MadaboutKitcars

Another Lovely Day - Part 2:
Then I gave the new rivets and the hollow in the number plate plinth a coat of etch primer.



Which means the whole back end is finally coming together nicely.



Somewhere along the line I need to check how the rear lights will sit and build small plinths for them as well.

Next I wanted to brace the splash mould I am making of the front scuttle.

So once again, the pink yoga mat came to my rescue.



Although getting the matting to fall nicely around the foam is still a major pain in the





Just like yesterday, I am building this up in stages, so it just needs one more session before it is done.

While I was doing this work, I also re-enforced the back of the number plate plinth.

The area in the middle of the plinth, where I had ground out the hollow was wafer thin.

Not a great photo, but you still get a good idea of just how thin it was.



So I added 3 layers of matting over this area, although this is another poor photo.



I will re-drill the fixing holes when this has set.

The final jobs for today were sanding down the filler work I did earlier.

Obviously the eye bolt was been bonded into place, along with the over sized washer.

But I was able to remove it after a little bit of persuading and a gentle tap with a lump hammer!



I've left this section rough until I can test fit the lid and check the gap.



The inside edges of the number plate mount.



Plus the top edge.



Note:
I will switch the light I've used for all the mocking up for the other one which is cleaner.

I know that sorting this out turned into a major headache, but I am happy with this final design.

[color="red"]Quick question:[/color]
Do you think the metal would look better painted black to match the light, or BRG to match the body shell?

Either way, that's all for now, take care, Paul.

In my opinion brackets and ancillaries should not be the same colour as the car. To me it's amateurish and shows a tendency to short cuts, NOT something you could be accused of Paul!!!

Look at standard products, usually any brackets and 'bits' are finished differently from the main body colour. Except army trucks and camouflaged aircraft.

8 Value Ed - Thanks for the feedback, black it is then.

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Yesterday's Missing Bit:
With all the excitement of a new rivet tool to play with, I forgot to mention another small job that I ticked off.

With the ends of the tail pipe shields riveted, I trimmed the rear edges so they were level with the body shell.

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Friday The 13th:
Got some etch primer on both sides of the number plate light bracket.





Plus the eye bolt "washer".



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Added the final round of fibreglass matting to the scuttle mould.





I'll now leave that to completely set before I attempt to carefully remove it.

As I don't want the scuttle underneath to end up looking like Tribute's 250 SWB buck!



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Rear Lighting:
I know I've made some mistakes during this build, but I do try to learn from them and avoid repeats.

So following the lessons learnt from the number plate plinth, I had another think about the rear lighting layout.

After trying various combinations in the past, I'd finally settled on this design.



Then posting this photo of GazDavies's car the other day got me thinking about keeping things very simple.



I was considering building up shallow plinths for the lights & reflectors to sit "square" to the curved body shell.

However, it should be possible to sand down the curve to give me a flat mounting surface.
( Then I can re-enforce the shell from behind, like the "hollow" for the number plate light bracket. )

The first stumbling block to working out where to put the lights is where a straight line should go!

The sad fact is, that despite all the "cut and shut" work I did, the rear end of the car is not symmetrical, especially along the bottom edge.

However, the good news is that there is actually very little difference between each side along the axis of the number plate plinth.

I tried to use my flexible tape measure to mark up a line across the body shell's curves.



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Extra Notes:
The curves of the body shell can play tricks on your eyes, but I knew something wasn't quite right.
So after the quick mock up you can see below, I went inside and loaded this last photo on to my computer.
This allows me to blow it up to full screen size and overlay some alignment lines on it while I take a better look.
Then I went back outside and double checked the depth of the plinth and found the top and bottom edges were not parallel!
I'm sure now this happened, but it does look like the top edge is wrong, so I will need to re-fit the body shell in order to check.

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I also used my "super sized" number plate to ensure any lighting arrangement would clear any type of plate fitted.



Then I mocked up a "close grouping" option.



With my "normal" number plate fitted, there would be a nice visual "gap" either side of the lights.

This layout would also have the benefit of avoiding where the body shell starts to curve back to the wheel arches.



