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While that was curing, we started working on the door hinges. As the fronts of the doors are the opposite of flat, something is needed to mount the hinges to. Bits of wood to the rescue again. So, a couple of short sections were cut, and started to shape them to fit the doors. The end of the door was also cleaned up, as there must have been a couple of rivets in the doors when the moulds were made, so they needed filing off.
I tested out tapping M5 holes in some spare steel the same thickness as the fuel tank. There was no mention of the size for the hole that should be drilled before its tapped, but a couple of attempts later and 4mm seems to be right. The fairly thin petrol tank doesn't seem to be a problem either, as there are 3 or 4 threads which should hopefully be enough.
3/4/2002
Finished off shaping the wood to fit the doors. Some small wedges had
to be stuck onto the block for one side, but after some chiselling and
filing they matched the doors pretty well. The other sides were then
shaped to fit the hinge, with a groove in for the pivot which is
offset from the mounting flap. Once they were the right shape, they
were soaked in wood preserver.
I also bought a long battery lead which is needed to fit the isolation switch. As it was longer than most standard leads (around 3ft), it had to be made up specially, so I was able to get different sized ends put on it to match what is needed.
8/4/2002
I checked the fit of the battery lead, and it seems fine, just
slightly too long if anything. I then spent a while looking at the
door hinges. Using the power of blu-tak, the hinges and wood were
attached to the door, so that I could get an idea of how it was going
to fit in relation to the bodywork. But, to be able to do this, the
door has to be positioned correctly in the bodywork. The dome headed
bolts that hold the bodywork down under the doors just rub on the
underside of the lhs door when its closed. The positions of the bolts
were marked on the doors, so that some of the grp can be filed out to
stop it rubbing.
11/4/2002
The door grp was filed down where it touches the bolts, until the
shutline was fairly even all the way round. Its impossible to get it
exactly right, as the door and the bodywork are different shapes, so
getting the front of the door lined up means that the back of it isn't
right, so its going to have to be a compromise.
Once it was sitting about right, the hinge and wooden block were stuck onto the door, the position of the hinge marked onto the bodywork, and the gap between the hinge and bodywork was measured. I can now work out the size of wooden block needed to mount this hinge.
13/4/2002
After double checking measurements, a thin wooden wedge was cut, and
then shaped to fit against the bodywork in the correct position. Once
it was roughly the right shape, the mounting holes in the wooden door
block and the door were marked and carefully drilled. The holes in the
hinge were also widened slightly with a countersink bit so that the
bolt head doesn't stick out as much, otherwise when the hinge is
closed the bolts on each side will touch.
With the location of the hinge fixed, the position of the 2nd wooden block was marked onto the bodwork, then the holes in the block and bodyw were also carefully marked and drilled. Some bits of bike inner tube were cut to fit between the grp and wood on both sides of the hinge, then it was all bolted together and tested.
With everything only finger tight, its not exactly sturdy, as the door sags a log when it is opened and will move up and down a fair bit. So, I tried it without the inner tube in and it might have made a slight difference, but not much. Part of the problem seems to be that the hinge itself is bending, but also as the bolt holes are all along the edge furthest from the pivot, the 3 bits aren't held together securely enough. Part of this might just be down to not having the bolts fitted tight enough, so I'll make a couple of steel load spreading plates to go on the back of the grp (currently just using washers), and then tighten everything down a bit more and see if that makes much of a difference.
15/4/2002
A thick alloy plate was cut and drilled to support the front side of
the bodywork for the lhs door hinge. The problem with this is that the
bodywork isn't flat as the plate rocks about on it, too much to be
taken up with a bit of inner tube. So, its either going to need
another bit of wood to fill the gap, or some of the grp removing to
make it flat which I'd rather not do as this would weaken the bodywork
even more.
20/4/2002
After carefully marking the positions of the sender holes in the lhs
petrol tank, they were drilled and tapped. I used bits of masking tape
under the holes to catch as much of the swarf as possible, a magnetic
screwdriver to get out any bits that were sat on the tape but weren't
stuck, then finally the vacuum cleaner nozzle was stuck in the sender
hole which seemed to get rid of all the rest that I could see. It'll
be impossible to get all the bits out (including any that were in
after it was made), so that's why there are two filters in the fuel
line.
I then decided to test the sender with the gauge, to make sure that the range was set properly, and that the float arm didn't need bending any more. The resistance values were checked against the instructions provided with the sender, but with it all connected up it didn't quite read full or empty at either end of the range. So, the stops were bent a bit to allow the sender's range to match the gauge's range.
The alloy plate on the lhs door hinge was cut up into separate sections for each bolt, and then shaped to fit the rough grp better. This allowed the bolts to be tightened up properly (though still carefully) with a spanner, which did make the door a fair bit more rigid, but it still seems that a lot of the movement is in the hinge itself, so I might have to track down a higher quality hinge and see if that is any better, as the ones I'm using were fairly cheap.
21/4/2002
Now that the sender is set up properly, I marked the empty, 1/4, 1/2,
3/4 and full levels on the tank by holding the sender against the side
of the tank, and moving the float arm until the gauge read each
level. From this, I'll be able to roughly work out the total amount of
fuel at each level, as at empty there will still probably be around
1/3 of the fuel left, due to the shape of the tank not allowing the
full range to be measured.
Next, I put the rear of the car up onto axle stands, then made a start on shaping the boot hinges to match the underside of the boot lid. This involved putting the boot lid in place, then lying underneath and working out where to bend the hinges. After going backwards and forwards between the bench and under the rear of the car, I had both of them roughly to shape, with the main bends in the right positions. Of course, the boot is anything but flat or symmetrical, so both hinges need to be totally different shapes, and will need small bends between the main ones to follow the 'flat' sections of grp.
24/4/2002
More shaping of the boot hinges. A template of the boot was made to
work out how it will move, as its basically impossible to hold the
boot against the hinges and see how the lower edge moves in relation
to the bodywork, even with two of us. Using the template, I can see
that the lower edge will need shaping to a point, so that the inside
edge doesn't catch on the lip around the boot hole. This isn't really
a problem, as it can't be seen from outside anyway.
25/4/2002
Finished shaping the rhs boot hinge to fit. After a bit of rubber has
been fitted to take up any minor inconsistencies, it should be a
decent fit.
26/4/2002
Cut a strip of bike inner tube to fit the rhs hinge, then worked out
where the bolt holes will go, and marked and drilled the holes in the
hinge. I will be able to get access to the lower part of the hinge
that sits vertically from the sides so that nuts and bolts (and large
spreading washers) can be used, but the rest of the hinge that will
sit along the underside of the boot lid will be too far out of the
way. So, I think I'll end up using rivnuts to attach the hinge to this
bit.
30/4/2002
Finished shaping the lhs hinge, and drilled the bolt holes in it.
Total hours this month -
28.0
Total build hours -
1086.0
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