So, now that I’ve almost finished all the surgery on the chassis, I need to do a quick rebuild of the car to understand where all the cables, pipes, etc need to run.

Rather than drill holes in the chassis and use self tappers, I thought I’d make some weld-in brackets to hang the p-clips off instead.

For this test, I’ve used m5 socket-headed cap screws, secured in m5 nutserts. The holes themselves are cut to 6mm, and to use the nutserts I just ream them out to 7mm. I don’t fully trust nutserts, so I’m going to experiment a little to secure each one with a tiny weld tack. If I get concerned about vibration loosening the cap-screws I’ll go for locktite.

Of course, I could use m6 cap screws and nylock bolts, but sometimes getting back there to tighten a nut is a faff, and better if I can prepare all of this on the bench before welding in. The three tabs on the top are for welding to. My plan is to prevent the heat from the weld getting too close to the holes which would increase the risk of warping or mis-shaping the holes.

Each bracket is 2mm mild steel, and weighs 19g naked and 64g fully configured with the three p-clips in the pictures.

As ever when getting things laser-cut, the cost of a larger run isn’t that much more than a minimal run, so I had 60 made. The cost ended up being 70p each in runs of 60. I’ll be welding them here, there and everywhere to make good use of their options to hang stuff off. I think my new fuel tank for instance may hang nicely off them.

and finally, the back end view:

I went to get my drive-shafts and found the bearing mating surface has started to rust.

Shall I just get some polishing compound and sort them out, or can i get them reconditioned? They’re modified sierra cosworth driveshafts rated for well beyond 200bhp so i don’t want to just scrap them.

crapnuggets.

So, this is the second strengthening rail in place. Unlike the one on the left which replaces an existing cross member, this one on the right is entirely new. The original chassis didn’t have one of these, so I think this is an improvement. If nothing else, it satisfies my need for symmetry.

When you look down from the top of the engine, the only thing that would foul a simple extraction of the engine is the starter-motor. Not too tough to undo that if and when I need the engine out.

I’m out of argon now, so could only seam it in on two sides. I’ll get more gas next week – this bottle (BOC, Y Cylinder) didn’t seem to last very long (previous one lasted ages). I need to find another supplier in Harrogate, I think.

My next plan is to fabricate a demountable strut-brace that starts from the new front pipe joining areas and goes around the front of the engine, with 20mm clearance. I don’t yet know if I’ll weld the tube or bend it. Ideally I’ll bend it.

Someone on the LocostBuilders forum was asking about good dashboard design, and I’m rather proud of mine, so here it is.

Things of interest are that the second gauge in from the left is a triumph multi-indicator dash dial, that shows indicators, oil, etc. They’re very rare now, and I couldn’t even find a photo on ebay to show you what they look like up close.

I did try hard to get a good-looking layout, and the secret was symmetry. The difficulty was that the wiring harness was designed to put all the gauges in a line, rather than where I wanted them (i.e. no gauge obscured by the steering wheel, etc). As such, the harness had to be chopped and extended extensively behind the dash.

The tacho is behind the steering wheel and canted over so 7500PRM is vertical.

Finally, watch out for the electronic gauges. I found that the vibrations when racing eventually knacked most of the electrical gauges such as oil pressure, so I replaced them with mechanical capillary gauges from VDO. Definitely worth the investment.

So, I was feeling fairly crap and out of energy yesterday, culminating in a bit of a bollix of a day. I didn’t go into the garage even though I felt like I was losing a day; instead i relaxed, watched telly, snoozed and tried and failed to resurrect a dead windows XP machine that has my Alibre Design CAD installation on.

Going into the evening, infinitely better half and myself decided we’d have a couple of cosmopolitans. Why am I telling you this? because I feel really good this morning. The medicinal effects have so worked out. I’m also a caring sharing type of person, so here’s the recipe for you (for 2 people at a time):

• 4 shots vodka
• 2 shots triple-sec
• four shots cranberry juice
• juice of 2 limes
• fill the remaining volume in your shaker up with ice
• shake a lot to get the ice desolving

serve. Add more ice to your glass if you are not going to drink it quick enough.

So, this is the original rail, lowered by me to give clearance for the steering column on the exhaust and alternator when i’d dropped the engine height by 2″. Now I’m on the new engine, it’s not needed anymore

So, welded the new on in on the night before last. It was really tricky to get all the intersecting plane angles right and to get the fitments close enough to get a good gap for tigging. Got there in the end.

This is the top-shot. The angle just ‘feels’ right and intersects the horizontal top of the pedal box nicely. I think I’m going to chop out all the remaining metal in the pedal box now, and go for a new enclosure. I’ll keep the 1.5mm mild steel thickness of the original design. Rather than stitch 1 inch, gap 3 as the current design is, I’ll stitch one, gap one. If I’m in a bad enough shunt to need the pedal box straightening, actually straightening it is the last of my worries.

Next we have the weld quality. I’m reasonably pleased bearing in mind it’s not the easiest place to get to. I added extra filler around the corners because I found it had a tendency to undercut there. The scattering of holes there are for the mounting of the tub, and other things I attached straight to the chassis. They look a little random, but when you take the mounting patterns of the components into account, they make sense.