After discovering the fact there was something wrong with the plinth, I did some mocking up work in the Summer House.

I used some stiff cardboard to mark up the holes required in the body shell.





Note:
I still need to add some holes for the fixing bolts.

This leaves a 1cm gap between each item.



Now I just need to work out where to draw a line on the body shell and I can drill some holes in that.

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Earlier on when I trying to establish a horizontal line, I had a very brief look at the mounting plates for the top boot lid locking pins.



But I quickly decided I was already having one of those days and starting on this wouldn't help.

However, once I have re-fitted the eye bolt to the boot lid, I am going to bite the bullet and see what I can do.

My first plan of attack will be to see if I can at least make the top edge locking pins work.
( Now that the lid can be raised & lowered vertically. )

But until then, take care, Paul.

Hi Paul, how about this.

The rear lights have reflector built in and a number plate window.

Micky1Mo - I hadn't realised those rear lights combined stop, tail, reflector & number plate light.

Especially as the number plate light feature is such a good way to "de-clutter" the rear end.

Unfortunately, it would require a lot of extra work for me to switch to this design at this stage.

As my reflectors have to double up as fog lights, due to my donor car being so "young" (post 01/04/80).

Plus I've only just finished all the extra work required to sort out a number plate light.

Did you find a buyer for this car in the end?

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Busy Weekend Ahead:
I've got a lot of "non car" stuff to do today and it's Mother's Day tomorrow, so I will struggle for "play" time.

However, while I wait for the scuttle mould to fully set I've been thinking about how I will fix the rear bonnet edge.

Currently I have simply left some thick cardboard on top of the radiator cap to ensure the bonnet doesn't hit it.
( Note: This photo was taken after I chopped the driver's wing off. )



But it dawned on me that the real question is whether this is a big enough gap?

How much space should there be between the cap & the bonnet?

Would I just need to add some heat reflective material to the underside of the bonnet to protect the paint on the sunny side?

A bit like the stuff Scottie lined the inside of his gear box tunnel cover with.



Finally after spending a bit more time looking at this photo with fresh eyes...



It is pretty clear that it is the top edge of the plinth that is wrong, sloping upwards right to left as you look at the photo.

The sad thing is that I actually use a spirit level to help me keep the tape level with the top edge of the plinth.

The good news is that a bit of sanding / filing should sort that out.

Cheers, Paul.

[IMG][/IMG]

Scottie - Thanks for that, I've tried to do my own version below.

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Another Flying Visit:
As expected, I've not had a chance to play with the car this weekend, but I did want to follow up on Scottie's reply.

So although it was getting dark and was a bit drizzly outside, I quickly measured both sides of the number plate plinth.

The vertical edge on the left side (as you look at the back) is one quarter of an inch taller than the right edge.

This isn't much of a difference on the plinth, especially when the number plate fully covers it.

The problem comes when I extend a line across this top edge to help me mark up the position of the lights & reflectors.

Excuse my low tech approach of drawing lines of a print out of a digital photo.



So the easiest fix would be to simply use the bottom edge of the plinth as my guide to marking up the body shell for drilling.

As some point I will still sand down that extra 1/4 of an inch along the top edge even if it can't be seen.

Whilst I had my ruler & pen out, I drew another line to highlight another symmetry issue I noticed the other day.



The holes for the number plate light are in the middle of the rear body shell.

Yet the peak of the "bulge" at the base of the boot opening is slightly to the right of this centre line.

However, in those famous words...

[Rhett Butler] "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" [/Gone With The Wind]



Because if you look higher up, you can see the aero humps don't match either.

Similarly if you look down to the bottom edge of the body shell (in the first photo), the right hand side is slightly wider than the left.

The weird thing is that if you run a horizontal line though the centre the plinth, the outside edges of the body shell at this point are almost a match.

Which means that the rear lights & reflectors should not draw your eye to any differences either side of them.

That sounds like a good enough reason to stick with the simple horizontal lighting layout I mocked up the other day.

So until next time, take care, Paul.

