[legendlives]

Net Wait!

One of the things that removing the body has allowed me to do is fit the mounting points for the window net. The rearmost ones are level with the 'B' pillar so access was extremely limited with the body on, and drilling the holes was impossible.

Mounting slugs are tapped M8 and TIG'd into place:

The rear of the net bars are on rosejoints, the front on an adjustable strap and a QR catch (both liberated from a long expired harness)

The whole net should drop away when released, thus not restricting ingress and egress. Hopefully the proper window net will fold better than the masking tape one (I don't want to buy a new SFI one until the car is nearly finished for obvious reasons).

 

[legendlives]

Bored on a wire. Part 3 b

I don't normally remake stuff within a fortnight. I usually wait months, sometimes years, before consigning my fabrications to the bin, but this was bugging me:

All neat and tidy, but even though the panel is removable I was really unhappy with the fuses only being accessible by unbolting the panel and dragging two battery leads and an 8 wire loom out of the resulting hole just to change a fuse.

Whilst looking for something else in the stacks of boxes of parts for the car I came across these:

Out of an aircraft (I believe), I acquired them years ago and, like so many other parts, I had forgotten them.
A quick conversion to spade terminals (to make assembly easier)

And the back of the panel now looks like this:

Far neater I'm sure you'll agree.
The panel doesn't look too shabby either:

The spare hole next to the master switch is for the extinguisher pull.

 

[budetta]

Much better.

 

[mygasser]

those fuse holders were common on lorry refrigeration unit switch panels, just in case you need any more. :tup:
neil.

 

[legendlives]

Closing Time.

With the body off I now have access to all of those bits that were hidden by the chassis and rollcage.
First job was to tidy these areas around the exhaust exits:

I want to seal these against water, dirt, and the mandatory 75,000 tons of burnt rubber fragments.
The closing panels don't need to be strong, so out with the old cooker (again) to liberate some 1mm galvanised steel which was shaped and then welded into place:

Next up the 'B' pillars:

The shape of the rear of the pillar doesn't match the window, the top is just messy, and the bottom needs something to secure the inner panel (which runs along the lower edge of the window) to.
Hack more out of the cooker (this time 1.5mm) and....

Yeah, that's better. I was going to trim the pillars but with the shape good and the original triangular 'trim' holes now round they look a bit race-car so I might just paint them body colour.

With the rear window surround in place the shape follows nicely.

 

[legendlives]

Closing time pt2.

Another section of the body that's pretty inaccessible are the rear inner roof panels.

I was not sure whether to make a panel and trim it, or weld a panel in and body colour it.
Had a play with some 1mm SS sheet (the other half of the cooker hood that gave it's life for the engine bulkhead) and came up with these:

Here just trial-fitted in place. I figure they will look good in body colour with the headlining (that is the same metallic blue vinyl seen on the trans-tunnel) just tucked behind, or trimmed to the top. So weld it is!
Some time later, stitch-welded in place:

(for any of you that have a 7Y, the bodies aren't the same side-to-side!)

Imagine them in white with the window trims in anthracite grey:

Next, up to the roof which, last time you saw it (if you were paying attention) looked like this:

My main issue with the roof is the roof vent. As I had no access the vent was welded front and rear, then riveted along it's length from the underneath.
Not happy, so I removed the roof support, out with the grinder, then stitch-welded it to the roof along it's length:

Still needs more work, and I need to figure out how the headlining is going to work with the big hole up the middle of it, but I think a plan is hatching!

 

[legendlives]

Closing time pt3

Back at the front of the car (?) the bits around the windscreen also needed covering up.
It looked a bit rough, here with a white anti-rust paint. I trimmed more metal away after this was taken:

Made up these panels, again from parts of the old cooker and/or washing machine:

Long ones are for above the screen, holey ones are for the 'A' pillars, talking of which looked like this:

As the windscreen fixing studs need to be accessible I was considering doing a bolt-in panel, but by positioning the holes in the right place I can get to them OK, and the weld-in panels look cool, add stiffness and are lighter than solid aluminium panels with fixing bolts. Incidentally, because of the varying size of the holes I had to make 5 dimple-die tools to put the shape in (and another one for the wiper holes in the top panel).

So now we're all good, and just need a few more holes drilled and a couple of spot-welds and I can prime & paint the inside! Whoopee!!!!

 

[legendlives]

Primer suspect....

After a frantic night cutting, grinding and welding as I realised there were a few things more to do before this step, I've actually primed the interior!

Front bulkhead (engine side) and (what's left of the) inner wings:

Looks less like a cooker hood now!

