A win and a loss

 Another mixed bag this weekend, mainly controlled by the temperature. This weekend was ridiculously hot, even in the garage that is traditionally cool I was struggling. But I did get a couple of jobs done.

First thing was the arches. Having measure the bracket angles and printed them out, Saturday was trimming back the fibreglass garbage until I got to good material, then gluing the brackets in place. After leaving them for 24 hours, I'm 99% sure I now have strong enough arches, at least on the front. If something managed to tear apart Tigerseal or break the brackets, then the body or the arch is toast anyway! Last thing I want to do is just tidy the last few rough edges up, then give it one more coat of paint. Then that'll be the bonnet ready for the exterior paint. I do need to wash down the bonnet underside though, it's so dusty from the fibreglass trimming. God knows what my lungs are like!

Next was the earth wires on the front. No real biggie here, although I did realise my earth point was the wrong size bolt for the earth connectors. A bit of fiddling with a new bolt and some extensions on the earth wires sorted that. I put a loop in the wire so there was no opportunity for it to get tight or damaged when the bonnet was opened. 

I also managed to glue on the corner covers for the passenger seat, so now I can bolt in the passenger seat and seat belt along with the drivers seat. On that subject, I saw a Facebook post about someone with Cobra seats where the back had broken off from the bottom, the pictures show a single tube around the same size as my own. but me being the 'belt and braces' kind of person I've added some triangulation to the corners. That should mean I get a decent life out of the seats before a similar thing happens (if at all).

And now on to the loss. The steering shroud has beaten me. I thought it would be easy enough to design and print a new one, but even though I got the latest design pretty much spot on, it didn't work. The steering wheel hole is off centre whereas I tried to be clever and centred it. The top of the shroud also doesn't fit right in the dash. Given that the top surface of the shroud just won't print correctly either, I've admitted defeat. The existing shroud is currently in a bucket of soapy water to remove the glue from the leather covering. I'm going to clean it, sand it and paint it matt black, then that'll be it. That'll teach me to try and be clever, I reckon I've used at least one reel of filament with nothing to show for it. Then again, prime day did get me a couple of reels for a tenner each, so swings and roundabouts.

Staying with 3D printing though, the next bit I need to do is the rear. Similar to the front I want to make some reinforcement brackets. They're slightly different for the rear as there is still a lip present, however I don't want to cut through it because that would weaken things rather than strengthen them. The bracket will therefore have to come over the lip in some form, as well as avoiding the filler. Having said that, the presence of the lip does give me an opportunity to use screw fixings as well as Tigerseal. I'll have a think about that one.

Before I forget, seat belt reel... I noticed when my brother in law was in the car that the reel had a strong tendency to lock before it could be drawn out. It's because the reel is fixed at an angle. Combine that with the slight slope of my drive and it was enough for the reel to think the car was turning over. Given that the reel runs directly to the roll bar there's no need for it to be flush against the back of the cabin so I'll bend the bracket for it to sit upright. 

Oh, and I found the other bonnet tie down so I can get that fitted on the passenger side. I do need to fit some spacers to keep those tight but that's an easy one. 

It's my holidays soon so there will be a break in the proceedings, but I must be getting close to being ready for IVA. A set of tyres might help but that's the next/last big expense. Looking on Black Circles there's some ditch finders for around £50 a corner, but there is a local mobile fitter who can often get cheaper tyres, or more importantly better tyres for the same price. 

Milestone achieved: It runs!

 This Saturday has been so successful I could actually get away with doing non-car related work on Sunday and still consider it a good weekend. As you can probably guess, I got the car started. Or more specifically, me and my brother in law did. 

The first step was to figure out why I had no spark and no injector. Friday night I spent Googling issues, and absolutely none of the posts pointed the finger at spark plugs, HT leads, coils or ECU. As expected with an engine from the 90's, there is very little tech involved in actually burning the fuel. Same with the injectors, all it needs is a timing signal... And that's where the story begins.

