This morning it was back to the garage and make a start on the bonnet. I wasn’t too sure where to start. There is a lot of work to do. Cut out the vents, all 12 of them, there were the headlight mounting plates to glue, cut out the bonnet locks, indicators, trim back the rear edge(to stop it hitting the windscreen later) and mount the hinge brackets.
First thing I used the dremel to cut a hole in the large front grilles. Big enough to get the reciprocating saw in. It then occurred to me this was going to make a big mess. It was raining outside so I can’t do it out in the back yard. I was going to have to do it in the garage that meant covering over everything I didn’t want to get covered in dust.
I decided that I would have to cover the engine and the car, my bikes and a few other areas so I put the cutting on hold and decided to bolt a few more pieces to the car, if only temporary, to get them out of the way and under cover.
I mounted the boot lid on its hinges and had a play trying to get the alignment right again. Now the car is on its wheels it is a lot easier to work with. I have two holes left to drill for the high level brake light cabling. One on the bracket and one under the same bracket in the lid so it looks like the photo sent by Graham.
I fit the radiator unit the top mounting bracket had a good thick layer of dry powder coat on it and the tabs that fit in the side brackets had to be sanded down. I checked the nut and bolt schedule there appeared to be 2 bolts missing. The top plate has two holes in it which line up with rubber mounting grommets. I had a couple of M8 x40 bolts which were left over from the steering column bracket so with a couple of washers and nyloc nuts to fix the bolts in place on the top bracket. Seeing as I was on with the cooling system I fitted the expansion tank and filler pipe. The line between the filler pipe and the metal pipe that runs across the top of the radiator the radius is now too tight and has a double kink in it so I think it will have to replaced.
I looked at the power steering radiator (also known as a bent piece of pipe) previously on the donor car the pipe was mounted in front of the radiator using one of the old radiator mounting brackets (now redundant) and fastening on to the front frame of the donor shell Which doesn’t exist any more. Some searching around on the facebook photos revealed from the IBIS White car is the interchanger is completely missing. A little further investigation on the orange demo car reveals they have bypassed the cooling pipe also. Guess it is not required then.
Next the bonnet mounting brackets as soon as I put the bolt through bringing the rose joint and bracket together I spotted a couple of issues. Firstly there is no way I can get the nut on the bolt. There simply is not enough room. A quick check on the photos I’d taken of the demo car at the Stafford show revealed split pins in the bolts instead of the nyloc nuts so that shouldn’t be a problem. Secondly the shape of the rose joint fouls the bracket I suspect before the bonnet reaches its safe raised position. Some fettling required here as, whilst it is not designed as a stop, there is a metal check strap for that it would be the next point of contact if the bonnet swings any further over. So I need to mount the brackets on the bonnet and see how it all lines up. First things first, after cleaning it of dust, I laid the Bonnet on the car to see how it all lined up. I couldn’t help taking a couple of photos. The back end of the bonnet will need trimming down and the sides will be held by the aero fittings. The front to back position I wasn’t too worried about it was the side to side position that concerned me. But time was running short and I had places to be so I called it a day.
But It looks sooo good!
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