Inside:

All of the original triangular trim-strip holes have now been made round. 'On show' panels have had three coats, bits that will be hidden by trim have had two heavy coats;

As an aside, I decided that my sewing machine really wasn't cutting the mustard so I bought an old Singer industrial machine that has been converted to electric but had seen far better days, but at $60NZ (including a box-load of thread, bobbins, material and spares) I could always weigh it in!.
The original bed was virtually bent double with the weight:

So I've made a longer, double thickness bed out of an old plywood pallet:

I've cleaned and oiled the machine, and adjusted the motor pedal and it goes like the gangbusters!
Double bonus, looking into the history of this machine it appears it was manufactured around the same time as the car.
Stitchin' the Reaper

 

[ivanhoew]

win on the sewing machine... well done chap .

 

[legendlives]

win on the sewing machine... well done chap .

Pages of clever dimple-died and shaped metalwork, not to mention chucking primer at it and all you're impressed with is the sewing machine?

What's a man got to do.... :shake:

 

[legendlives]

Dashing my hopes and dreams.....

Last time we visited the dashboard it looked like this:

I'd added the small door & 'box' at the bottom to take the boost controller.
As with a lot of the stuff I kept looking at it, and decided (on a couple of levels) that I didn't like it.
Also there were vertical lines of holes that were fixing holes for chrome trim which I had intended to use, but now decided not to.

Fast-forward to today:

Boost control cubby has gone, along with the two original switch holes adjacent to it.
I've also welded up the trim holes. It's all a far nicer shape now.

I've since blown some red-oxide over it as it will, inevitably, sit in the garage now for a couple of months or more!

 

[mygasser]

much cleaner/less cluttered look now. i like it.
neil.

 

[legendlives]

The Hothead Flowers

Aw c'mon, these titles are comedy gold!

Anyhoo..... at the back of both heads on my 5.4 mod motor were these coreplugs / freezeplugs / block-offs that sealed the coolant system:

Which, once removed revealed large waterways into the heads:

Now I figure that the rear of the head is probably the hottest point of the engine, so any increased coolant flow / lack of vapour-lock has to be a worthwhile mod.
Rummaging around the 'shop I found a couple of scraps of 3mm alloy sheet, a couple of used AN adapters and a lump of round alloy:

(Yes, the car really is made from scraps and cast-offs!). After an hour or two with lathe, step-drill and grinder transformed the scrap into these:

Which, after applying a smear of electric glue turned out:

These press into the holes vacated by the coreplugs, and are bolted down thanks to a couple of already threaded M6 holes in the head which just happen to be in the right place.

Now the hot coolant at the back of the head is drawn (thanks to -8 AN hose and fittings) into the water-pump thanks to the barb vacated by the original heater hose:

I will add a bleed at the top of the tee before final assembly. Hopefully the mod will prevent any cooling problems, but time will tell!

 

[ivanhoew]

T..... remendous ! (see what i did there )

 

[blackpopracing]

Some joined up thinking there...........

 

[mylesdw]

Can't help wondering if those plates will just bend over time causing a leak?

 

[legendlives]

Can't help wondering if those plates will just bend over time causing a leak?

They are 3mm thick and basically exactly the same as the original plates that held the factory front coolant pipes. The machining of the bosses have a tight enough tolerance to not allow a 'bend' without locking in the bores. remember we're only talking 15-20 psi.

 

[mylesdw]

Ah! I had thought they were just core plug holes.

 

[legendlives]

Ah! I had thought they were just core plug holes.

Well yes......and no. The heads are machined the same left and right, so these are coolant bores that Ford just block off with core plugs.

 

[legendlives]

Braking Bad

The rear brakes are the last part of the whole braking puzzle. Rear discs are (new) standard Jag spec, but I wanted calipers that are less cumbersome than the original Jag items, and without that handbrake arrangement.
Enter Volvo, an 850 estate to be precise, which gave up it's rear calipers which are far smaller than the Jag items, but had these weird blocks hanging off the outside halves which I guess are there to damp out some harmonics:

No problem, I have a grinder and I also have a solid-mounted V8 with two hairdryers and don't give a monkeys about brake harmonics so the blocks are off. While I was at it I removed all of the casting marks from the outside which left these:

Far nicer. I will sandblast them before painting to get back to more of a cast look.

There are two slight problems with the Volvo calipers in this application though, the first being they are slightly too narrow for the Jag discs.
No problem. I made up these 3mm spacers in steel, (and yes, I know there are no fluid holes/ I took these photo's mid-manufacture)

With the calipers reassembled you'd never know:

The other small issue I'll sort when the diff is rebuilt.