As Rick presses on with his buggy and he is now clear about how he will do it, he knows that he has enough of most things to make a second buggy for me. In all things to do with cars I am a numpty and despite repeated attempts to enlighten me the descriptor remains appropriate.
The following buggy diary will therefore be couched numpty style.
Today Rick and I went to see a guy called Nick Round who had a shortened beetle chassis for sale. Rick had noticed it on ebay and asked if we might visit to have a proper look. All I can say is that we were there for a very long time whilst Rick had a good look at it and decided to buy it. It has been shot-blasted and painted black so it looks very nice and smooth and shiny.
Today Rick and I swept out the garage and put up some trestles for the arrival of the chassis which Nick had agreed to deliver. He duly arrived and said chassis was laid out reverently on the trestles. Rick paid him the money and he handed over the log book. The registration for my buggy will be GMH 251J (Golfing Mike went to a Hotel with Juliet which cost him £251). It's going to be Signal Red. When Nick left I got the hoover and lovingly sucked up all the dust that was on it so it looks really shiny now!
Today Rick and I spent a few hours trawling through all of our buggy photos to try and decide what style of wheels would suit my buggy. We decided that of the ones will fit, and are available in the right sizes (7 inch rear and 4 inch front), the ones that look best are BTR Racing wheels from McKenzies in the USA.
Today, even though it has been damp and blowy, Rick and I have started work on my buggy chassis. First thing that we did was take a look at those holes on the sticky out things at the back end of the chassis that the spring plates attach to. They all had bits of shot-blast and paint in the threads so we used an M10 tap which was quite difficult to get through on a couple of the holes but once we had done them a bit of oil on a bolt and it went through like a dream! Next we scraped the rust and bits out of the torsion tube so that we can Waxoyl it. I looked down the tube with the aid of a torch and could see the serrated bit in the middle where the two bars are held and meet. We got the torsion bars and had a go at fitting them in and pulling them out which, once we got going, and with a great deal of greasing and re-greasing the metal splines on the ends, we managed to achieve with relative ease. Rick explained how the torsion bars need to be fitted so that they are both in the right orientation for the spring plates to be in the correct position. The number of splines differs between the inner and outer ends so some adjustment was necessary in order to get both ends right. Then it was time for me to cook the tea and I left Rick to play with his new monster brakes.
Today, Rick Waxoyled the torsion tube, torsion bar and inside spring plate. He fitted the torsion bar, spring plate, spring plate bushes and torsion bar end plate with new bolts. He also adjusted the spring plate angle to 9.5 Degrees on both sides. I was only there for the last part of this as I was putting away the shopping! It was a very cold day and I didn't last long so when I went inside to make the tea Rick carried on and fitted the rear trailing arms, pivot bolts, pivot bushes and new spring plate bolts. He also fitted the rear shock absorbers with new bolts.
This morning, after watching numerous episodes of Grand Designs in bed, we went into Bristol to GSF car parts to buy rear wheel bearing outer oil seals, front/rear gearbox mounts and a shift coupler. Next we headed out of Bristol up the M5 to VolksMagic to buy 2nd hand rear wheel bearing caps. Rick measured these to make sure they were the right ones because the ones we had only just didn't fit and we didn't want to end up with 2 more of those! When we got home we cleaned up rear wheel bearing caps, replaced oil seals, re-tapped threaded holes, which felt like it took bloody ages and was extremely dull but at last we fitted the bearing caps with new bolts which went through like a dream. Whilst we were doing this Rick was testing me on my car parts vocabulary - I'm not very good, but sometimes I'm on the right track. I cleaned up rear gearbox cradle for painting by first rubbing it down so that we got rid of all the dust and loose paint. Then I got to have a go with Rick's parts washer! (This item cost him dearly, as it now stands where my freezer used to be. Now I have a new frost free freezer with drawers in the kitchen.) The parts washer has definite novelty value and is very useful when you want to degrease stuff.
