Back panel change of approach

As you can see in the previous post, I changed my mind about the back panel. The way I'd done the tabs on the edges was only possible if you can manipulate aluminium like paper. As this is impossible in the real world, I've had to redesign what panels go where. Here is the middle back panel as it is now;

I've split off the side parts to make them up as separate panels. This changes a few things;

1. The transfer from back panel to transmission tunnel is now a fold rather than a seam, I think that will look really good.
2. The two side parts can extend on to the panels either side to provide a secure fixing. The transmissions sides and the car sides can then fold in front of them.
3. There will be a seam on the diagonal portion. As this is partly hidden by the back of the seats I'm not overly bothered, I've also positioned the middle panel rivets to allow the side panels to fit in the same place. The panel isn't trimmed to the centre yet but that can be done once I've got the side panels sorted.

Since all four side panels will rely on the back panels being in place, they're the next things to be done. But first... I need to grind down the stitch welds so I have a flat surface, there's no way a panel will sit flat on those lumps!!

Oh, here's the two panels ready to go;

And with the middle panel in place;

Assuming the arrows are referring to the grain of the aluminium, I'm intrigued as to how it will look.

Two down...

The first couple of panels are done, admittedly they're the easy ones that just go on the top.

The process was similar to the floor panels, but I had to be careful with the edges as they're visible. Actually, everything is visible so I had to be careful all over!

I started each panel on an edge and made sure there was enough metal to cover the relevant hole. I drilled a couple of holes for some Cleco's to hold the panel in place, then marked the fold lines. Using my DIY folder (which actually does work on aluminium a lot better than the thinner steel) I put the relevant folds in the panel. Then using Cleco's as I went, drilling and fixing the panel.

The last stage was to trim the panels to size, the power file came in very useful here. I brought each panel flush to the steel, whether I'll regret that decision or not only time will tell.

There is just one panel left for the transmission tunnel top, but that will use rivnuts for fixings. I think I'll start the process the same as the other panels, the rivnuts will use similar if not slightly larger holes.

Next ones are the sides, and I'm not looking forward to those. Folds, cutouts, all manner of unpleasantness. All so I can have a smooth interior, I hope it's worth it!

Panel tetris

So here is the main aluminium panel, with all the pieces attached;

As you can see, it was a bit tight to get all the panels on. There are a few things to note here. First off, I've not left myself much waste between panels, so I'm hoping the cuts will be pretty accurate. I'm also doing something a bit unusual with the back panel. Rather than trying to do it in one large panel (which wouldn't have worked due to the way I've left tags on the panels for fitting), I've split it into three. The two panels near the centre are intended to go behind the passenger and driver, and form the bulk of the panel. The T shape part towards the right is then the middle panel and the first part of the transmission tunnel. I've done it this way so I have quite a clean rear panel between the seats, with adequate room and access for riveting. Bringing it down on the tunnel also allows for a clean transition between the two, without the need for welding a fixing bracket in place.

This will use all of the aluminium I have left, so if I go wrong I've got to buy more. Which won't be cheap, while the panels themselves aren't too bad it's actually getting them home that's the issue. And I've found that most metal suppliers don't work weekends, so it's a case of having to go during work hours.

OT - MIG welder earth lead

Time to go off on a little tangent here. For a while now my welding has been a little 'rough', and as the saying goes 'a poor workman always blames his tools'. However I think in my case it is actually the tool!

My current welder is a Clarke MIG welder, I got it cheap off Gumtree from a place that was upgrading. It was a little rough, but after a clean it seemed to work well, and better than the old Wolf Aldi one that I was working with.

It's always lacked a little 'something' though, so it was time it got a bit of TLC. First off was the liner. It was a steel one originally, but I get the impression it was way past it's use by date. Me being a cheapskate that I am, I bought some net curtain wire for a pound!! It made a huge difference though, even feeding in the wire for the first time I could feel it moving so much easier. It also meant I could turn down the wire tension and the feed speed, which I always felt was higher than it should have needed to be.