Turns out the cam/crank angle sensor at the back of the engine is quite a critical piece of engineering, without it the ECU has no idea when to put fuel in or when to burn it. So my attentions started there. Thankfully with just a bit of cleaning of the contacts the engine started firing. Well, sort of. All the HT leads were generating sparks, but only header 4 was getting warm. That meant I had three cylinders that didn't have any fuel. Swapping the injector leads between 3 and 4 kept the same problem, cylinder 4 was getting fuel but 3 wasn't.

My brother in law popped over and suggested testing the injectors with a healthy dose of 12 volts from the battery. A few clicks later and it sounded like all the injectors were working, but not providing fuel. So we went for injector 4 on the wiring loom, and injector 3 being manually triggered off the battery. That improved things, to a point where injector 3 could be plugged into the loom and start running. At this point optimism was high. As far as we could tell, the action of sticking 12 volts through it repeatedly had loosened it off.

So we carried on, next was injector 2 which sprang into life, and then injector 1. So the engine was finally running on all 4, albeit a bit rough and 'tappity'. Bearing in mind that it had had an oil change but the engine hadn't been run, I suspect the first few seconds of running had simply filled the filter and the overall oil level was a bit low. So job number 1, top up the oil.

The engine started to get warm, so bearing in mind the water circuit was still empty at that point, it was turned off and the water filled up. Several burps later and a bit more engine running, we had a warm radiator and a temperature gauge registering mid point. And no leaks!

Ah, on the subject of gauges, they all work! Rev counter was the first to spring into life, swiftly followed by oil pressure. Oil pressure started high but then dropped down to midpoint. I have no idea whether that's good or not but it sort of makes sense.

Water temperature took a bit longer to wake up but that soon got up to mid point and held itself there. The last one was the speedo, and putting it in gear while the engine was running showed that was ok. It also proved the prop shaft and diff worked, which is another good sign.

The last thing on the dash was the battery light, I forgot it the first time round but went back to it later and could see it went out when the engine was running. That means the engine is charging, and more importantly my wiring was good! So now I can confidently secure the wiring in place and know there's no more work to be done. I'll also secure the battery in place as that's all good as well. Oh, apart from the terminal covers, I still need to design and print those.

That just leaves the brake fluid indicator light to be checked after the fluid is filled.

As with all my weekend work though, this one raised a few more jobs to be done;

1. Fix the earths on the front. It looks like two of the earths were wired a bit tight, and at some point they've caught on the hinge and pulled themselves apart. I need to cut them back, splice in a longer earth, and get things back together again.
2. Sort out the fuel pump. As I found last week, the fuel pump runs opposite to the chinglish instructions that came with it. So now the pump is the right way round, the wiring needs to be sorted.
3. Injector seals. I'm tempted to replace the injector seals, they're £20 for a set and would make things a bit better for not much money. 
4. Along with injector seals, I need to get the injector wiring back in place after the fault-finding.  Not difficult but still another job to deal with.
5. Steering cowl/shroud. That's in progress and probably today's job I think.

And that leaves the wheel arches. Even with fibreglass, filler, all manner of adhesives, they're still not as strong as I'd like. Opening the bonnet I managed to ping another one so it's slightly detached. So once again I'm back to 3D printing some L shaped brackets that will be bonded in place. That will be a much sturdier fixing. Four per corner, I just need to measure the angles for the prints. Then I'll cut back the sections where they'll go, and get them put in. 

So today is going to be lots of drawing and printing. But I don't mind, I have a running car! Woohoo!

(And as a footnote, the exhaust growl is spot on, although I am paranoid it's possibly a bit loud. Without a DB meter I won't be able to find out, and since it's raining at the moment, I can't try one of those Android apps to give me an indication of where it is). 

More arches, handbrake, seatbelt, bonnet etc

Turns out when there's just a snag list left it gets difficult to post something on just one subject. So this is a bit of a mix of tasks.