Paul, I wouldn't get too hung up on geometric symmetry, as a builder I came across this all the time. Very few buildings are perfect, if you are altering or restoring there is a constant trade-off between getting things level or plumb (symmetrical) against them looking right, that is what matters, plus what is practical, attainable or actually matters. If it looks OK, move on, if not make it look OK, even if that isn't symmetrical.

If it offends the eye, fix it, if not, forget it!

8 Value Ed - Wise words indeed.

Although it still took me quite a while to put this into practise today.

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A Wet Monday - Part 1:
To avoid facing the rain outside, I stayed indoors to made another template for the pilot holes needed for the rear lighting set up.



Note:
After a brief OCD relapse, the hole for the reflector / fog light has been off set from vertical slightly.

As this allows two rows of the LEDs to form a "cross" on the vertical & horizontal plane.



Now where did I put the phone number for my therapist?

After looking at more photos of other Sammio rear lighting layouts, I realised my previous mock up needed to change (again!).



Because the simple reason that everyone else has fitted their lights towards the outside edge of their cars is to improve visibility!

So whilst the height of the lights will move up a bit, they will now be fitted somewhere around here:



This means I will have to deal with this curved edge after all.



However, the whole point of doing this work now is so I can add fibreglass matting to the other side while I have the body shell off.

Unfortunately, just before I could take some more measurements for the lights, the rain returned.



Eventually the rain cleared enough for me to mark up the final positions relative to the number plate plinth.

I simply marked up a centre line on the plinth & then marked equal distances away on either side.
( Just in case the vertical sides weren't 100% parallel. )



Then a simple length of cardboard acted as a "spacer" and this was all I needed to line up the lights relative to the plinth.



Obviously flipping the template over gives me the correct spacing for the other side too.
( Well apart from the reflector / fog light as the template needed to be switched back for that. )



Eventually I had all the positions marked on some masking tape.



But rather than follow 8 Value Ed's advice of trusting my eye, I added my measuring tape into the mix.



Looking at the above photo on my computer screen convinced me this was not quite right.

But before I changed anything, I re-drilled the number plate light holes through the extra fibreglass matting I'd added the other day.

Then with a horizontal centre line marked on the number plate I fitted that to see if that would help.



That seemed to suggest that I had actually marked the holes in the correct position to begin with.

This is something other builders have mentioned, the angles of the photo combined with the body shell curves play tricks on your eyes.

So given the alignment standard of the rest of this build, this is certainly close enough for me.

Rather than waste any more time chasing perfection, I simply drilled the pilot holes.



End of Part 1...

A Wet Monday - Part 2:
By now, the dirty black clouds had returned overhead and there was still one other job I wanted to do today.

So I unwrapped the front end of the body shell and the scuttle mould...



I trimmed off the rough edges along the front edge.





I left the excess material hanging over the edge to help me carefully separate the mould from the scuttle.

I was very happy to see the mould come off safely in one piece.





And this is what the inside surface looks like, where the white(ish) finish on the right of the photo marks the edge of the scuttle.



I removed all the parcel tape from the scuttle.



But the real test came when I checked how the inside edge of the mould would line up with the outside edge of the scuttle.

I just need add a few inches at the very back of the bonnet edge, something like this.



Although this is not a very good photo, it does look like I can use this mould to make a new rear edge for the bonnet.



Then I took a chance with the weather and opened up the rear lighting holes to the required sizes.





Before quickly test fitting the lights.





So after going around in circles, I've finally ended up with a very traditional layout and there is nothing wrong with that!

Anyway, with the lights temporarily in place, I could also check the view from above.



Thankfully, I don't think it will take too much sanding down to achieve a flush fit.

But that will have to wait for another day, as by this point it really felt like I was going to get soaked any minute.

So I packed up for the day and put all the covers back on.

Take care, Paul.

Looking good Paul, all that planning has paid off and it gives piece of mind too.

Keep at matey.

The layout for the lights is spot on,i think they even look better when they are frenched a little bit.

Wdll done Paul, its really coming along. I haven't plucked up the courage yet to make those all important holes in the rear for my lights. Although I do have permission after obliging for the last two weekends for family related stay away from home stuff I can have the weekend on my car :-) the first of many I hope! Following your determined effort to press on regardless of the clouds is serves as motivation for me, thanks!