It was a late start, but really we only had it in mind to get the rear brakes on and to have a go at assembling everything inside them to make sure that the drums fitted. Thankfully there was no more bloody tapping to do! Whilst Rick was working out which way round everything went I stood and watched and I can honestly say I didn't have a clue what he was talking about... As he assembled them though, I began to see what he meant; a bit of practical implementation does wonders for my understanding. I even helped a bit! We got everything in; levers, springs etc and Rick explained about the handbrake cable and where that would go and that's going to be our next job. Lastly we got the drums and put them on and they fitted like a glove - the feeling was divine. Rick put the little cap/covers over the holes in the backplate (where you can see the brake linings and also the adjusters) and that was us finished for the day, which was just in time for me to go and make the tea and for Rick to talk to his Dad on the phone - brilliant timing.
I cleaned gearbox cradle with cellulose thinners and scraped soft paint off. Wire brushed and rubbed it down before painting with Hammerite also painted handbrake cable retaining clips after removing rust with Metal-Ready. Tapped frame-head bolt holes with M12x1.5 tap. Removed front axle from Rick's buggy and attached it to mine. Rick made some crush tubes for master cylinder mounting bolts and fitted the master cylinder.
I know it's a Monday, but we are on leave so we thought we might be able to plod on with the things that need doing to my buggy whilst Rick's is at ZaNNetec having its major surgery. (Good job it's only down the road so we can go and visit it!)
The front beam currently attached to my chassis does not have the necessary fittings for the steering stuff but we have another one that does, so we decided that we would rub this one down, paint it, and fit it to my chassis. It has been changed from left to right hand drive so Rick used an angle grinder to get the left hand paraphernalia off. I was distinctly worried by this and had to wear some badly scratched protective glasses that were very difficult to keep on my nose with my glasses underneath... I was also scared of the sparks, and whilst they were not hot, they felt like tiny pin pricks when they landed on your skin. I was also wearing a fleece that I thought might catch fire and melt on me, but Rick assured me it would be ok and thankfully it was. Once he had got the main bits off we used a file to get rid of the sharp stumpy bits left and we were ready to go!
We 'set to' with vigour - rubbing down the factory coating in order for us to paint it with Hammerite black satin paint. It's fiendishly difficult to paint with black; even putting up the extra lights didn't seem to help much... Anyway, we did one coat and left it to dry. Suffice to say, when we looked at it once it was touch dry we could see a few areas for improvement! The second coat was even more difficult though, as the application seemed to melt the coat below, so everything felt 'draggy' and 'sticky'. The added consideration here is that the instructions say 'apply sparingly' and you can definitely see when you haven't done this as the paint sags! You are stuck, therefore, between a sticky and a saggy place - yuk.
This is going on a bit isn't it?
After two brushed coats it looked pretty bad, so we went to buy a rattle can of the same paint to see if spraying it would be any better. The first coat made it look a lot better but two coats and a few hours later when we looked at it, one of the ends looked 'crackled', as if the paint was having some sort of reaction and looked as if it might come off. We decided to let it harden for a while and bought another can of the spray paint to try to cover up the crackling. Rick rubbed it down gently after a couple of days and put on another coat... and then another. It looks a lot better and hopefully the repeated layers will by now have done the job. It's still hanging in the garage as I speak and one must duck around it to come in the back door, as it is hanging from the beams...
Today we carried on with some work that Rick started yesterday. The front beam for my buggy has torsion leaves, that when laid together look like a solid bar but in fact they're not. We had to take the ones out of the other beam, clean them down, re-grease them and lay them back together and put them into the tube the right way round so that they fit exactly in the right orientation. It's the sort of job that anyone who didn't like getting glue on their fingers when they were kids would hate to do now. There was grease everywhere! We succeeded in getting the plates into position by using a method which involved holding them in place with each other with cable ties and then wire threaded through the cable ties so that they could be pulled off at the end. It was a remarkably successful operation on the whole although it did take us a little while to get them in the right place in the tube. Once we'd done that Rick produced a grease gun - it's a fantastic contraption with a very specific job. It fits exactly over the grease nipples on the tubes, which have an opening controlled by a ball bearing; the pressure of the grease from the gun enables the nipple to take this grease into the tube. You do this until the tube is full - and you can tell that it's full when it starts to leak out round the seals at the end! My hand ached from the levering of the gun but in all it was a very satisfying job.
