Rear pipes done

The rear pipes were a bit easier. The only worrying bit was the first bit, if I had got that wrong I wouldn't have had enough to finish the job. Fortunately I just worked smoothly from front to back. This is the front part with the clutch cylinder and steering column in place.

The brackets down the transmission tunnel did their job, it made it easy to secure things in place.

And the rear pipes were really easy, very short and only the frame to avoid. They weren't even long enough to warrant fixing, but I added one to the left hand side just in case.

Talking of fixings, I think I need to add a couple more where the rear pipe goes vertical against the firewall. It can move up and down at the moment which won't go down well with the inspector. I just need to add ones on the bends to make sure.

Next job is the handbrake. The two rear cables come from the calipers and head towards the tunnel. I need to change the fixing brackets on both of those to bolt them to the chassis. They'll then come together into the balance bar which needs mounting in the tunnel. It'll need extending all the way down the tunnel to some sort of mechanism to turn it round into the handbrake. Sounds relatively simple as long as I do each section in turn.

 

Front pipes done

 Now I had an idea of what flares I need for the pipe, I could make a start. And it's gone really well if I say so myself...

The brackets worked really well, and once everything had been tightened the pipes are absolutely solid. I'm tempted to add some brackets between the pipes, and maybe wrap the pipes with tape where they sit inside the brackets. There's enough of a gap between the pipes and the chassis. Unfortunately the steering column had other ideas, so I had to do this;

This gives an inch or so all round the steering column. So it's on to the rears next. 

Just one last point before I head back into the garage. Everything I've done on the car has been done in segments, then I take the parts off and store them. This means that 'conflicts' such as the column above are very likely. Just off the top of my head I'm thinking the diff and the fuel tank will have fixings that need to occupy the same point in space and time.

If I had built everything on the chassis and left it there it would avoid conflicts, but the work would have been a great deal harder. I guess I've made the right call to do things in parts, I just need to manage the conflict as it arises. Oh no, I sound like middle management...

Brake pipes

Wow, this was a long time coming... so, on to brake pipes!!

This started well, the balance valve sits quite nicely alongside the master cylinder and is away from anything sensitive. Apart from the pipe bends being tighter than the flaring tool could handle, it was pretty easy to fit these two.

It was the next pipes that were confusing me. The ones above were double flared, a 'female' type pipe ending. But looking at my flexi pipes I could see that these were also female;

I initially thought that I'd gone wrong, so on to the trusted internet I went. There was lots of toing and froing, but eventually I found a 'bubble' flare;

This particular one was made using the AB tools flaring tool. By the way, I can heartily recommend their flaring tool, it does a great job and is very quick. 

So now it's onwards with the rest of the pipes. I'll be clipping them in at appropriate places, running them as required. The small pipes were a confidence boost, I think the longer runs should be a piece of cake. I just need to weld on some support tabs while I go, this isn't an issue as I've already done several long runs. 

I remember a story a while back about people who work on half-completed builds, they said that the chassis welding was often 'ok', but the pipes were done when the enthusiasm was there and so they are generally done to a very high standard. Wiring was the main thing that half-completed kits had trouble with. Fortunately I seem to have done things backwards, I got the wiring looms tidied up before I did the brake pipes!