Swifty & Rene - Thanks gentlemen, I know it took me a long time to sort out, but I am happy with the lights.

Jones - I hope you get some decent weather at the weekend, as the constant treat of rain makes for nervous work.
Yesterday felt a bit like the tennis at Wimbledon, I was always ready to stop play and get the covers back on.

Also I must confess a fear of making a mess of things does add to the time some jobs take me.
But as 8 Value Ed said in his reply the other day, these "old" cars don't need to be perfect to look good.

Similarly Mister Towed posted a great photo the other day of a "yoof" staring in amazement at his car.
Overall, I should still end up with a car that stands out from the crowd at first sight, even if it isn't 100% symmetrical.

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An Odd Day - Part 1:
Earned some major brownie points this morning as my wife was working from home & needed my Excel skills.
She had a seriously big job to do, but because I helped set it all up efficiently for her, I've saved her days of work.

I did get some time off for good behaviour and started working on improving the fit of the rear lights.

I roughly marked out where the lights were.



Then used a hand file to "flatten" the curves in that area.



If I just add a little sealant when they are fitted there should be a water tight fit.







The passenger side took a lot less filing to sort out.



Although I will need to add a layer of fibreglass matting behind the stop/tail light on this side.



Whereas the driver's side is already "thick" enough due to earlier cut & shut repairs in that area.



Then it was time to bite the bullet and see what I could do with this...



Note:
I'd already cleaned any excess bonding paste from the eye bolt and re-fitted it.

The first thing I did was prop the body shell up to get it roughly level on my sloping drive.





As I think this was another part of the problem when I first started to set this up.

Then I set up two extra long bolts through the centre of the locking pin holes.





End of Part 1...

An Odd Day - Part 2:
I used these bolt to manoeuvre a pair of washers on top of the mounting points below.



Then I drilled some matching holes.



Before fixing these bolts loosely into position.



Unfortunately, I can't fix them tightly due to the fact I still need to "level" the mounting plates.



The eye bolt let me drop the lid into position over the bolts.



Note:
I'd removed the rubber boot seal when I was re-drilling the holes, so bits of yoga mat are maintaining the gaps.

This does appear to leave the bolts pointing straight up from the centre of the hole.





However, the top surface of the lid is not perpendicular to the bolt.

This is not a great photo, but this is one of the extra large washers that came with the locking pins.



That would be quite a gap to build up.

So I will have a look for some penny washers with a big enough internal diameter for the lock.



In fact, I'm sure Mr T found something suitable for his locking bonnet pins.

I also had a look at the bottom edge of the lid and this will have to be an internal locating pin & external catch arrangement.

I made a start on repositioning the holes in the lower mounting plate.





But I also need to re-build this base to a new level that matches the top pins.



By this stage the sky had started to go black and trying to work all this out was making my head hurt.

So I decided it would be a safer bet to stop at this point.

Although with a bit of luck, it does finally look like I will be able to find a working solution of some sort.

Happy St.Patrick's Day, Paul.

Hi Paul, what ever happened to your KISS policy?

I am sure some where you can find a photo of the boot lid on my G-46.
I simply held the lid on with 4 stainless steel dome headed allen bolts and a set of stainless steel washers.
It looked good and it worked well.

That said, please keep the up-dates coming

A chap has to indulge himself in the odd complicated solution occasionally!

Micky1Mo - I know it doesn't look it, but I am desperately trying to KISS.

As I really thought a "pull out" boot lid would be simpler to make than a hinged one, but clearly I was wrong.

I did find this photo of your G46 boot lid...



Although there was some talk on the build thread of using bonnet hinges from a BMW E36?

If my attempts at getting the locking pins to work on the top edge fail, then I will consider bolting it down.

Although I'd still need to make something for the bolts to attach to in, as there is "fresh air" beneath the lid.

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8 Value Ed - Trust me, I'd much rather know how to make this work in a less complicated way.