We decided that before we attached anything to the beam it might be a good idea to fit the beam to the chassis, which we duly did. We also fitted the trailing arms, with ball joints, spindles, brake backing plates and drums. This was a good place to stop today as I needed to get some work done, so that's it until next time. The dirty gearbox waiting to be cleaned will have to just wait a bit longer...
When Tina had gone, I carried on a bit and fitted the handbrake cables and the handbrake to measure how much the cables need to be shortened by. This involved cleaning the rust out of the tubes in the chassis with an old handbrake inner cable on a power drill and flaring the tube ends with an old handbrake outer cable end fitting and a big hammer. It turns out that the handbrake cables need shortening by 36.5cm or 14 3/8", so I'll take them to SpeedyCables next Friday. After that I fitted the flexible brake hoses and re-tapped the remaining threaded holes in the chassis, to remove traces of rust, blasting media and paint. I also put rubber grommets in all of the chassis openings that we're not going to use, to keep the water out.
Today Rick sorted out a list of VW specific bits that we don't have and need to complete the next few steps on my buggy. He phoned around a few places to see who has them. Everyone said no, except for VolksMagic, who said they'd call back later but they didn't.
Rick hassled VolksMagic several times on the phone to see if they had the bits we need - they're very busy on a Saturday. It turned out that they did have the parts we needed, so we drove up to collect them. We got a steering box clamp, master cylinder posh rod, accelerator lever cover, front and rear chassis inspection plates, steering pitman arm and front wheel spindle lock-nuts and washers. We also needed seat frames and wiper mechanism & motor but couldn't get them.
Today, we went to Worksop to collect spare AM code gearbox for both buggies that Rick bought on eBay for £16. Also got a new steering damper from the same guy. It was a long way to go and was made worse by terrible traffic due to the bank holiday weekend but they were still cheap parts even with the high cost of diesel.
Rick used a wire brush and Metal-Ready to clean up the parts from VolksMagic and then spray painted them with a Hammerite satin black rattle-can.
Rick fitted the steering box to the front axle beam. The pitman arm was then fitted to the steering box with a new M12 x 1.5 x 40mm (metric fine) bolt. The track rod ends were then fitted to the to track rods and then to the pitman arm and wheel spindles/steering knuckles.
The newly shortened handbrake cables were then fitted and adjusted. They may not be short enough by about an inch, as they are fully adjusted already :-(
Rick then made up the first brake pipe (rear off-side) from 3/16" copper pipe with M10 x 1.0 brass fittings.
After our weekend guests left, Rick made the following brake pipes: Front master cylinder to residual pressure valve; Front residual pressure valve to T-piece; Front T-piece to near-side; Front T-piece to off-side; Rear near-side; Rear master cylinder to residual pressure valve and made a start on the rear residual pressure valve to T-piece (long front to rear tube) by cutting the pipe and threading it through the tunnel from rear to front.
It was a nice day today, so Tina spent most of it out in the garden digging the vegetable patch, as it has become a bit overgrown. My buggy's still at ZaNNetec for cage fabrication, so I spent the day on my own in the garage again working on Tina's buggy. I completed the residual pressure valve to T-piece (long front to rear tube) and the rear centre section brake pipes today. That completes the brake pipes. I Also removed the old rusty steel fuel line from inside the tunnel - which took some doing, as it is clamped at the front and the rear.
I then removed the front brake drums to install the front brakes - the near-side drum left its inner bearing and oil seal behind :-(
I torqued the back plates down to 36 ftlb with new allen bolts and then torqued the wheel cylinders down to 18 ftlb, again with new allen bolts.
Today, Chad kindly delivered Tina's lovely new shiny red buggy body, which meant that I had to make room for it by getting the Fugitive out of the garage :-( Unfortunately, as I drove it to my council garage in Chipping Sodbury it rained heavily and I got soaked!
Today, Tina spent the day in the garden again, whilst I fitted the front brakes and the drums. I then attached a set of four spare wheels, so it's now a proper rolling chassis and ready to take off the trestles to stand on its own wheels on the floor :-) I also tidied up all the stuff (tools and other junk) that had accumulated on the chassis (it was a really handy table!) ready to lift it off the trestles and onto its wheels tomorrow - if we can get the boys and some of their mates round to help us lift it.
