MadaboutKitcars

Steering

I decided to fit the Honda steering column rather than the mini one so I could use the Honda loom and all the niceties of a later column, this gave a few problems at the rack end because the splines were different.



I gave it a thought and then stripped down a old mini rack I had and removed the pinion, I took it into work, made a heat sink and with the inner bearing race still attached I had my welder build up the end over the existing spline.







Then jumped onto the lathe and turned it down to a size I had experimented with earlier, before this I had done test pieces to get things right before I attempted the pinion





Then I set a medium straight cut knurling tool and put on a new spline



Once completed it was tried into the Honda steering knuckle and hey ho a finished pinion. The reason I left the inner race on was because the new spline was to be larger than original and wouldn’t slip over.





Well that went well so I stripped down a new mini steering rack hoping to fit the modified pinion but all was not well, the pinion was of a diffent pattern than the old one I had done the mod on so back to work to do it all over again with the new pinion



Once done at last the rack was rebuilt and fitted into the car.

Now for the column, as the car was made with a ply-wood shelf which supported the mini column I had to make up various brackets to allow the Honda column to fit, first I fitted the knuckle to the rack but on doing so it fouled the fibreglass around the hole so that was ground back down to allow full rotation



Then the column was fitted to the knuckle and a bracket was made to fix the top of the column to the ply shelf



As the column is adjustable I then made a support for the mid section of the column



Then the ply shelf was drilled and all bolted into place

I'm liking this resto/conversion.
Alec

Thanks Alec more coming....

Throttle

The throttle peddle was the next to be sorted as I was using a Honda cable and due to where the engine sub-frame covered the original cable hole for the mini I had to re-position the hole to miss the sub-frame



As the Fibre glass was thicker than the steel firewall from the Honda I manufactured a carbon-fibre interface plate





The the peddle needed to be altered to suit the new cable position



The peddle then was warmed and bent upwards to achieve enough travel but not so the it sat above the brake peddle



The engine was refitted into the car and the cable run in



The throttle body was the fitted and the throttle was tested for full travel



All good there
 

Your exhaust routing idea and cut section weld techniques for the bends are as inspired as your steering spline mod.
The McCoy I saw was in Brighouse west Yorkshire travelling with a hard top quantum and a mustard coloured allegro towards hebden bridge so they probably came off the M62 so could of been from anywhere. It was odd because when the quantum came out I recall drooling over it particularly the use of Sierra sapphire back lights but yet now it looked very dated and the rear lights looked massive whereas the McCoy looked more like a traditional yet very small sports car lotus élan esque.Ed.

The Throttle body

I now discovered a major problem, the throttle body inlet was looking straight at the clutch master cylinder, now that’s not good, I had a few options here, I could either buy a set of individual throttle bodies or go the hard way and modify the one I had..





Well a challenge it was then, there seems to be a theme going on here, if I can go the hard way then that’s the way to go, my thoughts on these things are, anyone with enough money can go and buy all the nice new goodies and bolt them on but I wanted to make this mine so the modification was the way to go.

So here goes (Caution: this part of the build took some time and I want to thank both my welder colleagues for all the work they put in for me here)





First things first, I need to cut and shut the ports to allow the throttle body and chamber to lift up and forward away from the clutch master cylinder, I decided where to cut and then machined both the cut faces flat and square.







After I checked the measurements and angles of the machined part, incase I needed to make further changes after a trial fit.







After checking there became a mismatch of the ports, this was expected and I was going to put in spacers later to compensate for the errors



A trial fit was done and the spacer thickness was determined





Once knowing the thickness the angle for each spacer was measured



Then I manufactured them







Once made all was cleaned and this is where my welders made it all come together, after lots of cursing of course







 
One side done….now for the other half

The Throttle body (cont’d)

This is where the cursing came in





As you can imagine it was very difficult for him to get to some of the weld areas but he kept at it and produced this..





Now to machine the distortion from the flange face





With that done the bores were ground flush to remove any welding and rough edges then it was back to the car to see how it looked





That done the trick, well that was the first saga over with..

On assembling the air temp sensor fouled the injector rail so that had to be dealt with, I ground away the rail but that wasn’t enough, if I went much deeper then I would have broken through into the fuel gallery so other thoughts had to be made.