The next job was the earth lead. It was definitely something that had never been replaced, and it never felt good with the way it could bend really easily at certain points. I reckon there were several weak points where some of the internals had broken. The clamp itself was also a cheap one, and I frequently found myself with arc points on the clamp where it hadn't quite contacted properly and made it's own weld.

Looking on the internet it seemed the done thing was to replace it with a Dinse connector and upgrade the lead. So that's what I did! In hindsight I should have taken more pictures, but here's the first. It's the offcuts of sleeve, showing the difference between the old wire (right) and the new (left);

Considering it's a 150A welder, and the new wire is rated to 200A, I have no idea what the old wire was even doing there!!

The main challenge with this was that it was crimped directly to the copper winding on the transformer inside the welder. What I did was cut the old cable off about an inch away from the crimp, then open up the copper wires. Once I'd done the same with a length of new wire, I slid them inside each other then soaked the whole thing in solder to give it as good a connection as I could make. Two layers of heat shrink sleeving and the original woven protector over the joint and I was happy with the result.

The next stage was to fix the Dinse connector to the case. This worked surprisingly well, with nice big screw clamps for the wires. I'd bought a pack of five terminals all rated at 200A, and it was just a case of screwing everything down. This is the outside of the case now;

It even fitted in the same location as the old grommet, right down to the keyway that stops it rotating as the cable is clamped on.

The last stage was to make up the cable. So dinse plug on one end, and the new earth clamp on the other. It really was that easy. This is the new earth clamp now;

This is showing one of the terminal connectors that I had, it's quite clear how chunky they are.

And that's it. Of course, at the moment I'm making body panels out of aluminium, so there isn't much welding to be done. Still, I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

Next set of panels

So now to move on to the other aluminium panels. This will be;

1. Seat back panel.
2. Transmission tunnel sides.
3. Car sides.
4. Transmission tunnel top.

As I've mentioned before, the use of a full body allows me to change the design of the interior panels to cover more of the chassis than would normally be done with a seven. This also means I've split the side panels so the front half gives slightly more foot room, and the rear half can be made out of aluminium without using much material.

Anyhow, this is how I'm going to do things;

Transmission tunnel sides. These will go from the back edge of U7 and U8, to the front edge of TT6. Top and bottom will be from the floor to the top edge.

Back panel. This will go from the top of SB2 to the bottom of BR12. The middle section will come down to the bottom of SB3. For the sides, they will extend across both SB1 tubes. And finally a pair of tabs for the transmission tunnel will make a rivet surface against U7 and U8, on top of the side panels.

Car side panels. Top and bottom to match the car. Front edge up to U4 and U5. Rear edge will need a tab to cover one half of SB1. Not sure yet whether it'll be an inside or outside tab, outside will be harder to do but inside would be visible,

Transmission top. This is done in three parts. SB3 to TT8 will be riveted. TT8 to TT5 will need to be rivnuts as the panel will need to be removable. Although as I'm typing, I've realise I need to test the engine mount first to know where the gear shift will end up!! The last panel is TT5 to TR8 or TR9, again dependent on where the gear shift is.

That's it for now I think, the car is on it's side and I'll be making up some paper templates to figure out the best way to cut those panels. More photo's as the panels get chopped up.

Floor... finished

One box of these later;

And a whole load of hole drilling got me here;

Then a load of cutting and finishing to get the edges matched to the chassis (picture missing because, well, I moved on to the next bit without taking a photo!).

So the floor is done, time for the next panels...

Floor... started

Time to start with my first build job... OK, I've been at it quite a while and done a fair bit to get to this point, but as I was preparing for the build I saw a common theme. The first picture in most people's build logs was the floor being held in place by rivets. So this is my version!

Of course, this isn't the first step of this particular stage. First off was cleaning up the welds on the floor so I had a flat surface;

Then a paper template made for the two sides;

A quick transfer to the aluminium to cut to size;

The cuts were done using an aluminium blade on a jigsaw, with the wood mounted on top to keep the edges from buckling (I needed both edges to stay usable). It did a great job to keep everything flat;

Then the panels were laid in place;

And the first few holes drilled;

After a bit of geometry to get the position of the other rails, the rest of the holes were drilled to bring us back to the first picture;

(And yes, I don't have enough Cleko's).