I also took Tina's 7 inch rear BTR Racing wheels to Griffs Reality Motorworks to be polished and then clear powder coated - we're still waiting for McKenzies to get some 4 inch front BTR Racing wheels in stock for her front wheels...
Today we tried to get in touch with Dominic to help get the buggy on the ground but to no avail :-( In the end we gave up waiting for him and Tina and I lowered the buggy onto the ground ourselves. This entailed me lifting one end of the chassis whilst Tina lowered the trestle at the same end a notch or two. After alternating ends a few times, the trestles were as low as they'd go and so the final phase involved lifting the chassis, kicking out the trestles and dropping the chassis to the floor. The whole process worked quite well as neither the chassis or us were damaged :-)
Once the chassis was on the ground I began to fit the body to it. The back end was no problem at all but the front was another matter altogether. I used a scissor jack to push the sides in to fit the pan but couldn't get it to fit no matter how I tried (I really wanted to avoid cutting it if at all possible) :-(
After a late start, I spent today cutting Tina's buggy body with a Dremmel tool to get it to fit on the pan. The two were not made specifically for each other and the fit at the front end, in particular, is not great. To get it to fit I ground away the lip at the bottom of the body at both the front and rear ends. After doing this, I tried fitting it to the pan again but ran out of time before I could get it bolted down properly - but it does look like it will fit OK this time :-) Hopefully I'll finish fitting it sometime this week.
I was a bit pissed off that I didn't get the body fully bolted down yesterday (that's what comes of getting up so late!) so I cracked on with it when I got home from work today. The cutting I did yesterday worked pretty well and so with the help of the scissor jack to move it around again, I was able to get it bolted down fully in a couple of hours. I hope to get started on attaching the dash board tomorrow :-)
Today I started to mount the dash board by grinding off all the imperfections on the underside mounting surface so that it fitted neatly and then putting in the five M8 mounting bolts along the front edge to secure it in place. I didn't put the rear corner mounting bolts in, as I ran out of time :-(
After making no progress for a couple of weeks, today I completed mounting the dash board by fitting a pair of M10 bolts underneath on both sides. I then fitted the screen by trimming a few millimetres off the bottom of the frame so that it sat as far down in the body as possible and then putting a couple of M8 bots through the frame and body on each side to hold it in place. After fitting the screen, I moved on to the bonnet, initially taping it in place whilst I drilled the holes for the hinges and then bolting it up and trimming the front, rear (!?!) hinge bolt so that it cleared the body when the bonnet closes. Didn't have time to start on the steering column support and column, so hope to be able to get on with that tomorrow.
Today I fitted the steering column support and trial fitted the steering column a few times. Before I can fit it permanently, I'll need to fit the seats so that I can be sure it's in the right position. From it's current location, it looks like it needs to move forward and upwards a bit, which may necessitate shortening the column slightly.
Today, we went to Griffs Reality Motorworks to collect Tina's rear 7 inch BTR Racing wheels, after they'd been polished and clear powder coated. They look really cool and should stay nice and shiny now without constant polishing. I just need to keep hassling McKenzies to get the matching 4 inch wheels for the front, as they still don't have any in stock...
Today, we went to BITS Tyres in Bristol to buy tyres for Tina's buggy. We chose 265/70R15 for the rear tyres to give the maximum possible diameter and width that will fit the buggy on the BTR Racing rims. We also chose 195/80/R15 for the front tyres, as a 195 is about the maximum width that will fit (only just!) on a 4 inch rim and a tall tyre should match the look of the rear tyres best. They are also the same size as the front tyres on my buggy, so if they turn out to be too tall, they can go on my buggy, in place of the mud terrains, for long road trips.
Today, after visiting my buggy at ZaNNetec Motorsports we took the new tyres to be fitted and balanced on the wheels and then fitted them to the car. I also ordered some longer 25mm wheel bolts from Machine7, as the stock VW ones only engage one or two threads with the drum, as the BTR Racing wheels are much thicker than stock wheels.