Firstly the handbrake. The new cable arrived and... well basically it was completely different! Shorter sleeve, longer cable, narrower ends that wouldn't fit in the bracket, basically completely useless if it had been going on the Seat Cordoba it was designed for. Thankfully all I needed was the inner cable, so a quick swap around got me back to a working cable.

Following recommendations from the Locostbuilder lot, I went for a 'non solder ferrule', basically a screw threaded sleeve with a hole in. I went for the DIY option as I didn't think any online were really up to the task (they were more like bike brake cables than anything that would hold a car). Once I'd got the bits and put it together, I found I had to pull everything tight to get it bolted in place. Not a biggie, more or less inline with the rest of the car. Ten minutes of swearing and plier-wielding got me this;

The ferrule and bolt extend 10mm either side of the bracket so they're not going to come loose. And the cable is clamped from both sides so is secure. Once the caliper side and handbrake itself were adjusted I was able to apply braking force with five clicks of the handbrake. I think any tighter the calipers would start to drag, but five clicks seems good enough. Of course, it has to actually pass the brake test but given I was able to wrench on the handbrake without the ferrule budging I'm happy that it's now complete.

The final job on the handbrake cable was to fix it in place, I've added a bracket to one of the clips holding the brake line in place so that's not moving. I've not secured it anywhere else though, the stiffness of the cable doesn't allow it to move at all. 

Next job, seats and seatbelts. First off I've made a boo-boo, I've used up the seat bolts! I had to get some more longer ones, because by the time it gets through the seat, the frame, under the car, through several washers and a nyloc, there wasn't enough exposed thread. I've got some longer bolts now, but there is a small fly in the ointment...

I got the seatbelt bolted up;

The shoulder fixing actually worked well with the edge protector. I'm not clamping directly on to the protector, there is actually a washer and a collar inside the fixing. However it's such tight tolerances that the fixing doesn't turn, I might add one more washer just to stop it catching on the protector.

The second belt fixing looks fine on the inside transmission tunnel, apart from it being a pain to bolt up it seems happy where it is.

The fly in the ointment comes from the belt clip on the outside. As you can see from the photos there's zero clearance between the seat and the side. While this shouldn't be a problem itself (the seat is soft after all), the seat frame is catching on the buckle. Even if Mr IVA was OK with it (the seat wouldn't move that often) I'm not happy.

However it appears that it just needs the seat lifting a little to clear the belt clip, and the belt clip itself needs to be solidly mounted (rather than using a collar to allow it to turn). I've cut some 5mm plate spacers to go under the seat rails, along with the longer bolts that I had to order anyway should put the seat a little higher and clear the belt. I did need to check the seat belt position though, hence the black box in the above pictures. The shoulder strap needs to be a certain distance above that reference point, thankfully I'm about 50mm clear so an extra 5mm on seat height won't affect things. 

The next subject is the overflow pipe for the engine cooling;

Not exactly exciting, it's sharing the cable clips I've used for the wiring. Metal plates bolted to the engine and printed brackets to keep them secure and abrasion free. I'm happy the engine wiring and cooling is now IVA friendly, I have a few more brackets to fix in place but that won't be difficult. 

While I was taking pictures I realised I'd not taken any of the bonnet position brackets;

The three corner brackets maintain the profile of the bonnet against the body, and the bottom one is a slider so as the bonnet comes down, the loose sides get pushed out and into position. And talking about positioning;

This is a rubber handle to hold the bonnet in place, with this engaged the bonnet is quite tight and rigid which is a good thing. It needs a rubber trim along the edge just to hold it a bit tighter, but at least that's all set. Well, it would be if I could find the other one!! I can't find the passenger side one, it'll be 'safe' somewhere. Shouldn't be difficult to fit once I find it.