So that's the passenger side done, and this was the end of the night. Turns out drilling more than one hundred holes is really hard work, my back and shoulders were screaming. And I've not even got to the point where I'm applying rivets!!

Oh, and on the subject of rivets, I didn't buy anywhere near enough. I bought 100, thinking that it would be distributed between the panels. Thinking about it now, I have two floor panels, one back panel and four side panels to rivet. Even getting every rivet right first time, that would leave me with about 14 rivets per panel!! Considering I did A level maths, this didn't quite register in my brain.

So I've gone and bought another 500 rivets. Even with that I'll use up to 400 just for the floor and side panels, that doesn't leave many for the back panel. 

And I'm not looking forward to doing each rivet. As an experiment I did one to a point where the pin sheared, I can still feel the bruises on my palms. I'll be putting some extender bars on to the handles I think. 

Anyhow, that's the passenger side drilled. It needs to be cut, then it'll be on to the drivers side. I'm not going to put them in place until I've done all the panels, as it's quite useful to have an open chassis. 

I'm also hoping for one day this week to get the chassis out on to the drive and put the engine in place so I can weld up the engine mounts. That is determined by the weather though. 

Fuel tank part 3

As they say, paint covers a multitude of sins. But it's air tight which was the main thing I was after. The red is just the standard zinc oxide, I think I'll do a black top coat as I'm not planning on it being visible. You can see in the top picture how much the panel warped when I was welding on the filler, I had to use Cleco's to force the metal back into shape to weld on the cap.

The bottom pic shows my swirl pot, that's about a litre of fuel with the fuel lines taken from the Mazda's filler. The only thing I'm worried about is if the welding has somehow narrowed the inside, but I won't know that until the car is running. Oh well.

Next job, floor and side panels, my first venture into aluminium.

Fuel tank part 2

Well, that took a long time!! Five months apparently since I started the tank. And now it's finished.

There were a few issues. The swirl pot wasn't too bad to weld up in the end, and I reused the pipe ends from the Mazda fuel tank. That way I can attach hoses with clamps and they'll be secure. Unfortunately when it got welded on it did warp the tank itself, which meant I was then trying to weld straight ends to a wavy tank.

What I did was use cleko temporary rivets to pull the metal together before welding, it just meant that I lost four cleko's (they don't like heat apparently!). The filler end wasn't as bad, probably because I learned my lesson and braced the nearest end before welding. There was still some distortion but that could be tapped out by a hammer.

The ends went on with only a little trouble (mainly from the warping), once it's cooled down I'll start the pressure test. For this I have some pipe connectors, a bike pump and a rubber glove!! The plan is to seal all the (known!) holes, the rubber glove over the filler and the bike pump attached to a fuel pipe. I'll then inflate the glove and use soapy water to pick up leaks. Once they've been spotted and welded as required, it'll be painted and left for fitting.

I've also been fixing some cable/pipe mountings to the chassis, they'll be ready and waiting for whatever I need to send down the transmission tunnel. Oh yeah, and on that subject, the front panels have been welded in and painted. The next job will be to cut the aluminium for the floor, side panels and rear panel. I have a week off after Easter so I can drag the chassis out and cut the panels properly. I do have to fix a couple of brackets for the side panels though, the way I'm doing the panels means that they will be on the inside rather than the outside as normal. There are no flat mounting flanges to fit panels on the inside, so I need to make them.

Fuel tank part 1

I'm currently welding up my fuel tank. Whilst it's a little slow going due to available time, it's not really bringing up any issues. At least that's what I thought. Turns out at the bottom of the page in the Haynes manual is mention of having to add a swirl pot to the tank. But no clue on how large to make it.

Cue a quick question on LCB. The general consensus is;

• Deeper rather than taller. This is to stop the fuel sloshing around. Make sense.
• Outlet near the bottom. Again, makes sense.
• Return to the swirl pot. This is an interesting one, I was going to put it back near the top of the tank but into the swirl pot makes more sense.

And then it's just the size. Apparently enough to maintain cornerning fuelling is the guide. So, how long is a piece of string. Back to number crunching for this one.