I was really pleased with how the rear wheel & tyre combination fits the car. There's about a quarter of an inch clearance between the tyre and the rear torsion tube, so the tyre couldn't be any taller. The tyres also just clear the return edge of the rear wheel arches, so the combination of wheel off-set and section width are spot on too :-)
Having said that, the front tyres look a bit too tall, having fitted them to Tina's buggy on a pair of stock 4 inch VW steel rims, and I suspect that once we have the 4 inch front BTR Racing wheels, we'll also need to add a spacer to push the wheels & tyres out a bit to fill the arches properly. I can't really tell for sure until I get the final wheel & tyre combination on the buggy but initial indications are not good - still, you can't win 'em all, I guess :-(
Today, I ordered the gauges for Tina's buggy from Green Gauges who are part of the CAI group. The gauges will have black faces, white lettering, red pointers and half round brushed aluminium bezels. I ordered a 4 inch speedo and 2 inch fuel gauge, oil temperature gauge, oil pressure gauge and volt meter. I also ordered a Bright6 set of warning lamps as well as VDO oil pressure and temperature senders.
In the afternoon (after we'd got up!) we went to Merlin Motorsports to by a pair of Cobra Monaco seats in black vinyl before going to see 'Mama Mia' at the cinema (which was bloody brilliant!).
Stopped at VolksMagic on the way home from a meeting in Manchester to pick up a pair of Beetle front seats with 'T' runners that are the right type to fit the seat rails on Tina's floor pan.
Dismantled the Beetle seats to remove the seat backs and the seat bases, leaving only the seat frames and runners. Test fitted them on the floor pan rails with no problems. Ordered a set of plastic inserts to go between the seat runners and the rails from VW Heritage.
Cleared out the garage to make some space to work as you couldn't move in there :-( Took a car load of junk to the dump and rearranged the remaining stuff on the shelves to make some room. Test fitted Tina's steering column and started to clean up her gearbox in the parts washer.
Drained the gearbox oil and checked it for metal swarf - not too bad - slightly metalic but nothing to worry about for a 30 year old gearbox. Removed and cleaned up the nose cone and refited it with a new gasket and hockey stick. Fitted a new front gearbox mount, which was strange, as I've never used a 3-bolt mount before.
Installed the gauges, that arrived from Greengauges this week, into the dashboard having worked out their locations and spacing using cardboard cut-outs.
Also installed the headlights from Stafford Vehicle Components onto the front wings.
Installed the BRITAX rear lights from Premier Wiring into the rear wings, having worked out their locations and spacing using more cardboard cut-outs (I like cardboard cut-outs!). This is the scariest fiberglass cutting I've done to date, I was really worried that the lights wouldn't line up properly but I think it turned out OK in the end :-)
I can't believe that it's been so long since I did anything on Tina's buggy! My only excuse is that the garage was crammed with so much stuff that it was almost impossible to do anything in there :-( However, having now sold the UVA Fugitive and got rid of a lot of associated 'stuff' in the garage and then spending a weekend tidying it up, there's no excuse any more. As well as that, the weather's warming up a bit now after an unusually cold winter. It's difficult to motivate oneself to go out in the garage, when it's below zero degrees centigrade out there! This weekend was bright and sunny and just over ten degrees and perfect for a bit of 'spannering' ;-)
I finally swapped Tina's front tyres from the stock steel rims onto their proper BTR Racing wheels after getting the wheels polished and clear coated at Griffs Reality Motorworks. Looking back through this blog makes me realise that the rear ones were fitted over 6 months ago! Getting a matching pair of front ones was a bit of a nightmare, as when we bought the rear ones, no-one in the States had any stock of 4 inch non-beadlock BTRs and this situation persisted for months on end. It was like trying to find hen's teeth and so I gave up in the end and just waited for new stock to be manufactured. Still, we got them in the end and shipped them off to Griffs for finishing. However, whilst there, someone (aka bastard!) nicked one of them! Luckily it didn't take Griffs too long to get a replacement but it did still add to the delay. Anyway, having now installed them on the car, the offset, combined with the tyre size fits the wheel arches perfectly :-) My only concern now is whether the tyre will foul the arch at full suspension compression but even if it does, I'll just drop the aspect ratio of the tyre from 80 to 70 or even 60, so it won't be a problem.
