Friday 22 April 2011

Hockey Trim

Spent nearly all day in the garage and ended up without much to show for it!

The aluminium hockey trim/J section has been formed round the rear wheel arch and along the cockpit area. What seemed fairly quick and straight forward to begin with soon got slightly more complicated after realising the aluminium had twisted as the main bend was put in. What absorbed most of the garage time today was carrying out small tweaks then refitting to check alignment. I've managed to get the passenger side done and fixed onto the chassis using M6 countersunk screws into rivnuts.


After this I didn't fancy tackling the offside trim straight away so I remounted the exhaust with a view to seeing where I could route the lambda sensor wire and also where the silencer mounting bracket might be.

The first issue was the exhaust hole needed to be increased along the lower edge due to having raised the engine before christmas. The second issue is the cooling pipes I'd fitted to the top chassis rail now foul the exhaust pipes. I'll pick this up again tomorrow, right now I need a beer!


Sunday 17 April 2011

Brake lines revisited

The brake lines were a job I'd considered to be "done" for a while now but something I read recently made me decide to modify the areas where the copper pipes connects to the flexi hoses. I'd read that, if made from aluminium, the brackets used to support the pipe to flexi joint can fail IVA due to possible work hardening of the aluminium. Even though the aluminium angle I'd used was fairly thick, I'd rather not take a risk on something I could quite easily change at this stage.

So, at the back, the four old brackets were removed and replaced with new mild steel brackets which had given a coat of POR15.

At the front, I was originally going to use the side panels to support the joint on each side, but if aluminium brackets can fail IVA then in theory then so too could fibreglass. Since I'd already drilled holes in the side panel just behind the wishbones (and not wishing to drill more) I made up a bracket just behind the existing holes so that the flexi can pass through the side panels.

The connection now feels very solid. Any flexing of the bodywork will have no effect on the brake lines since they no longer come into contact with each other.

Bracket welded in place before painting:



Flexi hose fitted with side panel in place:




Saturday 9 April 2011

Battery Tray

The battery tray required a little trimming so that it sits flush with the top of the side panel rather than sitting on top of the side panel. I thought the bonnet may not sit right if the battery tray wasn't flush. This was a straight forward job using masking tape and the dremel drill.
The top edge of the fibreglass had a couple areas where the gelcoat had chipped so I used some U section trim to neaten up the edge.

The tray is fixed to the scuttle using 6mm stainless bolts and to the top of the bulkhead using one bolt into a rivnut either side. I put some sticky backed foam in between the tray and the bulkhead to hopefully stop any squeaks and rattles when on the road.