phillipm
Seasoned Pro Location: Rotherham
Registered: 15 Oct 2006
Posts: 20,607
Status: Offline
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Post #543
Now, since we'd gone completely overboard on the rear after what was supposed to just be a quick engine swap, we agreed that apart from pulling the suspension apart for new bushes, bearings and pins, we weren't touching the front of the car at all.
So, here's Ed chopping the front cross out and making a new one... :
quote:
Ed's started chopping the front out now the rear's going back together. May as well have built a new car....
New front cross going in that mates to the beam stiffening bars we added a few years back, and is higher to clear the new pedal box and fuel tank/battery/PAS which have been shifted backwards for better weight distribution:
New mounts for pedal box going on:
And some new floor bars, to mount the seat belts clear of the new bulkhead and help prevent anal insertion of the various large rocks we always seem to land on.
Then we had a terrible workshop accident
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The flywheel fell into the lathe and we couldn't reach it in time, it was viscously attacked by a passing boring bore, and when we eventually got it out, has lost a considerable amount of flesh. He's resting on the bench now under a sheet, but I fear he may never be the same again...
)
Poor little flywheel!
Then to top off the health issues I caught a pretty nasty infection in my almost healed eye, put me out of action for another few weeks, anyway, quite a bit got done, but no photo's from that bit due to the above!
quote:
Now I've healed up, I'll get some pictures tommorow, honest - but the new floorpan is fitted up, Ed's made a new front bonnet and bulkhead, pipework/bulkhead fittings have gone in, new seat mounts are there, there's some more things to press and light up on the dashboard, ECU has been mounted, new brake/clutch reservoirs have been adapted and fitted, altered the wiper system so it autoparks and there's 2 speeds (sound trivial, but if you're giving someone a ride and they park the wipers right in your line of sight it's quite a distraction!).
Airbox prefilters are sorted and are going in tommorow to keep the larger items - grass/leaves/wasps*, etc, out of the cooling system and save the engine filters having to deal with 'em, got some more to do on the chassis loom as there's some spare wiring/connectors going in for future upgrades and because we're probably switching to a different PAS pump sometime in the year, so connectors for that are going in just in case.
Still plenty left to do on the hydraulics side but it's mainly just straight runs of pipe to the bulkhead connectors for the brakes, and a new fuel line.
Modified the lathe last week so we can spin 16" wheel rims in there - just - so we can make some new wheels much easier than before by skimming them true after welding them up.
Not far away (yes, I know, we've said that for 2 years - you're more than welcome to come and help if that's a problem )
Bit of dashboard wiring fun (not):
And the aforementioned pics of other bits:
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As promised, new front bonnet, ignore the steel box section, it was just there to hold the front square whilst welding as it's fairly thin aluminium, it's on hinges now and will get a gas ram lifter fitted to secure it, much easier to work on if you break down away from the service area then.
And new floorpan is on, new bulkhead, seat mounts, pedals, etc:
And some more fun with health (I lost 2 grandparents over the last year and I'd been looking after/ running the whole lot of them around to doctors, hospitals, etc, beforehand, plus a lot of other problems - hence being missing for a while and getting feck all done!)
Anyway some slight trolling....
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Bet you didn't come back into this thread expecting a startup video did you?!
...good because you're not getting one hehe
Yep, you know that slow progress? Done pretty much nothing on the car for the last two weeks due to running around with family health issues again, to the extent of turning work away, so now I'm skint too, so probably not much getting done next week either biggrin
Anyway, less rambling, more shiny car, right?
No pictures yet, but we've decided whilst we're sorting wheels out, to swap the front hubs and make some new custom ones - cue groans at the back over more delays - it's not as bad as it seems though this time, honest.
We're doing it so we can run off-the-shelf alloys at the front too instead of the custom steel wheels, we've found some the right size and fairly tough which are a similar weight to the steels.
So, rather than being even more work, it actually just means we only need to machine up two aluminium hubs, rather than making wheel centres, machining true in the lathe and then jigging and welding wheels up, so - theoretically at least - it shouldn't take any more time than we had to spend making some new wheels anyway.
So the good news is, more shiny machining pictures shortly, the bad news is, the hydraulics and rest of the bits to get it running aren't getting touched until next week, although, there's some good news, in that there's only about a week of work left in those until fire-up time at last...
And some more:
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Nope, no shiny billet pictures yet, you'll have to put up with the original rough drawing of the front hubs instead
Saves us about half a kilo per side over the old hubs, and the wheels are about a kilo a side lighter too. Okay, it's not massive, but it's better than going the other way!
We've been through the front suspension machining the worn bits out and sleeving shafts/housings as it had all got a bit tired up front from the abuse again, takes quite some time as the king and link pins are a very close tolerance fit and the fit/finish needs to be perfect on them so that the bearings can take the impact loading - thankfully that's all done now, and tonight the new front hubs got roughed out
Quite a lot of work left on them but I think there should be some shiny machined billet alloy pictures again next week, in case your weekly quota is running low
And you know you're getting close to the end now 'cause this is where Captain Numpty here managed to break his own arm a month or so later on:
quote: Good news, I'm not dead. Well, not yet anyway. I have broken my radius though which isn't helping progress atm, amongst other issues.
They still need scalloping out, and a bit more lightening work, but this is as far as we can go really with our old lathe and a pillar drill*, need someone with a mill for the rest.
(*Well, it's not, but I'd have to have them balanced after if I rigged up to do them in the pillar drill)
2 weeks later, after another hospital trip and a bollocking for shifting my setting arm...oops
quote:Update item #1 - My arm is still buggered. I've had a bollocking for using it for the last 2 weeks from at least 2 nurses now. Guess I should behave.
Update item #2 - Possibly the last machined piece to be done - which is a good job because the lathe is up for sale (~1m bed length, 200mm over centre, 3ph, if anyone's interested):
The cover/cap for the wheel bearings, bit longer than strictly necessary because it also acts as the guide for the alloys to help with wheel changes, and it seals the hole in the centre of them at the same time to stop them collecting mud and gravel.
And the brake bells are on the hubs, just need to make some new discs now - the old ones are fine, but, well, they're not shiny...
(No, we're not quite that vain - but the old discs can go with the 2-pot calipers and old hubs as a complete package to sell on then, might cover the materials for the new fronts.)
And, the most important of them all, item #3 - Bit of promo/workshop mug upgrade, vital performance item, knocks 10 seconds off the 0-StrongEnoughToTarnishTheSpoon time for most good teabags:
So, bar the front hubs coming back from anodising:
And some shiny front brake discs that should be done tommorow...
That's about as far as we've got up to now, bar a few odds and sods not mentioned in there -we got a new TIG welder thanks the Jim's advice, which, is, well, just slightly better than the old one. As in this was the first attempt to use it and as you can see, the cleaning isn't even dialed in and it was still as smooth as butter:
And I've swapped the fuse box in the dash as I wasn't happy with the quality of the other one, so there's a sealed marine unit in there now, plus a mil-type locking connector for the hand controls for the co-driver so the box can be disconnected out of the way, there was a little more tidying up/braiding on the dashboard wiring after the earlier work but I don't have a photo yet, I'll get one later:
But apart from that, just waiting on the brake discs and mounting the new front calipers, some brake lines and a bias valve to plumb in, and I need to do the main chassis loom next week (which is pretty much just a straight plug-to-plug connection from the dashboard loom to the engine one), and we're almost ready to fire up.
Mind, we've been almost ready to fire up for 2 years so...
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