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A bit of 2.5mm steel strip was cut to be stuck in the front of the bonnet, behind the hole for the locating pin. This will have a hole in for the pin to sit in, so that its not relying on the hole in the GRP to be strong enough. The area behind the hole in the bonnet had the edge trimmed off for the steel to fit (otherwise there would be hardly any metal either side of the pin hole), and the thick bit of GRP above the hole was scraped and filed out to give more clearance. The GRP around this point is at least 10mm thick (the pointed edge along the side of the front edge where the large dimples are), so I don't think it will have lost any strength, especially once the metal is glassed in place.
While I was doing that, my brother finished off the holes in the tunnel GRP for access to the gear remote, and did a bit more rubbing down around the wiper motor hole in the scuttle, this time using the rubbing compound instead of just fine wet+dry.
2/12/2001
The battery was connected up, and a few things were tested. The fuel
gauge and sender were tested together (as I'd never actually tried the
gauge out yet), which seemed to work OK. The horns were checked using
the steering wheel button, and worked fine. Currently I've got 2 horns
fitted to the lhs side of the car, but they will end up being partly
shielded by the radiator shroud so might not be as easy to hear from
the rhs of the car, so I think I'll have to extend the loom and move
the 2nd horn to the other side.
The speedo was also tested. Waving a magnet in front of the sensor didn't really do much apart from make the needle twitch once, so I changed the speedo settings to the lowest possible, and managed to get it to register over 10mph. I wasn't totally sure whether the sensor cared which way round the magnet was, so the switch was checked using a multimeter, and as expected it works with the magnet either way round. I just wanted to be certain before they were stuck in place...
The bolts for the speedo sensor were cut to length, and then it was finally fitted.
The pin hole in the steel bonnet strip was drilled, and filed to be at the right angle to fit. Made a start on the metal for the other side.
4/12/2001
Around half of the bonnet was rubbed down by my brother using wet+dry,
then he made a start on an alloy shield for the heater hose that runs
under the carbs. As the sharp bits of the throttle pump are relatively
close to the hose, its best to be safe and make sure it won't be a
problem (either in use or for the SVA test), though they should never
actually end up touching.
Meanwhile, I did a bit more on the lhs bonnet pin steel strip. The excess GRP inside the front edge of the bonnet was scraped out for the strip to fit, then the edges of the strip were ground/filed away for it to match the shape of the GRP. As the front edge of the bonnet is a lot taller on this side, much less metal had to be removed than on the other side.
6/12/2001
My brother got the rest of the bonnet rubbed down, and finished off
the alloy plate for the heater hose by drilling some holes in it for
zip ties, and folding it to shape with a bit of inner tube under
it.
The hole was drilled in the rhs bonnet pin steel strip, a bit more was ground off it to make it a slightly tighter fit, then both of them had the edges filed down so that there won't be any sharp corners for the fibre glass to go over. Some small holes were also drilled in the strips to allow resin to stick to the GRP behind it, which should help to hold the strips in place.
7/12/2001
My brother got the bonnet pin strips painted, and started scraping and
rubbing down the edges of the bonnet to remove the badly joined
edges.
8/12/2001
The ends of the propshaft bolts were cleaned up, and the speedo
magnets stuck on using some slow curing Araldite.
The alloy shield for the heater hose under the carbs was fitted, the ends were snipped off the cable ties on the left side of the engine bay.
The middle side bodywork brackets were removed and then painted, and bits of thick rubber were cut up and stuck together to go between the chassis and the sections of bodywork under the doors that just don't quite rest on the chassis rails.
The positions of the washer jets were measured and marked.
9/12/2001
The holes for the washer jets were drilled and filed out to shape, and
then the positions of the repeaters were measured, marked, and then
drilled and filed out to shape. Some of the bits of the backing plates
of the repeaters were filed down to fit, as when they are designed to
fit in very thin steel bodywork they don't go in the same way for 5mm
thick GRP. The rhs holes were finished, but the front hole for the lhs
is still to be marked, drilled and filed out.
10/12/2001
Drilled and filed out the last hole for the lhs repeater. They both
fit in now, but will need some sort of clip making to hold them in
place.
The bonnet latches were removed, and the bolt holes that the small brackets fit to were filed out a bit more so that the latch can be moved further forward to get as much of the wedge sticking into the bonnet as possible.
13/12/2001
Had a think about a couple of things. First was the dash, which has
nothing at all supplied with the kit to fit it. The basic plan is
probably going to stay the same as we decided in October, but as the
rhs wiper motor bracket is very close to the dash, then we might be
able to use this to attach a bracket to rather than trying to glass
ones onto the underside of the scuttle, which won't be easy at
all. This one could also probably be used to bolt the front edge of
the dash in place, as otherwise there wouldn't be anything to stop
it sliding out backwards if it was just wedged in place. There is
nothing close on the lhs, so something will have to be glassed in on
that side rather than making some huge bracket that fits to the
chassis.
We then worked out where to place the horn on the rhs. The problem with the horn I've got for this side is that the leads stick out sideways quite a lot, so it can't be put in the same place as the other side otherwise it would end up pointing at a funny angle to allow the leads to avoid the chassis and mounting bracket. So, its probably going to end up somewhere on the short diagonal rail running down from the top front corner of the chassis, as this seems to be the most convenient place for it.
15/12/2001
Cut and shaped a section of MDF for the passenger footwell.
16/12/2001
Cut and shaped MDF for the driver's footwell, and trimmed a bit more
off the passenger side bit to get it to fit. Once they were both a
fairly tight fit, around 5mm was trimmed off all the way round the
edge. This is to make room for the 2 layers of carpet that there will
be - one layer attached to the MDF, and another from the sides of the
footwell.
As we did for the sides under the doors, some bits of rubber were cut up and stuck together to go between the top rear chassis rails and the sides of the boot hole. There are no bolts to nip the rubber in place up there, so they had to be stuck in place with a little bit of silicone on each side.
The bodywork was then bolted down at the three rear brackets, at the lower three along each side, and the four round the front. The bulkhead brackets will have to wait until the bulkhead panels are finished, as they will be nipped between the bodywork and the brackets, and I have run out of large penny washers so the bolts under the doors will have to wait as well.
30/12/2001
The MDF floor panels were coated with some waterseal, which should
hopefully stop them expanding if they get wet. Paper and card
templates were made for the bulkhead and interior panels, as this
should make the process of cutting the alloy to shape a bit easier.
31/12/2001
The rhs section of the bulkhead panel was cut and shaped in alloy
sheet, with holes for the bulkhead bracket and bonnet latch bolts
which will be used to hold the top edge in place. The lhs rear corner
panel was cut out and a start made on shaping it.
Total hours this month -
36.5
Total build hours -
923.0
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