[legendlives]

Tunnel Vision.....

Remember the transmission tunnel?

It was lovely, wasn't it? Resplendent in it's padded and trimmed glory it was the first part of the car to be 'finished'.
Nah. Didn't like it.
It didn't fit nicely, and the trimming job wasn't as 'professional' as I want. Even though this will undoubtedly end up as a race only car (due to the draconian hoops that have to be jumped through and paid for here in NZ) there's no need for second best is there?

So I ripped off all of the trim, added between 10mm and 15mm around the bottom, extended the rear and modified the trim frame to suit, moved the Dzus brackets on the chassis and generally beat it about a bit.

The mod to the rear is purely aesthetic. It now follows the curve of the rear panel. You can still see the original rivet holes.

One of the mods to the frame was a small extension to the driver's flange (ooo-errr missus!) to fit /seal better with the floor panel.

Now all I have to do is get out the spray adhesive and the sewing machine and finish it again!
(Oh, and decide on a colour/finish for the frame as I'm not 100% on the black.....)

 

[69 ford]

No point in getting the sewing machine out, you'll only rip it all off again, paint it red oxide - allways good for future mods.

 

[legendlives]

One last big push at the front....

Bear with me, good reader, for I am about to tell a tale. A tale four years in the making, a tale of pain and suffering, of disappointment, of perseverance and ultimately of achievement.
I give you 'Primer suspect', or 'Bondo Dog Doo-Dah', or 'Fun with Fibreglass'. The front end of Cheatin' The Reaper is a hair away from being finished!

4 years ago I was over the moon that someone wanted to swap the original front-end 'tins' for a one-piece fibreglass front.
Here it is, still in the van immediately after collection:

Upon initial stripping it was evident that someone had riveted steel Pop grille and side-vent sections onto the front, along with a strengthening structure obviously designed by Isembard Kingdom Brunel when he was experimenting with cast iron:

On to the first 'total waste of time'. Filling the side vent holes:

I always wanted separate bonnet for the flip-front as I didn't want to keep chipping the paint!

And whilst I was at it I made up return flanges, and then glassed them into place:

Total waste of time 2: Trying to make the bonnet fit. I suspect that the front was moulded off a damaged car as it was at least 40mm different side-to-side.
The bulge was also an unnecessary distraction as that too would ultimately find solace in a skip.

Then I discovered that I needed to widen the whole thing about 50mm each side. This turned out to be a blessing as whilst the outer sections were off I made them match each other by riveting them together (cut, grind, laminate, repeat.). After that it was relatively simple to get the front inners to match the outers (more cut, grind, laminate, repeat.)

By 2019 the shape was more-or-less right, and with the addition of the new ally bonnet, and correct shaped side panels it nearly fitted:

It just needed a couple of semi-circular divots to clear the cam-covers of the exceptionally wide engine:

So this week I had a few days off and set to. Tidied up all of the lines and edges, then blew some primer at it!
(Ironically it's been clear, dry weather for a week, but as soon as I hooked up the spray gun it started to spit - bugger!)

Definitely looks like a hot rod now, and that's the worst bit of the body done!

Thanks for reading / staying awake / not vomiting (delete as applicable).

 

[mygasser]

i feel your pain with the secondhand 'glass front. i did the same with my anglia gasser and probably spent 3 times the cost of a new one in hours making the old one fit and not have cracks etc all over.
yours is looking great now though so i guess it was all worth it :tup:
neil.

 

[ivanhoew]

really hope that somehow this can be rd legal , seeing that hooning up behind a car on the motorway would be huge fun .

 

[legendlives]

really hope that somehow this can be rd legal , seeing that hooning up behind a car on the motorway would be huge fun .

It would be nice.
I've built it with all of the necessary road legality in mind - washers, wipers, lights, indicators, handbrake etc., but the certification process here is an absolute (and expensive) nightmare. Just getting it through the process would cost me more than the entire build has cost, so it will probably be just a nice race car (with the occasional accidental road mile or two....).

 

[legendlives]

Fluid thinking......