It turned out that the gearbox I started to clean up back in August was an old knackered one that I'd been given for spares... Doh! Luckily I realised before I'd done too much on it so I didn't waste too much time. I spent part of yesterday and most of today cleaning up another one that should be OK. There wasn't too much grease to get off it but there was quite a lot of corrosion, so I used a couple of wire brushes in a drill to clean it off. The drill was a new air tool that Tina bought me for Xmas and it worked really well, as they're much smaller than electric power tools and the speed is relatively low. I also used a blower on the air line to clear away the debris. Once that was done, I removed the output flanges and replaced the oil seals on both sides, which I've never done before. It went pretty smoothly but they were harder to get out than I thought they'd be, even using an oil seal removing tool, they wouldn't budge until I got the big rubber mallet out to belt it with. Conversely, the new ones went in much easier than I thought they would and the biggest pain in the arse was getting the circlips that hold the output flanges back on.
The other bit that caused me some grief was getting the clutch actuating lever off. This is held on with a small circlip and then it should just slide off. However, this one was just as stubborn as the one on my buggy was and would NOT move no matter what I did to it. In the end, I cut the return spring and dust cap off with the angle grinder and took the shaft out as far as I could with the arm still attached. I then alternately dosed it with penetrating oil, heated it to a dull red with Tina's blow torch and then cooled it down but still it wouldn't move! Finally I used a large ball joint separating 'pickle fork' tool to support the arm against the gearbox and drove the shaft out with an aluminium drift (so as not to damage the shaft) and the biggest hammer I've got. So in the end brute force and ignorance won out over skill and cunning (or maybe I just don't have enough skill and cunning...) :-(
I intended to continue with the gearbox to get it finished ready for painting this weekend but discovered on Saturday that GSF don't stock the clutch actuator shaft bushes for the larger 20mm shaft, so I had to order some from SSP. As a result, I left the gearbox for another day.
I started to prepare the stock beetle seat bases to mount Tina's seats, only to find that they position the seats far too high :-( As a result, I cut them up and removed just the runners from the frames. With the seat sat directly on top of the runners, the position was just about right with them as far back as they'd go. I tack welded a couple of bars in between them to keep them aligned and then tack welded two vertical plates to the rear ends to fit the rear seat mounting bolts. The whole thing worked out fairly well and now needs the front mountings to be made up and fitted before final welding :-)
Having had a very lazy Friday (I only just got up in time to collect Laurie from school!) I though I'd better crack on with the seat mounts today but for some reason when I got out into the garage I fancied painting the gearbox instead, so that's what I did. However, after half an hour or so outside, I wish I hadn't, 'cos it was bloody freezing and by the time I'd finished I was almost rigid and not inclined to do anything else outdoors, so I went in and Tina and I went to see 'Watchmen' at the cinema - much more fun :-).
Having almost froze yesterday whilst painting the gearbox, I put on a ridiculous number of clothes today and moved the gearbox into the workshop and out of the wind in order to paint it with the first top coat of smooth satin black Hammerite. I really don't like painting the first top coat because it always looks worse when I've finished than it did when I started and it looks even worse in the photo above than it does in real life - for some reason, the flash really brings the colour of the undercoat through. Still, another coat or two and it'll look lovely and all the misery will be forgotten :-)
It was a really nice day today, so after a late start I put the second top coat of smooth satin black Hammerite on Tina's gearbox. Still not enjoying the painting much but it definitely looks better after two coats :-) One more coat should see it done, so I hope to finish it tomorrow.
It was even nicer today, so I put the final top coat of smooth satin black Hammerite on Tina's gearbox. Hoorah, no more painting :-) In fact it was so bright outside that I moved the gearbox back into the workshop and closed the blinds and doors to minimise the glare so that I could see what I was doing. It's hard enough painting black on black without having the sun shining in your eyes while you're doing it.
