Had a look at the alloy panneling since that comes first in the
manual. Need some tin snips and a riveter. Trip to B&Q to
get them. Spent quite a while looking at the pieces of metal
trying to work out where they all go till finally it begins to
become hazyish. Time to dive in and do something. Start trimming
away at the passenger floor panel and seat back.
The process for fitting the pannelling seems to be trim a bit,
trim some more, squidge it into place, find the bit thats
catching and trim some more. Once the panel fits its time to
clamp it and drill what you can before the drill battery runs
out. Power in the garage here would be a real boon. Next stage
is to take the panel out and run some silicon sealant round the
bits of the chasis in question to give a little more water
proofing and hopefully to stop any rattling. Whack the panel
back in and clamp it down with some G-clamps lined with a piece
of cardboard to protect the alluminium, doubleo check that the holes
line up still and fill the thingy with rivets. Buying the best
rivet gun you can find is a good idea as there are loads.
26th-27th Jan
Plenty more chopping and rivetting. Pretty much all the panels are
now in place. Then we realised that the floor is meant to go on
the bottom of the chassis rather than between the seats and it.
Now this isn't too bad but it does mean that you might get soggy
on wet roads through some of the gaps and it doesn't give the car
the right bottom profile. Might need some extra sheeting on the
bottom with some foam filling to seal/insulate it.
28th Jan
Turned the car upside down so we can do that and fit the
brake/fuel lines. Pretty easy job except the p-clips are too
small for the larger diameter fuel line. They do stretch but
only just. Might have to make up some more.
Bought some alluminium sheeting. £16 for two sheets cut
roughly to size. Not to bad really. Trimmed them up, filled the
gap with some insulatimg foam out of a can and fixed the panels in
place. Looks good, nice flat interior profile and a nice
insulated and waterproof outer skin.
29th Jan
Struggling to find things to do now. Can't finish off the brake
lines as I'm missing a t-piece for the back end. Dont want to
turn the car over till thats done. I end up fitting the brake
pedal, still need to fit the switch and a retaining plate to stop
the pedal from coming back towards you. Give up on the day. Will
probably have to buy the t-piece locally so I can get on.
30th Jan
Made up a couple of brackets, one for the brake light switch and
one to stop the pedal falling into the footwell. Brake pedal now
works ok.
31st Jan
Couldn't find a T-piece locally so decided to soldier on and drill
the holes out for the remaining hose and fit the t-piece later
on. P-clipped it all in place, roughly positioned the loom,
labelling it all inside in the warm first is a great help.
Unlabelled you don't stand a chance of getting it located right.
Drilled the hole for the clutch cable, still needs widening up a
bit but that will be easier once the chassis is the right way
up. Fitted the clutch pedal, this one doesn't need a bracket
made up as it sits pretty close to the floor and that will stop
it. It is pretty stiff though so I'll get a couple of washers
to go on it.
1st Feb
Started on the back end, have to cut a couple of bits off so that
the flanges of the De Dion bar dont fowl the chassis. Locating
the suspension is a real pig as you've got the weight of the
suspension and the diff. It also has to be manouvered pretty
exactly in place and held there while you put the massive bolts in
the front, connect up the shocks and bolt in the diff.
After a couple of aborted attempts we worked out a method of
doing it. You need to lower the chassis to about 6" off the
ground then plonk the front mounts roughly in position. Suspend
the back carefully by the shocks while making sure that the
front of the chassis doesn't seesaw off the front axle stands.
Next jack up the diff and jiggle the front mountings into
position and bolt them in. Next stage is to go back and
carefully drill the holes for the diff and bolt that in.
We didn't manage to finish this off completely and left the diff
resting on the trolley jack awaiting drilling and bolting in.
2nd Feb
Popped into the garage before work and drilled the diff mounting
holes. Managed to half get them in, will finish that off another
time.