Based on a fuel pump that can deal with 255 litres per hour (an uprated mx5 pump), I need to give it 4.25 litres every minute, or 70ml per second. Add in a 10 second corner, that means it needs at least 700ml constant supply. If I assume a 1 litre requirement (to give a bit of leeway), that should be enough. Well, it's probably overkill, maintaining a 10 second corner with enough G's to keep the fuel out of the swirl pot would be so far beyond my driving skill it would be silly!

However, having the inlet and outlet on the swirl pot means that the tank itself just needs two holes cut. One for the filler and float, one for the swirl pot. I'll make one side of the pot flat so I don't have to deal with fuel connectors on a curved surface.

I also plan to make the hole in the tank a bit smaller than the swirl pot, in order to make a small lip. That should also stop fuel splashing back out and into the tank.

And then I'll probably be really paranoid, always drive with at least half a tank, and never ever have to worry about fuel starvation!!

Catchup

...And just like that, two months have gone by. I often thought I'd have more time to do stuff as I got older, turns out there's just more stuff to do!! It's partly my own fault though, it shouldn't take much effort to get into the garage and work on the car.

Anyhow, here's where I am. The footwells are nearly finished, I've cut all the metal and just need to weld on the last three panels. A quick coat of paint for that and then I can move on.

I have three sheets of metal in the garage now. Two sheets of aluminium, one sheet of steel, all three are 2 metres by 1 metre. They came from The Metal Store, and while the final bill was £124, that was including delivery to the door which was proving to be the most challenging part of sourcing it locally. Because I needed it in pretty large sheets (as opposed to the steel bar which could be transported much easier), even if I could have bought it from the next door neighbour it would have still been challenging to get it home. 

Comparing it to current prices though, I don't think I paid too much over the odds. There are people who seem to get huge swathes of metals for pennies, but I seem to have to pay normal prices.

The two aluminium panels are going to be for the rest of the cabin (so two side panels, the floor panels and the transmission tunnel cover), with the steel mainly there for the fuel tank. I gave up trying to source a ready made one, there were some second hand ones but they were either tatty, overpriced or a fair distance away (and fuel tanks don't transport well). And on the subject of fuel tanks, that'll be my next job after I finish the welding for the footwells. 

The footwells have actually been done a little differently to the book (and a typical seven). For my car with the Healey body, it's actually more important to me that the interior is better than the exterior (at least on the frame). I also want to give my feet as much room as possible, as it's a bit tight in there. So I've decided to have the forward section done so the metalwork is on the outside of the footwell, then the rearward section is done so the metalwork is on the inside. This gives me a smooth interior surface, but an extra couple of inches at the bottom. 

This does create some interesting challenges though. The main one is how it fixes to the frame. The welded panels are easy, but the aluminium panels are to be rivetted where there is nothing to rivet to! This is mainly around the seat back panel, as under normal circumstances that panel would cover all of the frame. I'm thinking if I can make that panel slightly oversized then I can create 'tabs' round the outer edge. Whether this works in practice I have no idea, but I'll give it a go. 

Extended steering

Well, the extenders have arrived, I reckon I spent all of five minutes before I had to try them on for size, and five minutes after fitting one I forgot I'd not taken a photo... here is the 'other' one;

As you can see, these are really well made. The male thread is for the MX5 TRE, and the hole in the right hand side is for the Sierra rack.

It did occur to me that the steering rack lock nut was designed for the Escort rack, and wouldn't fit on the MX5 TRE. I had to refer back to the picture I'd been sent to realise the extender fully screws into the TRE (and can be spannered tight), then the female end is where the adjustment is made.

This is what I had before, the Sierra extender in place but no room (and wrong thread) for the MX5 TRE;

I wasn't going anywhere with that one. Here is the proper extender in place (apologies in advance for some of the photos, the car is actually on it's side...);

This was the first trial, fully extended suspension. The angle of the TRE does look quite severe, but part of it is the loose ball joints on all three joints, as well as the really bad camera angle. It's at full extension and not bound, which is what I wanted to achieve. This photo shows the extender tight in the TRE, with the Escort lock nut on the rack. There's about three or four threads left for adjustment, I'll find out whether that's enough when everything is tightened up and there is an engine in there.

