25 August 2023
A few hours in the garage and I finished fitting the lock on the door. The bear claws I am using for the locks, handily have the mirror image bolt pattern for the fixings so I could use the wrong lock on the outside to give me the positions of the holes. Opened up the slot on the other door and fitted the lock in the same way. Bolted through the door with some M6 nuts and bolts. I might make up some plates from steel to go on the outside of the door to spread the load. Still managed to mess up the position of one of the holes so once I had drilled the right hole I filled the wrong one with some fibreglass filler. 28 August 2023 Back on the locks, I decided I wanted to make a plate to go on the outside of the door to help secure it to the GRP rather than just some washers. Found some flat bar and cut it to size and drilled out the hole pattern, then sanded it smooth and painted it black. I refitted the doors and temporarily bolted the locks in position with washers so I could look at how the striker was going to fit. I realised it was too thick for an M6 thread to be cut on it, so tried sanding it to thickness with a drill and belt sander but that didn't go to plan and ended with one end too narrow and the other too wide. Gave up on that and ordered some 6mm bar which I can cut the thread on and bend to shape. One of the things I've been thinking about is inner wheel arches and I'd seen a couple of YT videos of people making them out of ABS plastic sheet. I'd ordered a couple of sheets so I set to with cardboard and scissors to see what I could come up with. Got something I'm quite happy with, need to figure out how to secure it to the car. The edge of the arch is easy enough but it will need support on the inner edge or it is going to flap about. At the moment it just covers the area above the tyre, I might look at extenfing it in places to give more coverage. 24 September 2023 The 6mm bar arrived and I cut a 15cm length of it. Cut a thread on the end and then drilled a hole in the chassis gusset I could thread it through. I fixed a nut on the outside and tightened a nut on the inside to hold it in place. I then made a few bends in the bar until it was lined up with the lock. A bit of minor adjustment and the door locked (and unlocked easily). When I ordered the door locks I also ordered some thin plastic covered cable to act as the door release. I cut some off and looped it through the door lock and crimped it in place. I cut some short lengths of aluminium angle for a bracket and drilled a small hole for the cable and a larger one so I could bolt it to the other end of the door pocket. With the bracket in place I adjusted the length of cable and then crimped that end in place. I wrapped the crimps in some electrical tape to hide them. I added some heat shrink on the door striker to reduce any rattling when the door is closed. I repeated this for the other door so both doors now lock and unlock. I found a problem with the rivnut I had set in the top hinge had not fixed well in the hinge which prevented me tightening the hinge to the door properley so it kept sagging. I removed the door and hinge from the car. Pulled the rivnut out, and drilled the hole out slightly larger and deeper, then made up some Cold Weld and slid the cleaned up rivnut back in place, ensuring the hole and rivnut had a good coating of Cold Weld. Time to tidy up and let the Cold Weld cure.
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AuthorThis is my first kit car although I've messed about with cars all my life. Archives
November 2023
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