Brake and clutch fluid that is.

I need to get the three brake/clutch fluid pipes (which will be 1/4" OD tubes) down the bulkhead from the reservoir, then turn 90 degrees through the bulkhead at floor level.

The easy solution would be to buy three 90 degree -4AN bulkhead fittings and nuts and simply drill three holes, but have you seen the price of that stuff? Just those three assemblies would have cost me north of $120 which does not fall within the budget restraints of this build (Yes, I'm tight!).

My local speedshop (which happens to be the company I work for) have a stock of these fittings:

These are old-stock, and priced to get rid of at $4NZ each + tax. Result!. I just had to work out a way of using them.
Rifling through the fab-room bin I found a 1/2 cut length of 35mm alloy tube, which after a deal of bending, shaping and metal glue looked like this:

More sanding and shaping I drilled 3 slightly too small holes and pressed the fittings in place, then half-welded them for support:

There's now plenty of clearance on both sides for the -4 nuts.

A bit more cleaning and with some drillage I ended up with this steam-punky looking thing which suits the age of the car perfectly

It will sit at the bottom of the driver's side bulkhead so will never be seen anyway!

 

[ivanhoew]

triffic !

 

[mylesdw]

Never been a fan of the bright blue/red fittings - expensive and garish but I discovered, quite be chance, that when you weld them they turn into a really nice bronzy/grey colour (not unlike those).

 

[legendlives]

Brake dancing.....

The hydraulic handbrake bracketry has already appeared on these hallowed virtual pages way back. It was actually made for the ill-fated Escort project but I never finished the set-up.
Mounting plate for it has already been incorporated into the chassis so the hard work is done.

After purchasing (another) new master cylinder (work nicked the first one to make a pressure test rig), I found a female rose-joint with the correct thread and offered everything up. It was immediately obvious that the cylinder would need to be spaced out a bit (a lot!).

A couple of 30mm long x 20mm diameter aluminium bosses were made and tapped through M8. These are secured by countersunk SS screws on the inside.

And normal cap-heads on the cylinder side (though these will be replaced by Stainless bolts in the final build).

With the (slightly modified Mk1 Escort) lever in the full-on position, the adjustable pushrod sits horizontal.

That hideous rosejoint bolt will also get binned in favour of a stainless part.
Surprisingly, even being 30mm longer than expected the assembly still fits without modification necessary - Phew!

 

[legendlives]

Bored on a wire. Part 1.

As things are progressing at a pace at the moment I thought it would be prudent to make up as much of the wiring as possible before everything is painted nicely and I (inevitably) scratch f*ck out of it.
This is part 1 of which will be a lengthy and boring process, so I'll post as many pictures as I can to prevent you losing consciousness.
As you have to start somewhere, I'll start with the driver's overhead switch console. This probably has the most complicated sub-loom(s) as it controls (virtually) the whole car, so it seems the best place to start.

The characters in this tale are:

Wiring/cabling. This was bought from a local auction house for the huge sum of $29NZ (15 quid). It's all military grade, and aside from the two racks there are also a couple of piles of cables and at least 3 rolls of the nylon braid protective sleeve.

Connector blocks, heat shrink and cable ties. The connector blocks were a massive $100NZ eek but the heat shrink and cable ties were won in a competition!

Fuses. Although the main fusebox has most of the fuses in it, there are a few switches in the console that are 'live' (sidelights, horn etc) so I've incorporated 6 additional fuses in the overhead panel.

Bus bar. This was liberated from a scrap cooker. It has a nice insulated plastic mount and (more importantly) 3 separate connector bars.
These will be used for permanent live, switched live and earth. The three feed wires from the main fuse box will be bolted (via ring connectors) to the threaded hole on each one.

In case you had forgotten, or weren't alive that far back, this is the overhead switch console. It was made about 3 years ago and controls lights, wash/wipe, horn, fans, fuel pumps, ignition and start. Also has a nice voltmeter which I always found was essential in all of the race cars I've had.