With the suspension wound in a bit (to better show a 'normal' angle) the TRE looks much happier;

Bottom angle shows how much space is between the steering arm and the bottom wishbone. This was another 'internet complaint' with the design of the suspension. Under full extension and lock the steering column would get friendly with the lower arm. I 'might' have to put some collars on the rack to reduce steering lock but I'm fairly sure there is enough room.

So there you go, a tiny (but very important) cog in the whole machine. I have to send out a huge amount of thanks to thelatheman, the amount of time and hassle he's saved me is brilliant. I started this build with the idea of it being locost, what I should have aimed for is 'best value', and these extensions are definitely that. 

Next time, back to the bodywork...

Seat fixings

Let's talk seats. Since the start of the build when I got my donor, I knew that I wanted to reuse the seats. They were from the V spec edition MX5, and they are a really old brown leather with a decent level of wear. Not only would they suit the Healey, their age and patina would also work perfectly.

This meant I had to deal with a few things. First off was mounting them. Fairly easy, just straighten the sliders and bolt them to the floor. That was one of the easier problems I've had so far. Next step, the width of them. Again, not a huge problem, at least for the squabs.

The issue came from the hinges. The seats were adjustable, in that the seat back could be tilted. This mechanism was a good inch or so wide on either side of the seat. But it wasn't going to be used in my car, the seat back had a limited range of movement in the first place so fixing it at a specific angle seemed to make sense. After removing the mechanism on both sides, the front and base fitted no problem. But of course they were now separate pieces.

The solution is for me to use two cut pieces of metal that mimic the original hinges. These will be made in an L pattern, and cut and drilled in the same place as the hinge. I'll also reuse the screw holes in the back and base, and that should give me a seat that is properly secure but still able to fit in the relevant place on the car. I do need to make sure that the seatbelt routing takes into account the seat back as there are certain restrictions on shoulder height etc. Basically the seatbelt shouldn't need to rely on the seat to provide restraint, the loading forces should go straight from the person to the seatbelt anchor/mechanism.

On the subject of seatbelts, I want to use the donor seatbelts. Again, they're a nice match although a little less wear than the seats (thankfully!). The problem comes from where to mount the reel as it's quite large. Mounting it to the welded mount is a no go as the seat would have to be a good foot or so closer to the wheel to get it to all fit, not a chance.

My first thought was to mount it to the diff cage, then use the donor belt guide to bring it over the drivers side left shoulder. This would work quite well, it would keep everything in the right place and the reel would work as it should.

But there is an option, I could mount it outside the frame to the original welded mount. This wouldn't work with a seven as it would be on the outside of the car, but since I'm building a Healey it will just mean that it's between the frame and the body. Which will work fine!

TRE's

OK, so lets talk track rod ends. When I was building my roadster, I knew that steering was a challenge. Lots of options had been explored, and every conversation always ended up with 'mark 2 steering rack'.

On the flip side, there was a healthy market for second hand racks. It took me about a week of searching on Facebook marketplace and in the various Locost groups to find someone local to me who had a spare rack. £50 and 10 miles down the road, and I had a remarkably good condition rack. It needs a lick of paint (and maybe new bellows if I'm really picky) but a bargain nonetheless.

Next step, extensions. Now this is where it gets tricky. The normal practice for the Sierra based car is Ford TRE's, but the rack is nowhere near wide enough. The book talks about some 150mm extenders, so I got straight on that and bought some. £15 and I had them in the garage.

Fast forward to last weekend, and I found a flaw in my plan. The rack plus extenders could actually get to the upright holes, there was no space for a TRE. Fail number one...

Turns out there are shorter extenders needed, so I set about figuring out how to shorten them. But then I found another post, cue fail number two...

Shorter extenders would have only got me halfway. The MX5 uprights have a quite severe angled tapered hole for the TRE's. If you use the standard Ford option (which are right angled), then the general consensus is that at full droop, the track rod gets caught between the upright and the lower suspension arm, and the TRE reaches it's maximum angle. Either of these could result in damage or break. Not good on suspension or steering components!!