What I needed to do was machine the boss at an angle to allow clearance, make a new boss so back to the milling machine and then speak nicely to my welder again..

















All done now to fit it all together..







Just right….

The Throttle body (cont’d)

After fettling a bit more from the fuel rail to allow for the throttle movement the was on last thing to do..


The brake vacuum take of pipe was facing in the wrong direction



So after gently heating the casting around the pipe I managed to rotate it to the required direction





Now it was completely assembled and ready to fir to the engine..





Happy with that…

The wiring harness

I acquired a complete Honda harness that I was going to modify to suit the McCoy, It was a harness from a civic so I would have quite a few bits to cut out, first I took the rear harness and rebuilt that, removing the electric window wiring and anything else I didn’t require



Then I started to fit the engine harness and the engine bay harness for the lights etc, this I would cut about removing unwanted bits later.





The parts of the harness I didn’t need were the ABS, Air con etc

I made drawings of the wiring and what was for what, labelled all the ends and then it was ready for stripping, I didn’t want to do that yet because I didn’t know what was required for the ecu, so I started the cabin wiring (Warning: If you have a nervous disposition look away now)

















Well if you can make any sense of that lot without getting a head ache please come and sort it out because it has done my head in, I won’t let it beat me but I will be doing it in stages, it had taken an age to get here, looking through wiring diagrams, sorting out what is needed, what may be needed, what isn’t needed or of it was effected by what had been or was going to be cut out…..Hmmmm, needless to say I have left this alone for a while now to get my sanity back

The Seats

As the seats in the car were so tatty I got some from seats from a Ford Fiesta Si, I have had a lot of Fords in the past and I know their seats are good for comfort and as these were from a sport model they lent good support



The problem with them were the framework underneath was too high so I made some new sub-frames, took the rails from the cars original subframe and fitted them onto the seats lowering them by about 50mm











Once done I test fitted into the car, they were much better for height and as I am over six feet I didn’t do too bad..

The next episode is covering the headlight choices and front wings....

Headlights and Front Wings

Well I have been pondering on and off about the headlight originally fitted to the McCoy, they do start to grow on you after looking at them for so long, but you here from people, clan owners as well that they preferred the rectangular head lights that were fitted to them, well yes I think I agree they do look better than the round ones, I also looked into having pop up headlight so I got some from a Mx-5 but when trying to fit them, I discovered with having the Honda engine in the bay they would not fit, so they are for sale, then I decided I wanted to change the front styling so got a new pair of motorcycle rectangular head lights that would nicely fit..

So I started and cut off one of the healight pods to see how they would look..







OK they would work so I started to put some shape into the wing using expanded foam…









Hmm that may work.. but I would have liked them lower in the wing so I reworked the foam and glassed in flush following the wing shape









No.. I had another thought, that’s trying to be too much like a clan, so the I thought about twin projectors, so I ripped out what I had done and had a re-think…

So out came the card..







That could work, it measures up and a pair should fit in there.. but first I had to build up the inner wing which had previously cut away to accommodate the sub-frame to cover the near side engine mount..



With that done I set off to reshape the wing, firstly getting some perforated aluminium, cutting it to shape, covering it in cling film and clamping it in place







Then fibre glassing in…

Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

Once set I could trim the glass back to follow the shape of the bonnet







Now to even up and put in some strength..





And now to build up the top of the wing..

















Well I at this stage finally decided what I wanted to do, I had seen the technique done years ago with the custom boys and what they did to there rear lights on the hotrods, so out again with the cardboard and a piece of ducting of the right diameter and come up with this..





So I took some measurements and made this template mould and covered it with lino..









Then I clad the whole thing in cling film and cut the glass to suit, mixed up the resin and…..



out popped this

Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

Next was to cut it to fit and glass it in..





Then to cut the inside to suit the light,









oh I forgot to say I had got some Hi-Lo Hid units from E-Bay..







Now to cut for final fit and glass it in..









Add a build of glass to bring up the height,,







And cover with gel coat, this is where it all went wrong, the gel coat didn’t harden for some reason, I applied heat, left it for a week but still it was a sticky mess..



So I ended up having to scrape it all back, cleaning up the mess and I applied filler instead..





