MadaboutKitcars

Slowly getting there, but other projects and real life seem to be getting in the way this year!
But after a trip to the Haynes breakfast club last weekend where it was noticeably colder going over the hills, i've been spurred back into action on the heater.

Original idea was to reuse a modified version of the Bentley pull switch. But.. as per the vents, i was a bit surprised at it's construction "behind the scenes".

Yes the knob is chomed metal and the main shaft is brass, but everything else is plastic and designed to give the illusion of quality. i.e. it feels so smooth not because it's all made of top quality materials, but because there is a small plastic spur gear that that is encased in grease and designed to give the smooth feel. The world moves on i suppose...

Plus it was also a bit long, so i ordered a marine pull switch which was <£10 and is made all of brass and is lovely behind-the-scenes, but has a rubbish plastic knob.




So a quick bit of tinkering resulted in me transplanting the knob from the Bentley switch onto the Marine switch and it gave me just what i needed!

Centre console was then painted, some pull/push cable recovered from the original Vitesse was found in the back of the Garage and everything assembled on the car.



You can see the heater ducting on the passengers side where it comes out of the Vitesse distribution box, so i'm making it shiny, for the moment. Whereas on the drivers side it will all be hidden and you can just see the end of it where i was starting to fit it under the dash.

The Distribution box is wired up to the hot/cold lever and works a treat at regulating airflow.
Whereas the lever on the left for demisting the windscreen is just there for comedy purposes atm but may do something later.


I'm getting there!


(see how i avoided one single knob gag in this post! i must be tired!)

Get a grip!

Dave - Glad to hear your got your heater sorted out.

And I'm still lovin' your alien hand gear lever gate.

Enjoy, Paul.

love the alien comment! I am still trying to fabricate a surround out of alloy that will make it look a bit more professional but other projects (making a fancy dress Groot costume for no.2 son etc) have got in the way!

I've been out a few times with the new heater working and it does take the edge off the chill on the Mendips! So as long as its dry i plan on getting up to the last show of the year at the Bath & West this sunday. If any of you lot are about then please come and say hi!

Ive also been tinkering with the suspension settings and i now have the front shocks on 8 clicks and the rears on 4 clicks and its made a nice difference to the handling.
That said, i will admit that the front springs are a bit hard and so i will be popping in an order to Merlin for some softer ones over the winter.

Fun fun fun

Stolen from 'next door'.

Thanks Paul!

It was a good day at Shepton and really nice to meet Graham and see the Formosa in the flesh!
Despite no planning, i arrived just at the right time to get parked next to it and the day turned out all the better for it, as it would seem that Sammio, Ribble, Miglia and Formosa owners are all of a similar ilk (and sense of humor!) !

i.e. A real Ferrari pulled up behind us, looked at us and saw that more people were looking at our cars than his, which raised a chuckle from the two of us

Actually both of our cars received a LOT of attention and even more so for being parked next to each other as some people liked bits of one more than the other and visa versa. TBH I would say that they actually look a lot more 'related' in the flesh and that's not a bad thing.

And that seems to back up what Gary said, as even i was expecting the Formosa to be more of an evolution of what's gone before, but it's actually more of a different-take-on-a-similar-theme.
e.g. some people liked the wider look of the Formosa, some preferred the narrower Miglia. Some liked one headlight style, other the other etc..

Personally my 2 favorite ideas that i may blatantly nick from this new upstart are:

• The rim around the top of the doors and cockpit, I thought that gave it much more professional finish in that area.
• The Door hinges - they're simply just cool!

Next challenge is to get to a show with one of each of:
Sammio Spyder
Cordite
G46 (this may prove tricky!)
Miglia
Formosa

(have i missed anyone?)

HOW could you possibly forget the Swordfish? Shame on you...

Dave , if you pm me your address , I will send you 4 hinge blanks so you can do your hinge conversion ...They will need a bit of playing with but will give you a good start ...

A couple of photos of Dave on his travels, no matter what I try they keep coming out in this orientation

Wow, both cars look really great, so hats off to Gary and Dave. I like the stance of Dave's Miglia a lot.

BTW, Dave do you have the original wind screen? If you do and if you don't intend to use it I would be interested in buying it.

Cheers, Deni.

If Dave can't help you ...I think I have a spare one kicking about that I could sell you ...

Opps, sorry, forgot about the Swordfish, me bad.

Hi Deni, many thanks for the nice comment. Sadly i only have the fibreglass windscreen fixing strip as i never received the perspex wind deflector, or grill.....
<insert std Poole / Grill / Bermuda triangle joke here>
But you are more than welcome to have that if you're ever in this neck of the woods!


I've managed to rotate Grahams photos and add them to my Photobucket, although i don't know why seeing as he captured me at an especially unflattering moment trying to put my helmet on!

Weirdly the Miglia looks a darker red in these pics on it's own. scroll down to the side-by-side pic to see what i mean!





Heres another pic I managed to find that i took from behind <ooh err missus> that is a good comparison of how much wider the rear of the Formosa is, although I still want to lower the rear of mine a bit so the height comparison may be misleading?
This also reminds me that i need to move and recess my rear lights!