And so to the nightmare of the current work, these blasted arches;

Trying to apply fibreglass upside down meant I got more on me than on the arch! I've managed to get several layers on both sides, and it 'looks' strong enough but I'm really not convinced it's hard wearing. The passenger side in particular seems to crack really easily. It doesn't help that the bonnet flexes, the edge is quite narrow, the aforementioned 'upside-down-ness' of it all. It'll get through IVA but may be the first thing that needs 'repair', I'll keep a roll of duck tape handy in case something goes missing on a drive! Long term I think it might call for some more printed brackets for stronger support, a bit like what the wire does now but a bit 'more'.

The rears are actually behaving themselves just with the fibre reinforced filler. Part of that I suspect is because the body is so much more rigid, so I'm tempted to just add another layer of the filler and smooth it flat. 

I think that's all the little jobs I've done over the last few days. Many of the jobs need repeating on the passenger side (I have a tendency to do work on the more accessible side because getting to the passenger side usually needs the car wheeled out of the garage). I still need to start the car and check it runs. I need to fill the fluids (brake/clutch fluid and coolant). I do need to find some black paint for under the bonnet, that should be a lot easier to work with than the car paint that will be visible. 

Arches first step

 As it turns out, sitting on the couch knowing I could be in the garage was a big incentive for me to go do stuff! Admittedly it wasn't all successful but it was still progress.

First was the seatbelt mounting cover, I had printed them in the week but not taken any photos;

I think they work really well, all radiused edges and the same thickness as a washer. Whether they'll hold up to abuse is another question, but once the hole is drilled and the seatbelt is bolted in place I'll be able to see more. I still don't know whether to have it solidly bolted or with a collar so it turns freely, but I can try both. 

Next small job was testing the edge trim;

OMG was this horrible to fit!! I think it's because the fibreglass thickness is uneven, but this took far too much effort to fit. It looks 'ok', but it doesn't fit smoothly, particularly behind the seat. Having said that, the same stuff applied to the arches looks really good;

The curve I decided on for aesthetics also appears to be within the bend range of the trim. In addition, with it being metal with a consistent width, it went on far better. I'm tempted to go with a few drops of glue particularly on the ends, just for added security, but I'm happy with that.

I guess that leads me on to the arches. As mentioned the GRP was not happy having to bend 180 degrees, so the plan was to use some reinforced filler to make a better angle. It actually worked really well in my opinion, bonding well to both surfaces and creating a nice base for the GRP. 

It needs a quick sand before the GRP can go on top, but this on it's own has made the arches feel really solid so I'm definitely on to a winner here. The rears were similar, although that's only a 90 degree bend to deal with. All four corners are now waiting for the last step.

And then the final task was to get the rear calipers fitted. The arches needed the wheels removed for access so while they were off I put the calipers on. This was certainly the most eventful part of the day. Turns out the handbrake cables go almost directly vertical which was unexpected. Considering I needed to change the routing of the cables anyway this isn't really an issue, but it does change my plans for the fixings. So that's another task added to the snag list.

The far more pressing issue was the brake line itself;

The flexi hose also goes vertical, and as can be seen on the picture it gets friendly with the wheel before it heads to the car!! I have a feeling the original MX5 may have used right angled connectors for this very reason.  Still, there was a pretty easy fix, just point it down instead;

This works well and keeps the flexi away from everything important. Ignore the caliper end, it looks like it's rubbing on the caliper but it's only because the bolt isn't fully tightened. The flexi is stiff enough to respond well to bolt angles so won't be difficult to fix. 

And now on to the bad news of the weekend, the loss of the front handbrake cable. I started as I had planned, to create a U shape with a ferrule. It looked like it was going to be very strong and secure, until I tried applying the handbrake. Then even after clamping the ferrule the cable still wanted to pull out. A quick check on locostbuilders suggested a blob of weld. Unfortunately while I got a blob of weld on the wire, it make the wire so brittle that the whole thing just snapped off. 

So I've ordered a replacement cable (three times more expensive this time round) and some solderless cable nipples. More specifically a length on internally threaded rod that will have a hole drilled in the side, the cable pushed through and a pair of M6 bolts clamping it in place. That should be a strong enough fixing for a handbrake. I need to make the hole every so slightly large (10mm instead of 9.5mm) but that should contribute to the strength and security of the cable. I could even double up on the fixing if I want to follow my standard 'belt and braces' approach.