Finally, this is the view from the exhaust’s perspective. there’s 50mm clearance between the cross member and the bottom of the flange. There’s also clearance now for the exhaust stud. If I find the exhaust is getting a little close to the steering column then I’ll add a little bend into it’s travel to give decent clearance.

Here’s an interesting thing I discovered though – This picture shows  the remaining footwell plate (lower left diagonal) separated from the cross member (diagonal above it). To get this pic I ground the welds out and peeled one away from the other. When separating them I found that rust had creeped in. There’s not much but there’s no powder coat where in there to protect things. I think this may be the slow creep of trapped moisture rather than ingestion. However, it’s there and would over a number of more years caused more pain. It’s probably worth noting that this is 10 years worth of grief, so maybe the correct plan is ‘do nothing’, or once i’ve welded the new parts together, smear a little metal putty along the edges to get a seal before i send it off for coating.

So, I’m grinding and listening to the Cinderella Overature by Rossini.

For some reason, this image came into my head:

So, the rubber tiled garage floor has been relaid. It took three burghers of the parish, strong and true (ahem) a full day to do it, from emptying, laying, cutting, glueing and re-laying.

The original floor was loosely laid with these tiles and to be honest, they were great. amazingly better than walking on and kneeling on than the normal concrete floor.

However, as they warmed up, and as I heaved heavy things around the garage (like engine cranes and scissor lifts), they rucked up. Even without anything in the garage, they expanded in the heat and rucked up.

So, we emptied the garage (two blokes can carry a fury chassis), and lifted the tiles. From then on, this was the order of work:

• all tiles out, and don’t really make detailed notes of what went where
• brush the floor down
• debate how much PVA sealant is needed, bearing in mind there is a trade-off between concentration and setting time (the more dilute, the longer)
• go for 2:1 with 2.5L of sealant
• congratulate yourself for not throwing it out the previous week thinking “I’m never going to tile a bathroom again, so why would I leave this lying around”
• brush the mixture in with a yard-brush. none of those namby-pamby rollers, thankyouverymuch.
• find that you have covered 99% of the floor before running out and decide that it is good
• marvell at how the drive now looks like steptoe’s yard with all the stuff you have on it
• be impressed at how much rain there is
• watch the tall stanley tools cabinet fall crashing over in a mild gust of wind (POS)
• wait for Julian to turn up, and hold him responsible for where the tiles are going to go back to
• have lunch
• trial-lay the tiles back down again
• clean the backs of the tiles with acetone
• start sticking them down with pink-grip
• be amazed at how one tube does 4 tiles if you’re sparing
• cup of tea
• be amazed at how the tiles don’t end up in the same place when glued down as they did in the trial fit.
• lay two rows and find them to be good
• cup of tea
• lay all the tiles but the edges
• cup of tea
• cut the edges back from the originals and stick them in
• cup of tea
• haul all the garage parts back in
• beer

This has made a big difference. Firstly, the undulations were becoming a trip-hazard and a garage is a place full of spikes and hard edges.

secondly heavy wheeled tools like the engine stand, engine crane and scissor lifts now move around in a much easier manner because they’re not pushing a ruck of loose tiles in front of themselves.

Very happy with that as a result. I have a dull ache between my shoulder blades – the indicator of a good days physical work completed. Much better than a dull ache in my left arm which indicates i would be past doing this work.

Well, I’ve been busy stripping like a £20 tart.

I now have the entire front of the car back to the chassis, apart from the brake master cylinders and pedal box. I’m leaving them in situ just at the moment because I need to convert the clutch pedal from cable to hydraulic. The plan is to cut the necessary circular hole in the right place and fir a bearing in place in the pedal to take a clevis acting on the master cylinder.

I’ve started to take the side panels out, drilling out rivets and whatnot. One option would be to leave them in place and get them powder coated with the rest of the chassis, but I just don’t know if the rush has got in behind them. I’m going to go with plan-B. Get the chassis blasted (a nicely keyed surface then) and epoxy the panels in place, securing with advel stainless rivets. These have upwards of 3000PSI clamping force rather than the crappy soft alloy ones. You can’t put them in with a hand riveter, but luckily I have an air-riveter. I may get the chassis done, then epoxy them in place. Assuming the job is done well, I will be putting epoxy onto epoxy – not a bad idea if it’s keyed first. Saying that, just writing that down makes me want to go with plan-A.

I’ve also got the rear hubs and half-shafts out, and everything split down as needs be (again, the original IRS installation rear hub carriers are rusting to buggery).

The half-shafts are in good condition. I will probably replace the handbrake cable. I’ve changed one without the car being stripped down and it’s a hellacious job.

I kinda wished I hadn’t stripped things back so quickly – it means I don’t have a rolling chassis in order to work with when I bend up some side-intrusion bars. I still have the side pods and tub handy, so can certainly mock most stuff up.

The rear shocks are off as well – all that’s left is the diff and diff-carrier then it’s back to the bare chassis.

SBDev have got my bits ready, so I can proceed with the engine rebuild. I will at least need to get the sump on before I start offering engines/bellhousings up to gearboxes and cutting the tunnel to get it as far back as possible.

Should be a good day tomorrow – the strip down will be complete and I’ll start looking at how I’m going to tig in the new roll-bar.