The first two block connectors are wired (yay!). The 8-way one on the left is all thin-section wire as they all control relay windings - ignition, start, fans (2) fuel pumps (2) main and dip beam headlights. The 3-way on the right is higher amperage for horn, washer and sidelights.

and that's all you're getting for part 1!

 

[budetta]

The fun stuff, cheating on my Austin as moding the Omega loom to fit. Having to change a very large connector block to at least 10x10 way blocks the same as your using. Best of luck keeping it all correct!!!!

 

[legendlives]

Bored on a wire. Part 2

I told you it was going to be long and boring!
The overhead switch panel wiring is (nearly) done. The LED's aren't wired in yet - they will be done once the panel is trimmed and they are permanently fixed.

The loom coiled on the left runs down the inside of the rollcage to the dash area. It contains 3 sub-looms:
1 is the main supply loom. This has permanent live feed, switched live feed and earth from the main fuse/relay box (the glove box - there's a surprise!)
2 is the larger of the multi-blocks. This has 8 switched small section wires that energise relays in the main fuse box, and the fuel pump relays in the boot.
3 the small 3-way block. Larger section switched wires that control non-relayed circuits.

The fuses and connector blocks. Red wires are permanent live, white wires are switched live, black wires are earth and the odd orange wire feeds the wiper motor.

This is the road-legal side of the switches which are: horn/headlamp flash, Sidelights, Head main/dip, Wipe/wash and cooling fan.

The business end has the larger of the 2 cooling fans, Fuel pump 1, fuel pump 2, ignition, start.

Phew!
More soon, and it might be something a bit less wiry!

 

[legendlives]

Those washday blues...

A car needs a washer bottle and pump right?
It would be good to find a simple plastic bottle and mount it in a suitable place - job done yes?
No. WWBOM (What Would Bad Obsession Motorsport) do? Make the most complex, time consuming part and then mount it in a place that no one would think of.
So channelling my inner Project Binky I give you washer bottle. :shake:

Looking round the car there isn't really much available space that isn't already taken up, but wait! That looks promising:

It's only rollcage tube (38mm) deep though. What we need is a washer pump (the one that came with the car will do), a CAD design and a bit of calculus:

That'll do! 1.5 litres eh? Very nice. Best you cut some metal:

Main body in 2mm aluminium. Filler neck cut out of a dry-sump tank (I modified for a customer), threaded boss & plug cut off a radiator (I modified for a customer), washer pump came with the '38, bottom channel cut from 40mm tube, washer pump mount made from an aluminium nut. Time to break out the electric glue:

All of the welds were smoothed off because even a weld bead would make it too deep for the available space.
Behind the top mount tab is this little divot to clear the threaded chassis tab:

90 degree 1/8 NPT fitting and screw-in barb from SpeedFlow in Aus. Threaded mount boss on right from aging Pom in NZ.

In true Binky style, three of these little tabs are welded along the top to cable-tie the hose and loom in place:

Aaaaand.....IT FITS! The lower channel centralises the bottle on the cage and it's then held in by just the single panel bolt at the top.

No good if you can see it though. Back on with the trim panel:

The neck will (of course) have some kind of grommet or tarty escutcheon around it.
Nice place to hang your handbag!

 

[splitty66]

Hi, much like you I didn’t have room up front so I just stuck it in the boot on a bracket (not a binky bracket though), looking good .

 

[69 ford]

At one point you are going to head butt that filler neck and then re position it :sniff:

 

[justamin]

I was waiting for you to get the funk out.......

 

[legendlives]

Hi, much like you I didn't have room up front so I just stuck it in the boot on a bracket (not a binky bracket though), looking good .

No room in the boot. That's taken up with 2 massive tubs, a fuel tank, 2 batteries, a breather tank and a relay board. The only spare place would have been behind the seats but that would have looked naff.

 

[legendlives]

At one point you are going to head butt that filler neck and then re position it :sniff:

Only if I'm attempting to limbo under the dash :bah:

 

[legendlives]

I was waiting for you to get the funk out.......

msl:

I was humming when I was building it but I guess that didn't come across in the photos!