Overall a mixed weekend, but considering I wasn't planning on doing anything it was pretty productive. On to more fibreglassing now, then that's the arches all done and ready for paint and trim. 

Halt in the work

Every year since I've started this build, I've been able to spend Fathers day in the garage. Even if things were going really pear shaped, or family was taking priority, I got Fathers day in the garage. Except for this year.

Nope, this year I will be sitting on my back side, doing almost nothing, all because of a bad tooth. Or more specifically a removed bad tooth. Being drugged up on painkillers isn't too bad, but busting a blood clot because I was leaning over the seat isn't going to do me much good. So I've got a couple of weeks/weekends of downtime. 

I'll have to see what 3D prints I need, working in front of a laptop is probably the most productive I can be. Or I might build some Lego cars, I seem to have a backlog. I did also want to learn a bit of Blender. 

Post sticky weekend

 Once again a bit of a mixed bag. The rain briefly held off long enough to do some back end jobs, but not long enough to do anything proper. Not surprising really.

So from the 'sticky weekend' list:

All the arches are now temporarily fixed in place;

As expected they look a bit 'stuck on' at the moment, basically because they are! Hopefully when they're finished and painted they'll look a bit more like they should be there. I also cut the underlying arches on the front to give my wheels a bit more clearance. And this is where it 'deviated from the plan'.

So fibreglassing 101 includes the line 'don't try to fibreglass round a sharp corner'. And with me leaving a 10mm lip of old body, I'm trying to do exactly that! Of course it failed miserably, it didn't bend round the corner so I couldn't get it to attach to both the body and the arch. It basically lifted and created a bubble between the resin and the mat. To be fair, it's decently strong and it did adhere to both surfaces, so I'm on the right track. I just need to improve that one edge. I've ordered some reinforced filler to go in the gap and create a decent surface for the fibreglass to go on to. I'll probably have to sand the existing stuff back as it looks awful. Then a few layers of new stuff for strength. 

Overall though I'm happy that they'll fix in place well, and I won't have to do anything too clever post-bonding. I did try an experiment with resin on a spare piece of aluminium;

And it turns out this is a really strong fixing. Don't get me wrong, I think I can still separate the metal from the resin if I use some tools, but I was able to bend the aluminium and it stayed stuck so I'm happy with the approach.

The brackets and sliders for the bonnet are now glued on and work well. There is an occasional 'hook' on the passenger side that I can't quite tell what's happening, but that seems to be wearing down so eventually it'll sort itself out. I'm very happy with the bonnet though, it sits really well and just needs the tie downs to make it permanent.

The gearshift gaiter is also done, again very happy with how that turned out. It's now properly fixed to the surround and when it bolts back together I'm expecting it to work fine.

The roll bar trims are in place, another success. It reminds me very much of the trim pieces you see on Cobras, and for me to end up with something that normally lives on a 60K+ car means I must have done something right! 

And now the seat belts. I remember saying that I'd be really annoyed if they don't work? Well, I'm not 100% happy with them. The reel fitted well, I'm very happy with that and it extends and retracts as expected. A sharp pull locks it, all that funky stuff. I had to make some sleeves for the other fixing as the holes are 15mm and the bolts are only 10mm. Fortunately I had some matching tube and after some time with an angle grinder I had some appropriate spacers. I hadn't really planned on doing flexible fixings but it just worked out that way. 

The first struggle I had was getting the seats back in. With the seat belt buckle in place I couldn't just drop the seats in, there's just not enough room between the seat sides and the body. A bit of careful angling of the seat managed to get the seat in place. The other side wasn't as bad, that just needed the seatbelt pulled in front of the seat. At rest I like the way the belt sits, it's easy to access even when retracted.

