Remember remember that during December..

During December I finished the bracket for the hand brake cable.  It's formed from a laser-cut profile and a bit of old Escort,

Therefore, something old, something new, something borrowed (Dave and his TIG welder) and something errr... black.

Yes - that is a signed "Nige" on the shed wall; the result of a boozy corporate do with a silent auction. Oh dear.

I also bought myself a Christmas present:

TC

New Year's Resolution (2015)

When the clock ticked-over to 2015 I had a number of thoughts rattling around my brain. My first, second and third thoughts were about family: How would the boy change in the coming 12 months?; I hoped that the wider family would be reasonably well given some of the current  worries; Next, I wondered if being a Dad would start to come a bit more naturally. After this lot came some thoughts about work, business performance and then I wondered if we'd manage to put an extension on the cottage. Genuinely, it took quite a while for the car to enter my consciousness. This in itself is rather a sign of the times. In any case my first thought on the subject was, "I will finish the car this year."  Then I thought again - the reality is that I just don't know if that will be possible. Kate is on maternity leave for a while yet and frankly I'm not sure where the cash for some of the big ticket items still to be bought (loads of custom aluminium tanks/pipes and a complete exhaust) will come from. It naturally follows that if I'm struggling to find the pennies to finish the car, finding the funds to race the thing will be similarly difficult.

While this is somewhat depressing, I find myself being fairly philosophical about it all. It's been so long since I ventured out on-track in my own car that the adrenaline and thrill is barely even a distant memory. Therefore, rather than looking upon the car as a source of excitement, I find myself thinking about the short periods that I spend building the thing as R&R - a bit of time to myself.

It's for this reason that I'll keep plodding-on until such a time as some funds roll-in or indeed the funds run out. Did somebody mention an extension?

TC

50 Shades of Brown

The cage has been returned.  Behold: BMW Mini Brilliant Copper Metallic.

It won't be a lot of people's mug o' chai, but I like it.

TC

Propping-up the economy

My prop shaft, not including its original manufacture, has now visited specialists four times. For once, I'm not really to blame. I gave-up with the Bristol-based firm that I'd been using as their idea of customer service was very different to mine, they'd failed to follow instructions and because the quality of their painting is hilarious.

Instead I flicked through a kit car magazine and e-mailed the advertising specialists asking for a quote to carry out the modifications required. Dunning & Fairbank came back with a great quote so I sent the prop to them. It's back, sorted and painted.  Sometimes using a local firm isn't the smart move. It's also now fitted.  Huzzah.

The only impediment to this was the fact that I didn't have any HT bolts of the correct length. I searched EBay and found some 10.9-grade button heads in the right size. This is rather good news as  a hex-head would've been likely to scuff against my leg. 

Looking ahead, I had a call today to say that my cage is painted so I'm quite excited to see that.

TC

Two fish in a tank...

... One turns to the other and says, "You drive, I'll fire the gun."

What? A tenuous link to my non-fishy tank, I've failed to find someone who presently has both the time and the space to take the car and design and fabricate a tank so I'm having to do the first part of that myself. Here's a selection of images showing progress - ignore any internal supports, they exist only to keep the cardboard in shape.

As they say, watch this space.

TC

Roll Out

I have an unusual issue in that I'm looking to spend a significant amount of dough on aluminium tanks and pipework and nobody seemingly wants my money.  I've three specialists in the locality and one of them is struggling to fit my work in and the other two don't seem to want the work.

This is a bit of an issue as I'm unable to fit the bodywork until the main tank is in at least.  This isn't holding me up as such but has caused me to deviate from the schedule.  Next on the list was to get the roll-bar finished.  I hadn't actually trial fitted the cage since the final welding was done and I was concerned that the heat might have caused some distortion.  To be frank, it has a tiny bit but not to the extent that it's a big issue.

The trial fit went well enough as a result:

Now, in terms of putting some colour on the roll cage, I had planned to drag the cage to Leominster to get it powdercoated.  This would've involved a three-hour plus round-trip which seems a bit unnecessary.  This is particularly the case now that I have a bodyshop with a quickly-developing reputation within walking distance from home.  So, this morning I attached two ratchet straps to the cage so that I could sling it over my shoulders and wandered down the road.  I probably got some funny looks from passing motorists but it was easier (and healthier) than faffing about with the trailer.

News of the cage's 'Mini Adventure' will follow soon.

For now though, it's time for some Rugby.  Pob lwc bois.

Third Time Lucky

It may not sound like much of a step forward but at the third attempt I finally managed to do a decent job of putting the last wheel together so that it doesn't leak.  I don't know why this one was so difficult when the other three went together fine first-time.  

It's rather a large relief.  To celebrate I weighed the wheel:  

That's rather pleasing, even if it does now have 35g of wheel weights attached - which isn't bad actually.  Here is the offending wheel actually on the car...

The panhard rod is also visible here - all bolted-up now that I don't need axle stands where the rod should be.  Also visible is the rear anti-roll-bar.  This isn't quite finished as I need to plate a couple of mild steel spacers to stop them from going immediately rusty.  I've bought a kit; have no idea how to use it.  The wife did chemistry so I'm hoping that she can help.

She may kill me for using that image - it's from a spoof video that she did whilst at Uni.  I should add that despite initial appearances, it bears no resemblance to Fedde Le Grande's 'Put Your Hands Up For Detroit' video.  Anyway, I digress.

Here's more of the ARB.  I had to strip-back the powdercoat for the sliding drop-link connecting things,  This was annoying.  I've waxed the bare metal to stop it from rusting.  Can you guess that I hate rust?

You can also see that the handbrake is starting to take shape.  Interestingly (to me at least) it looks like I will get away with using one from the Escort with the only mod being a longer spring.  That would be good. What else is there to report?  Ah, I'm still working out how I will fill any holes in the bulkhead - for the gear-change rod, a bellow-style boot from a Beetle and some swaged aluminium tube will soon be welded to a small panel which will then be bolted or riveted in-place.

Also, I've finally fitted the panel that sit's adjacent to the driver's hip.  There was a small gap at the bottom where it is notched around the tubes so I've run a bead of grey sealant up the whole panel to fill the gap and keep it tidy - the passenger-side has had the same treatment.  For some reason the photo won't load.  It's not very exciting so I won't bother - not that being boring has ever stopped me before.

Before I sign-off I should say that whilst away on holiday I wrote a list of what still needs doing and attached estimated time to complete the action against each entry.  It totalled 120 hours.  Apparently you can put a Westfield together from scratch in that time.  Perhaps that's what I should've done.

TC