I went to GSF a couple of days ago and bought a new starter motor for Tina's buggy and fitted it to the gearbox today. It saved a lot of time and effort that would have been required to clean up the rusty old one. I fitted the clutch cross-shaft with a Urethane bearing for a 20mm shaft, as you can't get the stock type for the later thicker shafts. I also fitted the clutch throw-out bearing. Next I cleaned and painted the clutch actuator arm and fitted it with the return spring and steel cup to protect the gearbox case. After fitting the front and rear gearbox mounts and the earthing strap I fitted the gearbox to the buggy but had to take it out again as clutch actuator arm fouled the body! I realised that there are two different lengths of clutch actuator arms and that the one I'd fitted was the longer of the two types, so I took the gearbox out again and swapped the arm for one of the shorter ones and then refitted the gearbox but still the clutch actuator was too long and fouled the body. I'll have to shorten one of the arms tomorrow: either that or raise the body, which sounds much harder.
Today I cut one of the longer clutch actuator arms in half and removed about 2cm of length with the angle grinder so that it would clear the body. I welded it back together, test fitted it and then painted it. This was the first 'production' weld that I've done with my TIG welder and, never having welded before, I was really pleased with how well it came out :-) Having sorted that out, I filled the gearbox with oil and Activ8 friction reducer and put it back in the car (Click here to see a demo of what Activ8 does). The clutch actuator arm now works fine and clears the body by a couple of millimeters :-)
I then started to fabricate the front mounts for the driver's seat so that the angle of the seat can be adjusted between 3 positions. I got Tina to sit in it a few times and it turns out that she likes the most upright of the three positions best, so I may have to modify it if she wants it more upright once the steering column and pedals are fitted.
Today I assembled the CVs onto the drive shafts and fitted the complete shafts to the gearbox and the stub axles.
I then finished off the seat mounting rails by rounding off and smoothing all the corners so that they don't cut the seat material. Finally, I removed the bonnet, screen and dashboard so that I could start to mock up the steering column mount.
Tina was away visiting Grandad George up north and Laurie was at work today, so I had all day to work in the garage :-) I couldn't even go to the shops 'cos Tina had accidentally taken my jacket and wallet with her for the day! I spent a long time trial fitting the steering column, holding it in place with cable ties, and testing its position in relation to the driver's seating position and the dashboard. Once I had it in a suitable position I started to make up the steel framework to support it, utilising my newly arrived plasma cutter to cut some of it out :-) I initially drilled a couple of holes to bolt the mounting brackets to the steering column and then test fitted it again, only to find that the holes weren't quite in the right place - don't know what went wrong there! Rather than cut out new brackets, I welded up the holes and ground them flush before drilling some new ones in the right place. This time, after re-measuring everything a couple more times (once bitten, twice shy) I tack welded them in place. By this time, Tina was back home and able to test the positioning of everything and confirmed that it was OK - phew! Tomorrow I hope to get the side supports for the column mount tack welded in place for final testing before welding it all up fully.
I spent today finishing off the steering column support by adding the side pieces to give it some strength vertically and removing as much material as possible at the steering wheel end so as to minimise the amount that will have to cut out of the dash board to clear it. I also clearanced the hole in the front bulkhead where the steering column passes through it so that the rubber grommet fits properly.
I then started to cut the dash board to clear the steering column very slowly and bit by bit. This was even more scary than putting the rear lights in, as any error will be staring you right in the face when you drive the car! I lost count of the number of times that I put it in, measured it, took it out, cut a bit more, put it back in, measured it, took it out, cut a bit more, etc, etc. There's still a long way to go before it's finished.
After a trip into Bristol with Tina to buy stuff for the garden and a pair of heat exchangers for her engine from GSF (God, they're expensive!), I returned to working on Tina's dash board. I didn't even bother trying to count of the number of times I took it out and put it back in, each time removing about half a centimetre of material with a small sanding drum on a Dremmel - this is a great tool for working with fibreglass. As I got closer to completion I reduced the amount I was taking off each time, until the final pass took less than half a millimeter off, to even up the clearance all the way round. It seems like a very small thing to have completed but it took a stupidly long time because I wanted it to be such a close fit.