When I'm in the seat it's slightly different. The height and position of the upper mount means the belt sits very close to my neck. A lot closer than I had expected. It's definitely a comfort thing, I might need to add a pad or something post IVA. While I'm on the subject of IVA though, I did check and the regs say that it must not slip off the shoulder. It's definitely not going to do that! I think overall it does it's job as a seat belt, it doesn't pull tight against the seat so I won't fall foul of the 'structural seat' rule. It's easy to apply and can be removed with one hand as per the book. 

Getting the seats bolts down is certainly going to be a challenge, and the movement fore and aft is going to be even more restricted. Not that that is a problem, the runners are mainly there to allow ease of fixing rather than proper adjustment. After all I doubt my wife is going to be driving it anytime soon! On the subject of fixing, the seatbelt wasn't actually that difficult to fix. With the centre panels removed getting to the back was pretty easy, and holding a spanner in place with a ratchet in the car made things simple to tighten. The seats have a bit more distance between front and back, but fixing a spanner in place inside the car and a ratchet outside should sort it. 

New jobs added (after all, it wouldn't be a productive weekend if I didn't identify more work to be done!):

• Redo the upper seat belt trim piece. With the moving belt guide the old trim piece is no good, it's too tall and doesn't functionally work (even if it is an IVA pass). I want to make a new trim piece that covers the top surface but leaves a gap for the upper washer. That will go on first, then the belt guid will bolt in place, then there will be a nut cover for on top. It's a bit more of a complex design but shouldn't take too long to create. It might take a bit more effort to print, I'll have to see what to do there. The current trim pieces were printed end on, I might try and do the same.
• Sand back the fibreglass bubbles and apply filler as required before trying again.
• Fill the gap in the handbrake with JB Weld. I need to do this before I permanently fix the handbrake as it needs to come out of the car. 
• Tidy up the bottom lip on the front. I think it's just the standard 1.5mm radius requirement, so five minutes with some sandpaper will sort this one. It will need trimming first though, particularly one corner where it's not particularly attractive. I'll jack the car up and possible get the laser level on it for reference. 

A sticky weekend

 I've just seen the weather forecast, and it looks like the engine start is postponed yet again. I do want to plan this weekend though, just so I know what options I have.

And that comes to the subject, because I think glue and other adhesives will form most of this weekends work. From the snag list;

• Cut the front wheel arches as required / Fibreglass in the aluminium mudguards. I've been putting this off for a while but it's about time I just got stuck into it. I do want to see whether fibreglass resin attaches to aluminium though, that will make or break this plan. If it doesn't stick then I have some extra work to do.
• Glue on the printed brackets and sliders for the bonnet. Nice and easy for these, although it does need a bit of finesse for the sliders. They've been printed, they fit well, they need to be screwed and glued in place.
• Glue on the gearshift gaiter so it doesn't become unattached. This could be tricky, I might take my time with this one. Tiny areas to glue and very visible results so I don't want to get it wrong.
• Bolt on the rubber tie downs on the corners. This could be a lengthy task but also fairly enjoyable. Of course the main problem is working space on the passenger side, but I can deal with that. 
• Paint the body. Not anytime soon, still undecided whether IVA is first.
• Reattach all the trim pieces (roll bar, seat corners, seat belt edges). More gluing, again not difficult but will need some finesse. I was doubting whether these should be done before paint, but I could say that about a few things and end up not going anywhere.
• Bolt in seats. Ah yes, that could easily go to the top of the list. It's going to be fiddly but I really want to see whether my plan works for the runners. If not there could be some more work to be done.
• Bolt in seat belts. Similar to the seats, they can go in now and I can see whether they work effectively. I've done so much work on seat, belts and positioning that I am going to be really annoyed if they don't work. 
• Fit mirrors. These can go on although I just know that if I do, I'll spent the next few weeks bumping into them!
• Add boot lock strike plate. While I don't really need to be properly outside for this, I would be working at the open garage door which is going to get wet.
• Add boot lining. Nope, not needed for IVA so I'm going to leave this one completely. 

