[legendlives]

Hi...enjoying this....when you say The Lada steering shaft has been shortened...I hope its not obviously welded and looks OE or your certifier will be shaking his head , if you go for road legal status

Nah, it's all original mate
Ironically, the only dodgy looking weld is the original one. The 'nice' welds (if there are any, and I'm not saying there are) are all machined off and invisible.

 

[NZNick]

Russian engineering at its best then...good work

 

[legendlives]

For some reason I can't seem to upload photo's today, so here's the link to the Farcebook page with the new updates:
https://www.facebook.com/mk1gasser/

 

[legendlives]

Back to the steering for a moment.
The original pitman arm on the Lada steering box was wholly inadequate. It was very thin, stuck out at the wrong angle and had two holes in it, so I cut off the splined hub, chucked it in a lathe and ended up with this:

At about the same time I found this lurking in the corner of the fab-room. I don't know what it was from or who owned it, but it's been unclaimed for over five years so it's now mine!

I straightened it out a bit and shaped it:

I also cut this from a bit of 5mm plate:

Then welded it all together like this:

Then cleaned it up a bit:

It now points in the correct direction out of the steering box.
More soon....

 

[ivanhoew]

nice job .

 

[legendlives]

Back (briefly) to the pedal box.
Made up these pedal pads from 3mm steel plate:

And welded them to their respective pedals:

Back to the fibreglass front.

Cut out this huge, ugly, rusty piece of pig-iron:

Which left a floppy thing:

Somewhere in the last six months or so I bought a large, damaged fibreglass box. Photo is pretty crap, but this is around 1m square and 350mm high. I cut it up to give me 4 big panels and one f*in huge one

It was then easy to cut out the infills from ready-made GRP sheets, and glass them in place (photo taken before they were glassed in)

I have great ideas for the front end which will undoubtedly result in me cutting a lot of this away, but at least I'll have relatively stiff panels to cut into.

 

[justamin]

You must have tiny feet for that clutch pedal!

 

[legendlives]

You must have tiny feet for that clutch pedal!

It does look that way, but it's the angle that I took the photo from.
There's actually a lot more room around the clutch that there is the brake.

 

[legendlives]

Final push on the dashboard:
I wanted the dash to remain removable, so mounting it in its original position with the rollcage behind it wouldn't work, so I extended it a bit.
This strip is about 50mm wide

with cut-outs for the 'cage

All with nice returns so it's not all floppy

In place it looks like it should be there

It pics up on the original top mounts, and will have tags welded to the 'cage for the lower mounts.

 

[steve1275]

Nice. I love all the recycling.

 

[legendlives]

More recycling!
Transmission mount. This is made from a length of 1" CDS tube, with bushes made from the metal cut from the steering column:

Once welded together I added two 3mm 'washers' (made from the metal from the holes cut in various parts of the chassis - more recycling!)

Compared with the original it's a whole lot nicer, smaller and lighter:

Then added end slugs (made from the metal cut from the driveshafts....)

Mount brackets are cut from 3mm steel plate. New 3mm steel plate. I nearly fainted with the expense.

These are different sizes as they will mount to the inside of the 'K' member which is on a 45 degree angle to the main chassis rails

The transmission mount bolts have been cut to give exactly the same penetration as the original mounts. The drop-out bolts will be changed for something nicer.
Plans are to show that I do actually plan some of this shit!

 

[steve1275]

Nice work as always. Hope you haven't been too disturbed when the Earth moved?

 

[mygasser]

is the box going to be 'soft' mounted to the new crossmember?

 

[legendlives]

is the box going to be 'soft' mounted to the new crossmember?

No. The gearbox is solid mounted to the motorplate. The rear mount is probably unnecessary but this is the way I built my last car and that survived endless thrashings without problems.

 

[legendlives]

Nice work as always. Hope you haven't been too disturbed when the Earth moved?

Missed us by a good way. There were locals who apparently felt the tremors, but I was fast akip at the time....

 

[HALLnRODZ]

More seriously awesome work coming out of your workshop :tup:
My work has a high percentage of KIWI's working there, luckily no ones family has been involved. Very sad for the two who did lose their life.

 

[mygasser]

No. The gearbox is solid mounted to the motorplate. The rear mount is probably unnecessary but this is the way I built my last car and that survived endless thrashings without problems.

as long as the chassis has no flex (which it looks like you have that covered :tup or the tail housing can crack.

 

[legendlives]

as long as the chassis has no flex (which it looks like you have that covered :tup or the tail housing can crack.

No worries. My last car was a 9 second runner and survived 7 years with me thrashing the tits off it without any problems. You'll notice that the mount brackets don't have any stiffening so will allow a degree of front/rear 'expansion'.

Have you still got the Anglia estate? Great looking car...

 

[mygasser]

thanks :tup: but no i sold it earlier this year. i couldn't justify it sitting in the garage and only getting used a few times a year . so i bought my old zephyr back and now my stepson is having that off of me so i'm on the lookout for a new toy . all good fun mate.

 

[legendlives]

Inner seatbelt mounts.
These are made from the mounts I made for the Escort but never used. They have been curved to match the radius of the prop hoop, and a 35mm fillet added to keep the actual mounts the right distance apart.

The cut-outs at the back of the piece locate on the seat mount cross-tube.

So now have the seatbelt mounts, shifter member and transmission mount (just out of shot) all tacked together.