Having looked at the bonnet I’m sure that my dad’s jigsaw is not up to the job of cutting the vents and grilles in the bonnet. I popped out to look at getting a reciprocating saw....ended up buying one and a few other bits and pieces. I came home and decided to move on to the steering column. The new frame came with the rest of the kit and I put it in place loosely putting the bolts through the pedal brackets. The holes in the frame mount to the underside of the dash but I can only fit two/three of the four fixing points. Me thinks another call to Graham is in order.
I sat around thinking what to move on to? From having very little left to do I have gone to so much to do I don’t know what to do next. I decide to go on to the boot lid Graham had said that I need to re-use the seal from the donor car. Easily extracted from the donor I see that there will be a fair amount of fettling to be done to get the boot lid to fit properly.
I assembled the boot hinges and mounted them. One side was rubbing on the rear bulkhead. A bit of filing down soon gave it clearance. I dug out the locking mechanism from the boxes. Taking note from the CKC build I attached a piece of wire to the latch release. The last thing I wanted to do was shut the boot before the key and release lever in the “cockpit” are fitted and then not being able to open it again....ever. I need to get the hole measurements for the lock, mounting access hole and link shaft. In the CKC build they replaced the link shaft between the lock and latch with a longer piece. I looked about the scrap ends at work but we don’t have much call for 4mm. I might have to innovate something.
During the week I placed a call to Ben to find out how the remaining outstanding parts were doing. He agreed with me on the steering rack mount that 2 fixings would be enough. I had also had time to think about lowering the car and getting the engine mounted and realised I couldn’t go much further because I was still waiting for a couple of pieces on the brake master cylinder. This is a problem because any slack left on the rear brake pipes needs to be at the back to allow for the swing of the suspension assembly. If I lower the car and put the engine and prop shaft in place I won’t be able to get at the brake cable fixings to work the slack to the rear. This got me thinking on what to do next? I had a number of jobs to do but as I worked each job over in my head I quickly came to a grinding halt each time due to either parts, technical details or a second set of hands.
I worked out I’m going to need about 6 pairs of hands to lower the car from its timber frame. I figure 3 on the back and two on the front and the last to pull out the timber frames. And take a few photos.
First fit the rear wheels and square the tub on the frame.
Second lift the front and push the engine and gearbox under the front sub-frame (the engine is currently sat on the engine crane legs).
Third lift the front and rear together and remove the timber frames. And position two axle stands at the front corners of the tub. (I think this will have to be done quickly)
Fourth lower the rear onto its wheels and the front onto axle stands. With the front guys guiding the sub-frame around the engine.
Fifth lift the engine into place with the engine crane and fasten all the sub-frame bolts
Sixth mount the front wheel suspension arms and mount the wheels and steering rack to the sub frame.
And finally lift the car off the front axle stands with the engine crane and or trolley jack lower my baby on to its “feet”.
Job done! Easy – yeah right we'll see! Its a plan at least.
There are still a few things to sort before. Like get the donor car sat on pallets so I can reuse the axle stands once the car is on its wheels. I have managed to acquire some pallets, from a friend of my parents who was scrapping them, and my uncle has said he will bring them round in his van. That was a few months ago so a subtle nudge got them delivered this week.
Ben came through with the measurements for the boot lock. He suggested I could get away without it which is true. I can just use the lever release beside the seat. This I would consider if the latching mechanism was on the lower lip o f the boot and not the boot lid itself. There is a mechanical release beside the hook but the “boot open” switch obscures the access. So if the cable ever snapped the boot would remain closed forever. I would probably have to cut a hole in the underside of the boot floor to get to the release. So I opted for the traditional key release from the donor car. I removed the boot lid from the hinges because with the lid down it was sat about 3/8 of an inch to the right of where it was supposed to be and so I could work on the lid off the car.
The boot lid laid in position and the surrounding lip was too proud for it to sit flush. I took a flapper wheel on the drill and lowered the lip enough to make the lid sit close to flush with the body on top. I noticed that the back lower edge is proud of the back profile of the car. This will take a little work but I want to chat to Ben to confirm I have the hinge assembly right before I move them to the left by slotting the bulkhead fixing holes.
I was popping up to my parents for dinner. Now a while back I had tried to put one of the Honda s2000 leather seats I had bought from a scrap yard in Dewsbury. It concerned me that the seat wouldn’t fit in the tub. Going back to the CKC build manual I saw the photo showing the seat runners spaced in the seat by 50mm. I took the seats to pieces and split the runners off and took them up to my parents to use my dad’s bench drill to drill out the rivets holding the rails and seat mounts together. After a bit of trial and error to start and some assistance from my dad we worked out a system og centre punching each rivet drilling a 3mm pilot hole and then an 8mm took the remainder of the rivet heat off. A knock with the centre punch made short work of the rest of the rivet. Job done, now I need some M6 nuts bolts and spacers to re assemble the runners and put the seats back together.
I moved on to finally fix the steering column bracket. After checking I was happy with the position, by putting the steering wheel on, I drilled the fixing holes and then dug a holesaw out and cut 2 holes to get the nut, spreader washer and spanner head to tighten it all up.
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