That's got to be enough stuff to get on with, I don't see how I can run out of stuff. I am going to print this list and pin it on the board though. 

Weekend update (exhaust and handbrake fix)

 Well, more of a midweek update as I didn't really get much done on the weekend. It was the kit car show on Saturday, a great turn out and it felt like more than previous years which is always a good sign. Lots of cars for sale though, either it was the same as previous years and I've never really paid attention, or there are genuinely more people selling up. 

So that was my Saturday, then a bit of slab work kept me busy in the afternoon. Well, technically that same work kept me busy Sunday because I managed to drop a slab on my foot and not be able to do anything too heavy on Sunday!

Anyway, enough of that for now, on to the exhaust. As I may have mentioned before, the headers wouldn't come off without me disconnecting the rest of the exhaust, so that's what I did yesterday (Tuesday). Once all the gaskets and sealants were in place I could bolt it all back up. For the most part it worked well, but now I can see how rigid it is when bolted up I do have my doubts on how long it will survive without a flexi section. It's not difficult to put a flexi in place, the layout does accommodate one inside the engine bay but it would mean two more joints. I'll add that to the post-IVA list maybe. 

In the meantime, tonight's exercise will be the handbrake cable. The plan will be to make the cable as loose as possible, then mark where it hits the balance bracket. I'll then make a loop in the cable and clamp one of the ferrules on to it. Two would be more secure but there's not enough room, using just one ferrule means I can squeeze it inside the bracket and not compromise any gaps.

That should leave me with as much flexibility to tighten it up as possible, after all the cables will only stretch over time. They're not going to shrink. 

It does mean that the self adjustment may not work as that relies on the ratchet mechanism working in the caliper. However even on the stock MX5's that auto adjustment rarely works, and most of 'the internet' manually adjust the calipers directly before adjusting the cable. Not a difficult process, just 'old school'. 

And of course, there is something in the IVA manual about it;

A parking brake lever, actuating linkage, cable or associated component must not be obstructed in its travel nor foul parts of the vehicle 

And;

Parking brake reserve travel and locking positions are required to allow components such as brake cables to stretch without diminishing park brake performance.

This could be a fail point if it's judged to be too close. The other option I've been thinking about is a spacer on the handbrake cables. This is where they're currently mounted;

It's a simple bracket, reinforced by the folds. If I use an appropriately cut and drilled piece of steel, I can bring those back 20-25mm or so. A couple of tacks to hold it in place and that would be fine. And just typing I think I'll do that anyway. As with everything on this car, I'm always thinking about keeping very clear of IVA rules. Moving it back that far will mean the cable can travel as much as it wants (the caliper itself will stop it operating any further). 

And I've just realised there's an issue with that. The cables use clips to retain them in the hole. If I move the hole I still need to be able to retain the cables. 

(quick dive into the garage...)

A quick measurement of the bracket and the cable gives me some options. The widest part of the cable is 25mm, that goes on the outside. There is then 13mm on the narrow part and 19.5mm on the last part. So whatever I use for the bracket has to accommodate a 20mm hole. In terms of thickness I'd estimate 2mm maximum, which is fortunate as most of my metalwork is also 2mm max!

The bracket is 30mm deep so that would be good for the 25mm square section, maybe with a bit of profiling on each side. For the clips I would simply cut out an access hole above both cables, while that might make the cable clips difficult to remove at least I'd be able to get them in there in the first place. Having said that, this extra bracket needs to resist compression forces rather than tension, so I'm wondering whether bolting it in place would make it simpler. Then at least the whole unit could be removed with the cables when it came to unclipping them. It would also mean not having to weld anything near my newly upholstered seats. There's enough room for an M8 bolt with washers so no danger of it being weak. 