So while fail number two was imminent, I'd finally managed to catch up with myself and not fall into that particular hole. The solution is to use an MX5 TRE, these are angled in the same way as the upright. This means that at full droop, the TRE isn't at full travel. This is how the MX5 (left) and Sierra (right) TRE's compare;

The difference in angle is quite plain to see. The only thing is, the difference in internal thread isn't so plain to see!!!

Yep, although I had an Escort rack, and Escort extensions, they won't screw into the MX5 TRE's. What's more, as I mentioned above the Escort extensions were too long. I couldn't have used ANY TRE let alone an MX5 one.

Then I found out about thelatheman, an Ebay seller in Lancashire who does lots of custom lathe work. And what's more, after asking him whether he could do what I want, he actually pointed me to an Ebay item that was exactly what I was after! It was a shorter extension, with an internal thread for the Escort thread, and an external thread to fit the MX5 TRE. They are a bit more expensive (£37 vs the £15 I paid originally), but since it's the best/easiest/quickest option, it was a no brainer really. So I'm now just short of £60 lighter, £21 for a pair of MX5 TRE's and £37 for the extensions. Fingers crossed they arrive by the weekend and I can try them out.

Trial fit for suspension and bodywork

Now I've got my HSR body (woohoo!) and my bike has been sold (boohoo!), I can finally get round to fitting the body and seeing what work needs to be done. And to be honest, it's looking quite good...

This is the narrow body sat on an SSC based MX5 roadster. It was easy to see what work is to be done, mainly around outriggers to carry the base of the bonnet, a front mount for the hinge, and maybe some bracing along the trailing edge. As you can see on both sides the wheels stick out, this was more or less what I expected. There's a few options here, either attach some fender extenders (chrome ones would be very interesting), or swap the wheels for something with a lower offset. I'll deal with that afterwards though, at the moment I'm just happy the positioning is good.

In this pic there is a piece of metal going from left to right that is clamped under the chassis, and another at the front doing the same. These will be where the outriggers are going to sit.

This is the height of the bonnet when the bottom edge is in line with the chassis (you can make out the clamped bar to the right of the picture). Having said that, it's the rear shell that needs to be put in place first, I've not been able to do that purely because the chassis isn't finished.

It's certainly an interesting view from the drivers seat!

I also trial fitted the suspension, front...

And rear...

I'm glad I did this though, as I wanted to make sure I had everything available. Basically I have a bag of nuts and bolts, and as I build things I've been using the fixings to test out how everything goes together, then taking them apart and putting them back in the bag. The only problem is that I've double used some of the bolts, so when it came to put everything together at the same time I was short of quite a few bolts!!

So, in no particular order, here are my new 'to do' items;

1. Buy TRE's. I spent so long tracking down the front upper suspension arm track rods that I forgot the steering rack needs them too!!

2. Buy proper extenders for the TRE's. This one is an interesting one, I'll talk about this in the next post.

3. New bolts for the rear upper suspension mount. The block in the picture above holds the upper rear suspension arm, the MX5 upright, and the suspension coilover. Problem is the bolt that I had available doesn't go through them all. So I need a new pair of bolts for that. 

4. Diff bolts. As mentioned, I've used these diff bolts in several places, so I now need some for the actual diff!!

5. Steering rack fixings. Same again, double used.

6. Seat fixings. OK, they're not related to this, but I had to get some. That will be in the next next post.

Overall I'm so impressed with the bodywork, there's plenty of room available for the engine, I don't have to worry about radiator fittings, and most of all I won't have to deal with some of the sharp edges that most seven's have to sort out for the IVA. I have different ones to sort (I already have scratches and cuts from the body itself) but I'm hoping there will be less of an issue. 

I have a body!!

The body has arrived;

I didn't realise the kit came with a dashboard blank or aeroscreen, so that's an added bonus. I don't think I'll be using the aeroscreen though, I'd prefer a full windscreen. It's a nice colour, just the moulding lines need a bit of work. Then again, I didn't expect Ultima levels of moulding anyway so I'm happy.

