A brief distraction...

 Following today's video on Tools N Track, it's really given me some food for thought on my working environment. Over the weekend I spent 3 hours fitting the gearbox rubber mount. That was 2 hours 45 minutes of finding the damn thing, then 15 minutes of drilling to fit it!! If that seems ridiculous, well that is how bad it is in there at the moment. I'm getting fed up of tripping over stuff, not being able to move the welder to where it needs to go, even being able to get to the gas and electric meters to take this quarters readings was a mission.

So I'm putting the car deliberately on hold, and tidying up the garage instead. I really should have done this when I dropped the engine in, as that 'should' have given me a lot more space. Of course, it didn't and things still can't move about.

I need to make a list of the stuff that needs to be sorted. Just off the top of my head I can think of;

• The thousands of tins of paint that are littered everywhere. And probably a fair few chemicals, cleaners, greases, that sort of thing. 
• The coats that are hanging up at the back that are basically useless now (the adults and children of the household have gotten too big to wear them anyway!).
• Sort out the racking to see if there are any unused gaps.
• Sort out the half a dozen boxes of old computer stuff that is most likely useless (for example, I needed a replacement laptop PSU, and while I did have one, it promptly blew the fuse as soon as it was plugged in!)
• Be absolutely brutal with the stuff I need to keep. I've now got to the point in the build where I know what I can use and what can be disposed of. Hopefully that means the couple of boxes of spare parts can be reduced. 
• Have a general clear out of everything that was 'just put in the garage'. 

I think I'll take a few photos before and after, as I suspect this particular job may feel like a complete waste of time if I don't see any visible benefit. 

Wish me luck!

Fuel lines and change of plan

 Today's job was fuelling, which should have been a basic job by all accounts. OK, getting the fuel lines connected to the engine was a bit of a challenge, but I managed to get the old pipe removed and the new pipes on there.

I then started feeding the pipe down the transmission tunnel, and that's where it got a bit 'challenging'. The first thing was that the pipes are thick, and it's difficult to feed them through. Second was that the brake pipe needs to be there. That makes it even more challenging.

But the biggest issue was one where I basically get the engine permanently stuck because I can't disconnect the fuel! I thought I was being clever by keeping the minimum number of connections, but it does mean that if I wanted to remove the engine I'd have to remove the fuel lines from the fuel rail, and it's not an easy job.

So change of plan. I'm going to go for rigid lines down the transmission tunnel. I'll use the fuel hose from the engine to the copper line, just in front of the bulkhead. Then solid down the centre, and back to rubber hoses to get to the tank, filter and pump. 

I now have some copper fuel line and some clamps on their way, once they arrive I'll finish the fuel. Tomorrow will be back to the body. 

3 week gap

 And just like that, another big (ish) gap. This one is a bit more understandable though. The lack of work should have been good for working on the car, but obviously it's bad from a finance point of view. The weather also got a bit grim, and while I don't need sunny weather, the minus sign at the beginning is usually a bit of a challenge!!

Anyhow, the next job is to finish off the panels between the aluminium chassis and the fibreglass body. It's mainly a bit awkward because I don't actually have the metal, so trying to figure out how much I need was going to be the first challenge!

Then I finally figured it out, I need a paper template. So, first part is the bulkhead;

 This is a fairly easy one, a sheet of aluminium that is roughly 1000mm wide, 310mm tall and 250mm on the horizontal. So 560mm with a fold.

The sides are a bit more complex as it needs to be a smooth transition from horizontal to vertical. The first part was to make a wooden template for the front so I can form the pattern round it. That comes to a point at roughly elbow position, then it's flat to the back. As ever, a picture is better than a description;

The paper is unfortunately deforming on this shape so I do suspect this isn't going to be easy when it comes to making it out of aluminium. But at least if I can get the edges top and bottom sorted, and make the curve at the bottom, the rest can be pulled tight. These panels work out to be 1000mm wide, with the maximum height following the curve being 400mm. Oh, and I need two of them. 

This does make it obvious that there is a gap. It's not overly visible as it's directly under the body, but I think it would be sensible to fill it in;

As it'll follow the same edge as the side panel, it's also 400mm maximum height. I think I'll maintain the right angle though, so it's 320 wide between the two vertical bars and 110 for the sticking out part.

There's also a strip along the back behind the seats, I'm not sure this will be aluminium as it could do with being a bit more sturdy and there's no support there at the moment, but just in case it needs to be 1200mm wide and 110mm high.

The next big section is the boot lining. Nothing difficult, basically a big box. It's maximum 850 wide, 500 high and 400 deep. It also tapers towards the back so that should be easier too. I'm going to make it as a separate component that then just bolts in place. That way I can maintain access to the fuel tank and diff. 

Lastly is the two sides of the radiator. These will be 'half cones' to fill the gaps in the front grille. Going back to an older picture;

The radiator is 380 wide, and since the weather is horrific the measurements off the above picture gives me 255mm either side. The hole is 290mm at maximum height gap. But it needs to be 'bowl shaped', so I might give this one a miss with the sheet and come up with some other way of doing it.

Panels come in 1m x 1m, or 1m x 2m. Now, I got a quote from forward metals 10 years ago and it's basically half the price of the metal store. But given the amount of metal I need the postage from metal store would be free, whereas I'd have to drive to forward metals. I'll get an updated price and see which one is the cheapest. I used 1.5mm for most of the panels, and it's basically unbendable. So the choices are either 0.9 or 1.2, and I'm tempted to go for the thinnest. 

Edit: Turns out Forward Metals actually have their prices on the website, and they're not far off being half price of the metal store. So even with the half hour drive it still works out cheaper! I'll do a quick check to make sure they can fit in the car, then go get some later on.