Rubbed it all back and applied a few coat of high build filler primer

Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

In the mean time back at work I had to come up with a way to adjust the headlights so out came the cardboard again…



Well that was the idea for the brackets now for some adjusters, so I knocked the up..



Then some pivots and fix it all together and see what happens..







That all seemed to work so to make them in stainless

















Had the corners welded and then assembled them..









The base bracket is only a temporary one until I finish the wing and can come up with a plan to fit them under the wings.

A few more coats of filler primer and rub down







Yeah well pleased with that..

Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

It looks good with the light in place..



Now for the other side..off with the old pod and clean up









Bonnet fit check..



Removal of paint around areas to be glassed..



Re-shape the perforated aluminium that was used for the other side, recover it in cling film and position then clamped it in place







Now for the glass..





When set cleaned up to the bonnet profile as before



Now for the support





Made another pod and cut to shape..





Cut body to fit..



Prepped and glassed upper wing..




And that’s where it ends for now, the resin in the tin has gone off for some reason, not sure why yet, can’t be the age of it, I will ask at my suppliers when I see him again….. I hope you like the build so far, it has been a long journey and I still have some way to go so the diary will now continue in real time, what you have read up until now covers the last twelve years, I promise it will NOT take another twelve years to finish it……Hmmm my status on here is still a "Dreamer", yeah right...lol

pompeyal - This is an impressive build, with a huge range of great fabrication skills involved.

Given how small the engine bay is, it is amazing what you have managed to squeezed in there.

Good luck with the rest of it, Paul.

PS
I'm heading towards my 4th year of building and that seems a very long time, so fair play for sticking with this for 12 years!

Your exhaust routing idea and cut section weld techniques for the bends are as inspired as your steering spline mod.
The McCoy I saw was in Brighouse west Yorkshire travelling with a hard top quantum and a mustard coloured allegro towards hebden bridge so they probably came off the M62 so could of been from anywhere. It was odd because when the quantum came out I recall drooling over it particularly the use of Sierra sapphire back lights but yet now it looked very dated and the rear lights looked massive whereas the McCoy looked more like a traditional yet very small sports car lotus élan esque.Ed.

Thanks for the comments guys, I am still enjoying the challanges it brings me, I have a major dilema know, i want to buy an Aston Martin but do not want to keep it on the drive so I have a big insentive to get this project finished so I can clear the garage, I have looked at having another smaller garage built onto the other side of the property but the council got a bit funny about it..

I have just sat and read the whole thread ,very interesting great skills and innovative thinking ,keep up the good work ,can't wait for the next instalment !

Thanks, had a bit of a problem last week, 2/3rds of a tin of resin went off in the tin so put me on hold, as if I need it, so I have since gone and got another 5 litres, and continued with the off side wing, I will show the progress when I have it done, hopefully over the weekend..then onto moding the bonnet..deep joy...

Check your local planning laws about temporary garden structures, in theory as long as you are below your local boroughs height limit you can cover about 74% of your garden with "temporary" buildings. There are some fantastic timber garage/workshop / car barns available and many look superb I built a green oak open fronted 3 car barn with shingle roof last year it would be an asset to most homes. Ed

Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

Well off to the glass suppliers and I was told the resin may have been contaminated, he was probably referring to me doing it but no, I didn’t so no joy there then, I have bought some more and some gel coat and continued with the off side wing…..

The pod was glassed in and allowed to set the layered up to build any low spots but keeping a small under-flush amount in readiness for the gel coat, as it is difficult at this stage to judge the final shape, I have laid on some gel coat and when it cures I will rub it back to see how much more and where I will need to build the low areas, hopefully I should have the wing in shape by the end of the weekend….

Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

Got a bit more done over the weekend, I just need to sand out the hole again to build up the shape to be the same as the near side….









Once I am happy with the shape I will then be cutting up the bonnet to fit into the new profile and remove the old bulge and build in a new one to suit the extra height required for the Vtec engine..

Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

Well had a short while to spare this evening so I prepped up the offside light port by cleaning back to the gel coat and plugged the hole with a coil off lino wrapped in cling film, then weighted it so that it fitted snuggly, then flooded the space left to just over flush with the wing with gel coat, when it has cured I shall shape it back to suit the near side port..