4th Feb
Finished off the diff mounting and started putting some washers in
to pack out the shock mountings and stop the flexible brake hoses
from rattling about. I'm pretty sure there ought to be proper
bushes/nuts to lock them in place but not from what I can see.
7th Feb
More washers, finished off packing things out.
9th Feb
Primed the fuel tank. Rounded off a few sharp corners on the
chassis alloy where we had cut through it.
Had a go at servicing the back brakes. Took the cover off,
brushed out some dirt. Haynes is very vague on what I should be
looking at so in the end I just gave up.
10th Feb
Gave the fuel tank another coat of paint and drilled the panel for
the top of the passenger footwell.
11th Feb
Gave the tank a first coat of top coat and ran out of paint. I
was hoping to avoid buying another can but I can't really leave
the tank half done.
Popped to halfords and got some more paint and some thinners.
Quick second top coat.
Sealed/Rivetted the passenger footwell top/shelf in place.
13th Feb
Day off work - Yippee!! loads to do. The day started with a
pleasant trip to the local breakers yard. After some confusion
over which sort of carb I actually neeeded and then an hour long
struggle to remove a handbrake leaver the job was complete. I
left with one handrake leaver, an auto choke weber complete
with inlet manifold and £47 lighter in my pocket. Quick
plug for C Hollis breakers. I'm sure I'll be back there soon.
First job back at the garage is to fit the handbrake, chop the
old handbrake cables off and feed them through the guides in the
chassis. These cables are a hell of a lot tougher than they
look, wire cutters and tin snips were trien in vain and I
eventually had to resort to the hacksaw treatment. Locating the
handbrake leaver is not really as obvious as you might think as
it has to sit up against the inside of the transmission tunnel
up against offset onto the passenger side.
Fitted the inner arches to the chassis and had a general tidy
up.
14th Feb
Valentines day trip to tiger to pick up some more
bits. Unfortunately rather few bits were ready than I was
expecting. I now have about 3/4 of the front suspension and the
steering rack mounts so I can at least get started on the front.
Tiger are waiting for more gel coat to come in so they can get
started on my grp. In the meantime though they've improved the
moulds lots so I'll get better quality panels.
16th Feb
Hacked the rack mount rubbers so that they fitted onto the rack.
Bolted the rack in place.
Tried to fit the bushes to the top suspension arms. Helpfully
the bushes are a good mm or two bigger than the holes they have
to go into, the manual just says take a socket of a similar
size, place it over the top and smack it with a hammer. Tried
that. Coated the whole lot in wd40 and tried the more
intelligent way of going about things. Put the fixing bolt
through the middle and tightened it up. Very hard work but it
eeventually gets there after deforming all the padding washers
we had put in place.
Looked at fitting the arm onto the chassis but the mounting
holes are too small for the bolt. HoHum, tried drilling it out
but the drill bit is too small. Will have to go into B&Q
and look at alternatives.
Figured out how the steering split UJ fits, need to take the
rack off and relocate it to get it to fit right. A job for
another day I think.
17th Feb
Had another go on the top suspension arm. The latest problem is
getting the nuts on each end to do up evenly. There seems to be a
tendancy for one to do up loads while the other end sits there
with only one or two turns of thread on. Decided the best thing
to do was to get both ends off and hold the shaft at the looser
end with some pliers and do up the tight end. This seems to be
successfull and doesn't chew the thread too much. Other end seems
to tighten up fairly easily. Doing the other side will have to
wait until I've found the other bush.
Tidied up a bit and found the bush. I think I'm going to need
to go at the other arm fresh so I'll leave that for next time.
Refitted the rack, I can't get the thread to line up perfectly
straight with the knuckle. Hohum, Its only a few degrees out
and I don't think its going to get any better.
Since I can't find my handbrake balancer bar I decided to make
up my own from a 10cm length of 14mmX4mm mild steel. Drilled 3
4mm holes in it and it looks like it'll fit. Hacking through
the cables to cut them to the approximately right length is
going to be fun. I can just tell. I think I'll leave that till
another day as well...