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The End Of An Odd Day:
Another reason I packed up early yesterday was that "Paddy's Day" marks 24 years since my first date with my wife.
So I needed to remove all traces of car sanding dust and then prepare a nice meal for two.
Unfortunately, after eating I then had to spend another 3 hours + working on her spreadsheet for work!

Who said romance was dead?



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Right, I'm off to have yet another look at this bloody boot lid...

Paul,perhaps a stupid question.............what is KISS?
I assume you are not dressing yourself in leathers with spikes,high booths and painting a star on your face????

Rene - You are right, in this case KISS does not refer to these guys.



But the expression Keep It Simple Stupid.

In other words, don't keep over complicating things the way I often do.

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Memory Lapse!
Completely forgot I've got a hospital appointment today to get a mole checked out.

Although given my reply above, I should be clear I don't mean one of these!





So whilst I've just uploaded some photos from the work I've started on this morning, I'll do a proper update later on.

And with a bit of luck I'll get a bit more done too.

Cheers, Paul.

You made a good job of the rear lights Paul, it looks good and simple,
definitely a KISS effort!!

Scottie - Thanks.

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Another Odd Day - Part 1:
Spent quite a bit of time this morning looking at the boot lid in the vain hope a simple solution would present itself.

In the absence of any divine intervention, I started checking how much space I had to play with around the lid & bases.





As I will need to do some work to level both of these areas if the locking pins are ever going to work.

Next I made two cardboard templates for the bolt fixing areas.



As I want to use these to get the correct "level" at the base with some fibreglass filler underneath.

So I cut these out of metal and gave them a coat of etch primer.





While I had the primer out, I gave a quick coat to parts of the rear lighting area.





This rear view does give me a small glimmer of hope that one day this car will actually get finished one day.

However, this feel good factor quickly evaporated when I decided to add primer to a few spots on the boot lid while I was at it.
( As these re-shaped areas made the whole boot look at lot worse that it is. )





No sooner was the paint on when I remembered why I hadn't painted them before now, I clearly hadn't finished all the sanding down work.

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It was at this point I remembered I had a hospital appointment to get a mole checked out.

Thankfully I was given the all clear, but, just to be on the safe side, the mole was "zapped" with liquid nitrogen to kill it.

The mole was under my armpit, so whilst the first blast "smarted" a bit, the second blast made my eyes water!

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Eventually I was able to resume my battle with the boot lid.

I ground away the areas "above" the holes along the top edge of the lid.



This was to reduce the amount of "building up" I would need to do "below" the holes.





But no matter what I did, I still had problems trying to get everything to line up.



This work involves a lot of crawling underneath the body shell on a cold driveway & now I had a sore armpit too.

At which point, a mild burst of "boot rage" descended and I extended the holes in the mounting plates.



Thankfully I was able to calm myself down before I decided to take my angle grinder to the whole area.

End of Part 1...

Another Odd Day - Part 2:
Not sure if it was the frustration, the cold, or the throbbing pain from the mole, but....

I finally had a idea about how to get everything to lie up, once & for all.

I dug out a length of old box section & drilled a hole in it.



Then after some careful alignment & measurement compared to the boot lid, I drilled a second hole & fitted my extra long bolts.



As if by magic I now had something that keeps the bolts parallel and correctly spaced.



My small spirit level suggested that the scuttle area between the aero screens was level(ish).

So this gave me something to compare both the lid and the bolt mounting areas to.





Clearly, the fact that the body shell slopes all over the places has not helped me find a straight line to work with.

Plus by initially trying to keep the bolts perpendicular to the boot lid, my design was always doomed to failure.

Still, at least now I really think this tool will allow me to set this up in stages, starting with getting the locking pins in level.

However, I definitely need a clear head before I start any of that work!

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So I'll end with another couple of comparison photos.

I found this old photo of my very first attempt at mocking up the rear lighting layout.
( This was taken over 2 years & 4 months ago! )



It was after all my "cut & shut" work that Oxford1360 called my car a "Wide Boy" Cordite.

And you can really see how much wider the car is now if you compare the photo above, with the latest view.
( Even after allowing for the narrower grouping of the lights. )



Only the reflectors have changed slightly, all the other lights & the number plate are the same size.