That's that then, a small bracket to cut and fix, then the whole adjustment issue goes away. And to think, a lot of this is caused by wanting an 'invisible' handbrake! I was keeping an eye out at the kit car show for other cars that have no visible handbrake, I couldn't see anything like what I'm doing. The closest I could find was on a couple of trikes where the handbrake was a pull handle. I've seen that before where it locks in position and it's twisted to release. That was still visible though, less intrusive than a handbrake but still not 'clean' like I want it. I should have looked for early Caterhams, although just checking the site plan there wasn't a Caterham stand. 

Oh, last thought before I post this. This whole process will move the sleeves back an inch or so, but the brackets on the cable are fixed. They should go into welded brackets before heading to the calipers, I may have to review that routing. It's not like the speedo cable that has to be gently curved into position, but I still don't want them pushed into unusual shapes on their way to the calipers. I could always cross them over to reduce the bend tightness, I'll see what I need to do once the bracket is done. 

(Later that day). Well, that plan failed. By the time I'd cut away enough metal to fit in the gap, with the correct holes and big enough slots for the clips, I ended up with such a weakened part that it wouldn't have worked! I think the failure was right at the beginning though, trying to cut it from 25mm RHS. It might have been rigid, but having to remove three sides from a four sided tube was never going to work. 

So the new plan will be a metal plate bolted to the front of the same bar, with a reinforcement at the bottom against the old bracket. The same approach though, fix the cables to the plate then bolt the plate to the car.

One thing I did see was that crossing the cables won't make much difference, the next bracket isn't very far away so it won't move by a significant amount. 

(Update from the 9th). After the first failure, I went uber simple and just used a drilled plate.

As mentioned I could only use 2mm because of the fixing clips, but it's plenty strong enough. I stayed with the idea of clipping the cables in place first then bolting it to the car, with three bolts going to the original cross member and the original fixing plate. The last picture shows a much better 'home' position for the plate, with plenty of space for adjustment and slack on the cables. Just one last job to do here, fix the front cable. That needs the handbrake in it's final position, which needs the JB weld alteration done to get rid of the sharp edge. 

Handbrake

This again is more for my own benefit and possibly for Mr IVA man. As I spotted in previous work the cable for the handbrake meets in a deliberately confined space. This is for strength mainly, I needed to make sure that when I pull on the cable it actually operates.

The problem is that it might be too tight. With the cables and balance bar in place, it looks like this;

That doesn't leave much for tension. In fact, it's about 20mm;

Beyond that the handbrake will stop but the brakes won't apply any further. With the cable attached to the handbrake, I had a look at what sort of movement I'm dealing with. With the grey tape in the above picture being 'at rest', I applied 12 clicks;

That's around 17mm. Given handbrakes need to be on full lock with somewhere between 3 and 8 clicks, I should have plenty of space to operate. 

I will try all this once the calipers are actually mounted but I think it should work quite nicely. That's assuming I can adjust them correctly to start with to only need 17mm of movement.

Photos of current tasks

 These are pictures from the snag list work, partly to show what I've been up to but also for Mr IVA if he needs more visibility of what I've done.

Propshaft installed and nicely clear of fuel and brake lines, with new bolts and nyloc nuts for the diff end;

Fuel system plumbed in. Most of the connections were barbed or had a flange, so those got one fuel clip. The main run from front to back was just on plain pipe though, so those got two clips each end. 

The routing left two fuel pipes going over the edge of the tank which I'm not happy about;

As I type I'm 3D printing a bracket that will hold the pipes in place and I'll glue it to the tank. 

Front suspension all bolted up and tested for full lock, the brake pipe looks like it's floating but actually it works as expected, staying away from any moving part. Hopefully I can get the same freedom of movement on the back;

Steering bolted up;

As mentioned earlier in the build, the use of an exhaust clamp and slotted bolt holes for the top portion of the steering assembly is intentional and carried over from the fixings on the original MX5. The collapsible section of the steering column is between the two, so it's to allow the whole thing to deform correctly. If the driver hits the steering wheel the upper bolts will disengage, and if the steering rack is pushed up from the front of the car, the clamp will allow it to slide. On top of that there is still the ten degree angle on the UJ which allows for deflection on impact.