isn't obstructed by the body and doesn't foul the bonnet. I cut some lengths of aluminium to length, drilled holes and mounted M5 rivnuts to mount the expansion tank with. I'll finish fitting that when I take the body off again and I have better access to the firewall
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It seems like I blinked and June was over. Unfortunately life in general and the ramping up of car events has reduced progress on my kit build. So here is what has been going on over the last few week.
6 June 2022 Took the rear body mounts out and trimmed a bit more off the top. Loaded the new firmware on the ECU and the charge light now comes on with the ignition. Can't test if it goes off once the engine is running yet. Took the offside headlight off as I had noticed it wasn't sitting level. Extended the mounting holes with a file so I could turn it slightly. Taking the headlight out reminded me that I needed longer bolts for mounting them, the current ones only just screwed into the nut. Popped out to get some 20mm long ones and nyloc nuts to match. I took out the fuel tank which was straightforward and then clipped in the wiring loom to the chassis rail and the rear sill so that is all done. Took some measurements and ordered a 90 degree bend for the last bit of the exhaust. I also found some end caps to use with the driving light housings, these will seal the end and also be what I mount the lights to. While I had the fuel tank out I made a start on a drip tray to go under the fuel tank. I am using some offcuts so it will be made up of several bits joined together. The drip tray needs to have holes cut out to fit over the diff mount lumps which are an irregular shape. I made a cardboard template of the shape and then cut it out of a piece of aluminium sheet and then completed the fitting by filing the shape out. 8 June 2022 The end caps I ordered for the driving light housing arrived the other day so I popped out to the garage for a trial fitting. I drilled a hole in the centre and bolted the lamp units to it. Because the caps sit inside the pipe, the lights sit forward and my current housings are too short so I will need to remake them a bit longer. I will figure out some sort of fixing to hold them in to the housing, probably screws or bolts through the side. I also took the opportunity to replace the bolts for the headlamp bowls with the longer ones I bought on Monday. 26 June 2022 Wow over 2 weeks without any work on the build. Not through lack of entusiasm, just the usual life getting in the way. Back to it today and got on with the driving light housings. The previous ones were too short with the way the lights are mounted on the end caps so I started again with some new ducting. I cut some lengths longer than I needed then test fitted them in the holes with the lights mounted in the back. I spent a lot of time trying to get them pointing in exactly the right direction and trimmed the holes slightly. The ducting had quite thin walls and deformed to fit the ovality of the hole nicely but it kept springing back. I also decide I wanted some extra support near the rear to help hold it in place while I fibre glassed it in place but also afterwards just to stop the lights wobbling around. I cut some lengths of aluminium flat bar and bent them in my vice to the rough size and shape I needed. I pop riveted them to the lengths of ducting after some test fitting and measuring. They needed to be quite a long way from the end of the pipe due to the length of the end cap. I did some more test fitting but even with the bracket the ducting would spring back whenever I let go of it. I decided to use my heat gun to warm up the plastic while I held it in place so it would deform and then let if cool down while I held it. This worked quite well but it did deform a little when I got a bit too enthusiastic with the heat gun. Now I could get the housing pointing in pretty much the right direction, I will fine tune the aim with the light bracket. I drilled holes for the bottom of the brack and secured them to the body with nuts bolts and large washers. I marked the line where the body met the housing and then used my Dremel to cut, the lines with about 10mm extra. The plan is to sand these down to the body onece they are fixed in place and then fill and paint them. I made up some resing and cut some pieces of matting and fibre glassed the housings to the body, I had just enough to do one layer on both side so I'll get some more and do another layer. While the GRP was curing I cut out the hole for the other section of the fuel tank drip tray. Felt like I had made a bit of good progress today. |
AuthorThis is my first kit car although I've messed about with cars all my life. Archives
November 2023
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