19th Feb
Fitted the handbrake balancer bar, still needs adjusting and
tightening up so it doesn't slip if you yank the handbrake.
Managed to get one of the bushes almost all the way into the top
arm and then it wedged. Even me jumping up and down on the
breaker bar didn't want to shift it. I think I'll wait and get
the second one moving before I worry too much about it.
20th Feb
Fitted the steering shaft UJ, had to put a couple of washers
behind it to move it away from the spaceframe so that it wouldn't
foul when turned. Tightened up the handbrake cable locks.
21st Feb
Got the second bush in just about far enough and then spent a fair
while hammering away at the arm to get force it into position.
Made up a new balancer bar for the handbrake since the other one
bent when yanked. This time I went for the serious metal
5mm*30mm*100mm, now I don't think that's going anywhere in a
hurry.
Dropped the back suspension and within 20 minutes (with williams
help) we had the rear spring locators in place. Fitted the fuel
sender.
22nd Feb
Fitted the disks and calipers back on the hubs carriers on the steering
rack. Fitting the hub carriers to the top arm is going to be fun
because you need to hold a lock nut up inside a tube that is too
long and narrow to get your fingers or most spanners up. Hmmm.
Fitted the lower arms after filing a bit off the bushes on
them. Most of the front suspension is now in place. All I'm
really waiting for is the track control arms.
Put the wheels on the back and and rested the grp on top of
them. At last its beginning to look like a car.
25th Feb
Figured out how to get fasten the hub carriers to the top ball
joint. Obvious really, you just need a very long socket. The
obvious thing to use hear is the breaker bar as an extension but
the bottom of the hub gets in the way. After much rummaging
around for adaptors and extensions I finally managed to find a
suitable combination of sockets, socket extensions and drive size
adaptors that would work. Did one side and ran out of nuts.
Phoned tiger and hopefully some more fuel hose, nuts and
suspension bits should be in the post to get here friday. Fun
weekend ahead I think. By the end of it the car should
be rolling.
Started looking at the alloy sides and chopping the corners off
and little triangles out so that it fits properly.
26th Feb
Slight change of plan... My grp should be ready for the weekend so
I'll go and pick it all up then. I've also ordered myself a
tacho, oil pressure guage and a nice fuel filler cap.
28th Feb/1st March
Trip to tiger to get the rest of the grp and the other bits I was
missing. I even got the accelerator pedal... The only bits I'm
waiting for now are the rollbar, seatbelts and gear remote.
Fitted some new fuel hose and rivetted most of one of the side
panels on. Tried to fit the track control arms and realised
that I didn't have any bushes. The only bushes I had were for
the lower arm where it joins the track control arm. After much
umming and argghing over whether they could be bodged to fit I
remebered a small white envelope that I hadn't seen for a while.
After a rummage around I found it and discovered it held exactly
the bits I wanted. Phew!
Once I'd got the track control arms on it became obvious that I
had a serious toe out problem. Hmm, unfortunately since the
hubs had now got some lock nuts holding then in place there was
no easy way to adjust this. The only way would be to drop the
tie rod ends off the hub carriers and to do this I would need a
ball join seperator. I think this may well be one of those
things to let the garage sort out before its MOT. I think I've
come to the conclusion that its going to be well worth me
coughing up and letting a real mechanic at a real garage spend
half a day or so going over the car, checking it out, fixing
any bits that might be dodgy and doing a general MOT preperation
on it. If the garage does a preparation and then MOTs it there
isn't really any chance of it failing.
2nd March
Started fitting the other side panel. Back gone very very dodgy,
I think I've got a trapped nerve and every time I twist it pinches
it. Decide not to do any more.
3rd March
More rivetting, drill battery runs out. HoHum.
6th March
Day off. Spent most of the morning in the pouring rain under the
bonnet of a mini which was perched on the roof of a metro while
trying to remove its wiper mechanism. Managed to get it all
relatively intact and exchanged it for a large chunk of one of my
knuckles. Also managed to get a brake compensator and a washer
motor.