Having completed the cut-out for the steering column, I decided to fit the Bright6 warning light module to the dash board above the steering column. This provides 6 LED warning lights for left and right indicator, main beam, alternator/generator charging, oil pressure and brake fluid level, all in one very neat unit. Having completed the dash board and steering column positioning, I realised that there is only really one place on the dash board that it will fit, as it needs to be mounted on a flat surface and most of the dash is curved, and that there is only about three or four millimetres of clearance behind the dash for it to fit between the steering column mount and the fibreglass of the dash itself. Again, I spent what seemed like an eternity positioning it, measuring, checking, re-checking and trying to figure out if I'd overlooked anything before drilling the holes for it. I finally decided to position is as high as I could, as it would be asier to clearance the fiberglass dash board than the steel steering column mount, and marked the mounting hole positions with a felt tip. Once the dash board was out of the car again, I clamped the mounting template in place and drilled a couple of tiny pilot mounting holes to test the position at the back of the dash board. It looked pretty good, so I drilled the mounting holes before test fitting it and removing a small amount of fibreglass from the rear of the dash so that it fitted snugly. Finally, I drilled the 6 holes for the LEDs, very carefully, as there is less than a millimetre of fibreglass between each one and I didn't want to end up with two holes becoming one!
I was very glad to have completed fitting the dash board and the Bright6 warning light module, without a major cock-up, as I would hate to sit in the car staring at something that doesn't fit properly or isn't straight whilst driving it. I haven't stuck the fascia plate over the Bright6 warning light module yet, as once I've done that, I won't be able to get it out again easily, so I'll wait until it's wired up and working properly before I stick it on.
It was a bitty sort of a day today, with nothing significant completed :-( I stripped down and cleaned up the windscreen wiper mechanism; cleaning and greasing all the pivot points and painting the pressed steel parts. It's now ready for fitting to the dash board. In between coats of paint on the wiper mechanism I searched through all my parts bins and found the pedal assembly and all the bits and pieces to go with it. I disassembled it and started to clean it up, using a wire brush to remove the rust to prepare it for painting. Still a long way to go on the pedal assembly before it's ready to reassemble.
I thought I'd just fit the wiper mechanism to the dash board today and then move onto something more interesting but it didn't turn out that way at all :-( In fairness, Chad did warn me a long time ago that they'd made a bit of an error with the design of the dash board by not allowing for the thickness of the fiberglass around the wiper motor so that clearance is a 'bit of an issue'! I also remembered that he said it was necessary to modify the wiper motor to get it to fit, so that's what I did. I removed the motor from the mechanism (again!) and cut the mounting pedestals off, flush with the web that supports their lower ends. This resulted in removing about half an inch of metal and the motor sitting the same distance closer to the mechanism, as shown in the photo below. Unfortunately, it's not possible to get it any closer than this, as the body of the motor is now sitting against the wiper mechanism.
Great, I thought, I'll just stick it in now... No you won't :-( Next, I looked at how much of the wiper mounting pedestals need to protrude out of the body for the wipers to fit on and work properly. I realised that I can put several washer shims behind the dash, between it and the wiper mechanism, which also helps increase the clearance between the motor and the back of the dash board. Having done this, the wiper mechanism will now go in, as shown in the top photo, but the motor still fouls on the back of the dash board. It still needs a bit more fettling, and probably a bit of fiberglass grinding, before it'll fit properly but at least I believe that it WILL fit now, whereas when I started this morning, there didn't seem to be any way it would fit at all!
I didn't enjoy fitting the wiper motor much (it's still not finished) and fancied doing some welding today (much more fun) so I decided to make the mounting frame for the passenger seat. The first step was to make the two bars that hold the runners parallel but when I was measuring them up, I realised that the rails they run on (part of the floor pan) weren't parallel! Why does so little stuff fit properly? I guess it would be too easy if it did and everyone would build their own cars? Maybe not... Anyway, there followed a long period of measuring, head scratching, swearing and finally application of extreme force with a big hammer and a long lever to get the rails as close to parallel as possible. Even after doing this, the rails still weren't really parallel but they were close enough that frame could be welded up and fitted. The runners will now move back and forth and will come off the rails but it takes a fair amount of force to move them, as they don't exactly slide freely, but it can be done and I hope it'll free up with use. After sorting that out, I made up the rear seat mounting brackets, which was relatively easy, and welded them to the runners. So now I just have to make the front seat mounting brackets before its finished - easy job :-)