End of August thoughts

 This month has been the hottest on record in the UK. Bad news for crops, water supplies and countless other things, but great for driving a car with no roof!! I've spent most weekends using every excuse to get out in the car, and virtually no time actually working on it.

It does mean that there are a few things that have come to light that I want to work on.

Rattles

OK, this is my biggest bugbear with the car, or probably more specifically the state of UK roads. I've had many occasions where I've had all sorts of rattles and knocks when dropping into the crater sized potholes our roads seem to be made of nowadays. At least the car doesn't try to wrench the steering wheel out of my hands, but I do want to go over the car and check the rattles and knocks are limited to those parts that are meant to move. I've already lost an alternator brace bar due to a loose bolt, I don't want to lose anything else!

I just want to go over the car and check everything, see whether anything needs tightening or possible redesign. For example the bodywork was designed to be tight around the upper support and lower bolt fixings, but tight in the garage may not be the same 'tight' when on the road. The outriggers could be struggling to keep things in line. Obviously there's everything in the engine bay but also on the back end there could be something knocking where it shouldn't. 

Paint

While I like the idea of 'old paint', the more I look at the car the more it just looks like a bad paint job. I am wondering whether another few layers of paint would be good. 

On that subject I've been looking at how to spray paint again. I don't want to use 2K paint as that was a nightmare to work with, and the after effects (smells!) were there far too long. The combicolor paint did work quite well, it just needed a bit more work to get it right. So I'm planning to stick with that paint but spray it. 

But I've binned my compressor. The regulator valve was questionable, the size of the tank wasn't good enough to do any meaningful work, and having it to just pump tyres up was just a waste of space. So I need another option, and currently the leader is something that isn't actually available yet, the Inokraft DX. It's an electric powered HVLP gun that is currently only in the states, but I'm hoping there will be a UK distributor soon. It seems to get good results for a decent price, and will save me money and hassle. 

Arch seam lines

The arch join to the bodywork is another weak point that I want to sort. At the moment I've used filler and paint to disguise the join, but neither are surviving very well. What it needs is a bead of 'something' to be protective, flexible and decorative. My first thought is bathroom sealant but I can't paint over that. Claude suggests butyl tape but that sounds like a nightmare. 

What it does suggest is a decent way of creating a consistent seam, using a contour scribe gauge or perhaps a pinstriping kit idea https://beugler.com/. That would get me a line to work to, then either masking tape or some similar process to get it looking even and complete. Of course, my mind has gone to 3D printing for that so I'll design something and see how it comes out. 

Fuelling

The boot still seems to smell of petrol which makes it difficult to use for shopping. I need to figure out where it's coming from. It's most noticeable when just filling up so I'm guessing it's higher on the tank.

On the subject of fuel, my range is around 200Km which makes it easier to measure on the speedo. I could probably go further if I properly drain the tank, but I'll leave that experiment until I can get some fuel in the can as a backup! I really ought to run it to empty though at some point, just to check it doesn't get too upset. 

Indicator self cancelling

One thing that has bugged me about this car is the indicators not cancelling. I had put a set of markers on the steering column so I could see when the indicators were on or off, but that wasn't overly effective.

So I opened up the steering to see what was going on;

This is the self cancelling feature, a white collar that turns with the steering wheel and operates the indicator lever;

But you can see in the top picture the nubs that engage with the steering hub are broken, so nothing is happening. 3D printing to the rescue!!

I was going to 3D print an entire new collar but there's not much room and I felt a 3D printed version would be unnecessarily weak. Where the nubs go there's a fair bit of clearance so I was able to print an oversized version of the same. A bit of glue to attach it to the original and it all works fine. Of course, I needed to make sure the steering wheel was in the right position when it all went back together, and I think it cancels a left indicator slightly earlier than it does on the right, but at least I'm not an old fart driving with permanent indicators on!

Rear suspension prep

 The rear wishbones have been taken off. I forgot how heavy a hub is when it's fully kitted out! My brain is probably remembering when they were just bare hubs.

Opening up the top wishbones I can see the first issue, the paint was still on there. Thinking about it, I wouldn't have been able to remove the paint the last time as they would have had to come off the car. Now that they are off I've cleaned up all the surfaces, partly to increase friction but partly so I can mark them up and drill them.

The bolt hole is actually slightly loose. Probably not because of wear but just because I'd have opened up the hole to fit the bolt through. 

Checking the newly arrived pins shows there's spot on;

It also looks like I can use pretty much any part of the block surface. It doesn't have a top fixing so it can go into a thicker part of the wishbone as long as I drill the hole deep enough. In fact thinking about it I might want it in a thicker part, I just need to make sure the depth is more than the pin.

The plan will be to mark and drill a hole in the block on either side, decently far enough away from the centre to provide leverage and stop the turning action. Then bolt the block to each side in turn and drill through to get the required hole. I'll drill everything with a 3mm or 4mm drill first, then open it up to 5mm afterwards. Lots of cutting fluid all round!! I do have a rudimentary drill press that I could use for at least the block holes, then with that straight it would make drilling into the wishbones easier and more consistent. 

I was wondering whether I could treat myself to some new drill bits just for this task, but a quick Google suggests cheap ones are all chinesium and not worth buying, and expensive ones are too much for my meagre budget. 

(17/8 update)

Well, I completely forgot I was mid-post on this! As you might expect this all went back together fairly well, and with the pins in place the suspension is no longer twisting. I've done a few hundred miles on this design and it looks good. As with everything on this car I will check them again at some point to confirm it's all good.