Finished off riveting the main side panels. Having bought a
ball join seperator decided to have another go at the tracking.
Managed to just tighten up the tie rod ends to the full extent.
Things look pretty perpendicular now. There is meant to be
1/8th inch of toe in but if I need any more I'll have to hack
more off the ends of the rack. Think thats one to leave for a
bit.
9th-11th March
Fitted the 2 front panels and working by candlelight finally
managed to get the car down onto its own four wheels. It is just
a bit lower than I remembered it!
12th March
Bought the entire stock of mini style tail lights from the local
auto parts place. Got a nice number plate light to replace the
one that came in the kit - all the chrome plating was attached to
the wrapper rather than the light itself. Fitted it pointing
upwards with the intention of having the number plate attached to
the spare tyre. Looks daft. Will have to drill some more holes
and do it the other way round I think.
14th-17th March
Fastened the grp on the back end. A gorgeous flush filler cap
arrived in the post. Unfortunately it doesn't really fit. Had to
unfasten the tank and move it all the way over to one side to get
the filler pipe to line up with the cutout in the grp. Cut the
filler pipe down by an inch or so and gave it a bit more angle so
that it lined up a bit more. Still not happy about the fit, the
angle is pretty tight and there isn't really enough room for the
flexi tube to go though the angle, let alone for a funnel. In the
end I have temporarily bodged it with the top bit of a plastic
drinks bottle. It wont do long term but it will have to do for
now.
|
|
| The gap between the filler and the tank pipe is only about
\ two inches and somehow its got to get through about 60
Filler-> | degrees in that space. It also has widen out to about
/ 3.5 inches. To me that says I need a custom
| _\ \____ funnel arrangement.
| | |
| | Tank |
| | |
| |________|
Fitted the fan.
18th March
Drilled out the holes for the headlight supports. Managed to
remove the fixing nuts off the wiper boxes, however the nuts are
so mangled that I'll have to find some replacements.
Had a go at fitting the tail lights. However the loom expects
all the lights to be in a single block with a common earth. The
lights are expecting the screws securing them to contact with
the (earthed) bodywork. To get around this I made up a small
aluminium plate that fitted behind all the lights with the earth
attached to one end and with the lights screwing into it. Don't
yet know if its going to work alright but fingers crossed.
Cracked the windscreen! Can either get a new one of wait a while
and leave it screenless for the MOT. However this could lead to
problems mounting the mirrors.
20th March
Had another tidy up. Swapped the carb/inlet manifolds over,
they'll need a fair bit of plumbing but I'll wait till the engines
in to do that.
21st March
Today is the day that the engine goes in - wheeee!!!!
Cleared a load of space in preparation, fitted the
temperature/oil pressure senders. Measured everything up so I
knew roughly where the mounts were going to go. Hmm, problem,
the propshaft is way too long, even if I removed
the centre section of it it still wouldn't mate. Quick phone
call to tiger, apparently I should have known that I would need
a new prop shaft because it was on their price list. Hmm, I
asked a number of times if there were any more extras that I
needed to buy but never was the prop shaft mentioned. Oh well,
at least I can get the engine and box in and fit the prop shaft
later.
Fetched the hoist and assembled it. Managed to get the engine
most of the way in on my own but decided I needed reinforcemnts
to get it the rest of the way in. It really is a tight fit,
have to loosen the alternator to get it to scrape past the top
suspension arm.
With the aid of hedley manage to manouveur the engine/box
roughly into place. However the geabox mount is about 100mm out
of place, we suspected this might be the case with a four speed
but expected to be able to bodge it. Looking at it in place
welding a sensible plate in is not going to be easy an even then
the propshaft is going to be the wrong size again. I just
suppose I'll have to cough for another gearbox.
Take the engine out, remove the sump to have it shortened, drill
the holes for the engine mounts and fit the engine in approx the
right place.