Of course, with the chassis not quite complete, I can't do much more now. My bike is getting sold, then it'll be a sort out of the garage in order to get the chassis off the build table and then this on top of it. Once this is fitted I should have an idea where the rest of the parts need to go.

So for now, no more updates until the bike is gone...

Steering complete

The steering column is now in place, along with the 10 degrees of deflection required for IVA. Obviously this pic exaggerates the angle;

But it has been measured and should be fine. The upper steering column is fixed at the top with the original sliding bolts which will disengage in the event of a crash. The lower fixing of the steering column is an exhaust clamp, again allowing the crush section to behave as it would have done in the MX5.

The upper part of the lower steering column is then supported by the bearing attached to the firewall. I did wonder why this was here as the column seemed pretty solid without it. But I guess belt and braces never hurt anyone. 

The bottom is standard fare, with the N pattern steering rack mounting welded into place. The left hand rack mount is actually the old MX5 rubber mounting, it fits the Escort rack perfectly. I need to grind down a weld to get it to mount flush though. From memory the right hand rack mounting on the MX5 was just a bolt, so that can't be reused. I'll make something out of metal for that side, not a huge job. 

For the next job, I need to mount the fuel tank. I've found someone on Ebay that makes fuel tanks for around £60, with an extra £15 for postage. He's only in Nottingham so I'll drive up and pick it up.

I need to make a frame for the tank. This is where I've moved quite a bit away from the plans. Because I have no need for a rear frame for the standard Seven tub, I've not actually got anywhere to put the gas tank. The tank sits behind the diff, sticking out of the back of the car. So I need to rebuild the back in such a way that it's as supportive as the original design, but doesn't use the rear hoop. Shouldn't be too difficult...

Steering angle

The steering rack is now in place and bolted up, and I have a problem...

As part of the IVA regs the steering column needs to have a deflection angle. This is so in the event of a head on collision, the steering column doesn't head directly towards the driver. (If only Senna's mechanics had that plan 😢 ).

Unfortunately, me trying to get everything 'just right' means that I've actually lined things up almost perfectly, IE no deflection angle. Which means I need to make some modifications.

The steering rack is in the right place, and cannot realistically be moved. I don't want the steering travel to be different between left and right. The tube between the universal joints can't really be moved either, it has the chassis one side and the engine the other.

What can be moved is the upper steering column. If I move the bottom joint of the steering column out towards the chassis wall, the angle between upper and lower columns will increase. But if I move the bottom joint, the steering wheel will be crooked. Last time I had that I was in an '85 Vauxhall Nova, and the whole drivers side was tipped towards the centre because the front wheel was in the way!

But it looks like I have no option, so I'll chop off the lower bracket and reweld back in the right place. Tomorrows job...

(Tomorrow)

Five minutes with a photo and some powerpoint boxes shows I have 8 degrees deflection with the brackets as I've welded them. So I've chopped off the bracket that is in that photo, and I will need to move it to the right just an inch or so to get the 10 degrees. 

Vernier

A while back I bought a vernier caliper from Aldi. It worked well, but the digital aspect of it was not designed for a garage, and died pretty quickly. So I thought I'd buy a standard one and hopefully get a decent one. Boy, was I wrong...

The scale is way out when set to zero, and no option to recalibrate it. So, time to find out what I can do, without having to resort to returning it.

Universally jointed

I had to post a picture of this, it's a remarkable piece of kit. It fits exactly as expected, and with bolt cutouts on both splines and drilled holes on this it'll be nice and secure. Looks like an M8 hole drilled through for a nut and bolt, while a threaded end might have been better I kind of prefer the need to add a nut.

The steering column has been chopped in half and marked for the 60mm lengths that need to be inside the thick wall tube. I've chamfered the ends slightly so it should be easy to fit. I'll then cross drill the tube and add some puddle welds as well as welding the end.

I've also done a red oxide coat on the rear suspension parts, they'll need a second coat then gold hammerite. The pedal box gets the same red oxide base but with a black top coat (it'll be deep in the foot well so no need for anything flashy). Time to get back on to the list and see what's next.