Thanks for the hinge offer Gary, but I've got to do the front springs, gearbox, front indicators and now the rear lights before i re-do the doors.

when you are ready mate ...got a whole stack of them in the cupboard !

Poole triangle, hahahaha, definitely mate. Thanks anyway Dave, I thought I'd ask. The same here, only received the windscreen fixing strip...

I will contact Gary as he has one possibly knocking about and has kindly offered to help.

Guys. I have my screen if you need a pattern

If its just the plastics you need , even easier ...I can get a screen cut for you , the supplier still has my template .

I think the reason Mike never sent any out is because he didn't have access to my template or know who my supplier was !!!

Mike supplied mine with my car.

But useful to know you have the template as I have wondered about getting one cut in slightly thicker plastic. Any thoughts?

Gary - thank you very much. Dn't want to hijack this thread further with this (sorry Dave) , so I'll PM you about this if that's ok.

Cheers, Deni

No need to apologise, it's an interesting and relevant discussion!


In case it helps, from what i saw of my original Sammio wind deflector, with a bit of cardboard and a lot of tinkering, i think it should be quite easy to fabricate yourself
i.e. if you've decided on the fixing strip and have that mountable, then you can simply create the wind deflector shape you want out of cardboard and then when happy you can transfer to some plexi.

I was thinking about taking that route at the start of the Miglia build as i quite fancied the wrap-around screen that continues on the doors. But i'm happy with what i've got. For now....

Thanks Dave. Yes, I like the idea of wrap-around screen, but I was not sure what to use to cut it with and would it crack when I cut it. Also, I was not sure how to get the smooth edges and can it be sanded with fine (wet?) sandpaper.....so much to research and learn, but I enjoy it.
I think I saw somewhere that tungsten jigsaw blades can be used for fine cuts and that they are good to cut plexi and makrolon sheets, but I need to research a bit more.

Good luck with finding better front springs.

Cheers, Deni

Well..... it's been a while!

So I've been out and about in the car quite a bit.

The £20 heated seat pad/cover i bought from LIDL is worth it's weight in gold and has been fitted all winter!!


That along with a working Triumph heater asthmatically puffing warm air onto my hands has really meant that I've been able to enjoy the car over the winter.


Last month it sailed through it's MOT once again with no advisories!

Although a few days later when i was out for a spin i had a weird clunking noise from the rear of the car
After getting recovered home and identifying the Diff as the source of the noise, i took it out and apart and found this.



Knowing that it should be bigger, i completely stripped the diff and found the other bits...



Some googling told me that the old 4:11 diffs were known to occasionally do this and so i decided that is what i must have and to have a go at fixing it myself. And then the fun began...

Trying to find a supplier with one in stock was my first challenge.
After a few days ringing round, it turns out that TD Fitchett are the people to talk to for hard to find parts and I can't recommend them enough! They are a proper old-school company who went out of their way to help me until i had the right part and i will be using them as my first port of call for parts in future!


[COLOR="red"](WARNING: small children or people with no sense of humour may wish to stop reading now)
[/COLOR]

Using the diff case number and the vehicle type we identified that mine was indeed a 4:11 diff and in theory it should have:
Small Shaft / Small Flange.
The part turned up but nope, the flange was too small and the holes just wouldn't line up no matter which way i twisted it!

After another call and a bit of head scratching we went for another part they had listed which was:
Big Shaft / Big Flange
That turned up and the flange mated perfectly up with mine! But... i just couldn't get the shaft inserted...
I lubricated it.
I pushed it.
I wiggled it around and even gently tried to persuade it with a rubber. Hammer that it.
But it was obviously just too large

So.. another call and we all agreed that i in fact have:
Small shaft / Large flange.
That turned up, fitted a treat and the car's been working fine ever since.

So given that just the diff and the gearbox we the only original parts i hadn't overhauled, i might rebuild the gearbox this winter!

Hi Dave, glad you got it sorted after a lot of flaffing about with the correct part

Dave - Good news on another MOT pass.

Not so good news on the diff!

I know I wouldn't have a clue how to sort that out, so fair play to you.

Cheers, Paul.

Dave - The Ebay link for your car has disappeared?

Did you sell it?

Cheers, Paul.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm still here, i still have the car, i'm still tinkering with it, thoroughlly enjoying it and getting it ready for my annual new year jaunt across the mendips (Heated seat cover has been dug out in readiness!)


As far as routine jobs are concerned the only thing i've had to do this year so far is replace a very mildly weaping core plug which cost a princely sum of 80p and about 10mins to sort!

I've also found a walnut gearknob that i bought right back at the start of the build and i decided to fit when i gave my centre console a bit of a tidy up.



While i've not been actively posting on here much this year (as i've not had much to say!), i have been lurking and reading all of the "interesting" disucssions about prices and selling as TBH i think the Miglia will go on the market when the weather starts to pick up as there are simply too many other things i want to make, espeically seeing as Prova have resurfaced and are advertsing new Countach kits again....