Note:
Since the first photo, the rear end has also picked up an extra aero hump, a boot opening & twin tail pipe cut outs.

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I really hope that after another play with my new "bolt spacer" I will be able to sort the top locking pins out.

So until next time, take care, Paul.

Sorry Paul, but after following this thread for weeks I have only just realizes it was the actual boot hinges that was the problem

I have a spare set of 2CV door hinges. The same as I used on the G-46 doors.
If they were mounted on or under the rear edge of the body and boot lid, they would allow the lid to be opened past 90%, and you could put the locking handle between the humps.
They would also work on one side of the boot lid.

Any good to you as there are FOC.

Lights looking good!!!

Micky1Mo - Don't worry, I am sure a lot of what I write only makes sense to me.

Thanks for the offer of the hinges, but I'll hang on for now and give my "lift off" panel design one last chance.

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Family First:
My eldest daughter was off school ill today, so she was my main priority and that is always OK by me.

Thankfully I was able to make good use of my time indoors by doing some Ebay shopping:
- All the stainless nuts & bolts required to fix all the lighting (front & rear) & rear number plate into position.
- More filler (normal, fibreglass & "stopper").
- More etch primer & some smooth black Hammerite.
- Some self adhesive heat shield matting to line the gearbox tunnel & protect the bonnet over the radiator cap.

However, my last bit of shopping took ages to find, because I was looking for the wrong thing.

I knew Mister Towed used small washers around his bonnet locking pins.



So I carefully measured the internal diameter of the BIG washers than my locking pins were supplied with.



The ID was 19 mm, so I "logically" looked for M19 washers, but without success.

It was only when I decided that I would have to get some M18 ones and file them out to the right size that I realised my error.

Yes, as I am sure everyone else knows, the ID of an M18 washer is actually 19mm.

In fact, the more I think about it, I am sure I have made this same mistake at least once before.

Anyway, at least this means that I now have some smaller 34mm wide washers on their way.

As a rough guide, the big ones in the photo above are around 65mm wide & the penny washers in the same photo are 40mm.

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I did actually get a few chances to sneak out and play, but they were brief.

Still, something is always better than nothing, so here goes...

I put the rubber seal back on the boot rain channel to check the area I'd previously built up with filler.

This is my blurry "Before" photo:



And this is how it looks now, much better.



But I realised that I need to do the next round of work in the correct order to avoid messing it up.

I went back and had a look at the gap Swifty had around his boot lit.



Then compared that with what I have today.





So the first job is to get the boot lid at the right level, before I try to fix the locks in place.

Before I started cutting any more off the rain channel edge I did a quick test.

I ran a pen along the bottom edge of the rubber seal and then removed it.

This showed that the seal was sitting higher in some areas than others.





It seems that when I added some filler to the fibreglass to "smooth" it out a bit, I left the edges too thick in places.

After a few stop/start sanding sessions I had "narrowed" the rain channel edge all the way around.



Then I put the rubber seal back on and there has been only a marginal improvement to the gap along the top edge.



But the bottom edge is almost perfect, which makes sense as I started working on this end & spent more time on it.



Well, apart from the bottom corner on the driver's side which is "curling" up a bit.



This is due to the fact the fibreglass is much thinner in this corner than the other side.

So I need to add fixing this to the list of things I need to sort out before tacking the locks.

Although hopefully one more session on the rain channel will at least set the boot lid at the right level.

The only other thing I managed to do today was think about how I would set the level at the top of the lid.

As I need the washers & locking pins to sit "level" in order for me to line everything else up.

So I quickly taped some washers to my bolt spacer like so.



The extra washer on the right hand bolt will allow me to get both sides parallel to each other.



Although I might super glue the washers to the bolts when I am doing the filler work.

Right. I've got to go, cheers, Paul.

PS
I was flicking through Swifty's build in order to find the boot lid "gap" photo I posted above.

This reminded me of the huge number of bespoke parts he has machined/made for his car.

E.g. He has rear lights similar to my Land Rover ones, but his trim rings will make them really stand out.



I can't wait to see the finished car, which will set a new quality bench mark.