MadaboutKitcars

Sunday

Crimson rodent cycle, or redratbike as you prefer:-)

In answer to your question, what am I trying to achieve? I sometimes find myself asking the same bloody question, and at times I'm not even sure..........

Right, here are some pictures and drawings, which would not win prizes, but hopefully will explain what I'm trying to do, with these bent pipes in order to make a thousand quids worth of XKSS bumpers.

As I said once before, I am not keen on the original XKSS bumpers at all, and want mine to be the shape in my pics.

They are purely for asthetics, (a bit like the real ones then!)

Since I last posted, I have had another re-think, and have decided on pipes with a diameter of 1.5 inches, and not the 2 inch ones.


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On another note, I started work on assembling the doors today, which threw up even more complications, (a bit like Paul I guess!)

When I stuck the alloy plates on the inside of the door skins, it seemed to somehow flattern out the curve, so when I mate up the skin to the door, it takes quite a lot of pressure to bend the skin around the frame and hold it there.

So much pressure, in fact, that I am thinking that bonding alone may not hold it, as it wants to spring open all the time. I did not really want to use rivets, as it would not look right.

Then I came up with the idea of trying to re-bend the skin to the correct shape, and to that end, I have clamped the skin up, and will leave it that way for a day or so to see if it will reshape.

I will post the answer in due course........

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Monday

Today I put in a full day, I started at 0800hrs and have just finished now.
The time now is just gone 4pm.

I have achieved a lot, I have taken the door hinge off and cut, reshaped and welded it back, so now I have the correct hinge angle, or at least as good as its going to get for me.

I have trimmed the door and the skin,and made it fit well, and finally bonded them together using J B epoxy glue, which the company bills as the "strongest glue in the world"

I don't really care if it is, as long as my door stays stuck together!

I used the whole 2 ounces of the stuff, so we will see.

I have drilled two extra holes in the hinge, so it will be 4 bolt, not for strength, but so I can fine shim the angle, top and bottom, as I made need to for a perfect fit.

This is only the drivers side mind you! But I have learned from the mistakes I made, so the passengers side will be quicker and easier.

( Where have I heard that one before?)

At least I know the precise place to slice the other hinge now, and also how much to bend it,so won't be wasting time re-welding up my mistakes.

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To be honest Paul, I had thought of sealing my doors too!
What stopped me was the thought that its going to be hard enough getting in and out anyway, but with no doors at all, nigh on impossible!

I thought so too! I didn't realise I had so many!!

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Wednesday

Well I started at 0830, on the passengers door, and after an hour and a half, I have, cut out the hinge slit, (the other one was so fresh in my mind I did not even measure this one, just cut where I knew it should be!)

Also I have cut a strip off the alloy I put inside the skin, because it got in the way of a perfect fit to the door.

I have trimmed the door so it will fit into the skin probably better than the drivers one did. But that is what the experience of doing it once already teaches you!

I must cut and rework the door hinge next, then hang the door for checking,
watch this space...........

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session two Wednesday

Right, I went out and toiled in the midday sun, as per mad dogs, (and I am an Englishman)

At the end of the day, or, more to the point, when I was pissed off with the heat, dust and all else, I packed it in, but have now got the last door bolted on
in roughly the right place. (In the big hole on the passengers side)

I have not bonded the skin on the door, as the adhesive has not arrived yet,
( I did not plan on using the whole 2 ounce pack of epoxy, on the first door, but that's how it turned out) so I had to order more.

Also, I have not welded the door hinge yet, but that is small potatoes, the important thing was to get all the angles correct, and the door hung, which I have done.

Looks like I might have to use two or three tons of filler on the back edge of the passengers door to get the curves to match a bit better, but that is not a big deal either, so at the end of the day, a I am a happy bunny.

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Post

Well, the epoxy adhesive arrived today, giving me no excuse for not using it,
so I took off the door hinge and welded, painted and replaced it, having first drilled out two more holes

I fitted the door and drilled the extra holes in that too, then took it off to have the skin bonded on.

Again, I used all two ounces of the adhesive, which worked out just about right, then clamped it up.

I am not certain that it needed quite that many clamps mechanically to suffice, but it did need that many to appease my sense of humour and presentation! (But I did have quite a few left over.)

You would not believe how heavy those clamps made the workpiece, I could hardly carry it at arms length!

I will have to leave it for a day or so, like the other one to cure and harden properly, then I can get on with making both doors fit right, filling, sanding and making them look right prior to painting.

I feel I can see more clearly the light at the end of the tunnel.......

I have been thinking that a lot lately, but it is not getting any brighter just yet.

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Friday

Today I took the clamps off the passengers door, which took about 2 hours :-)

Got the other door off the car and sanded them down, trimmed all the edges,
filled where required, and then re-sanded.

In this heat, the filler went off nice and fast, I sweated well, and all the dust stuck to me, and I looked like a zombie afterwards, at that stage, I had had enough, so I packed it in, but I now have two quite presentable doors.

When back on the car, I will adjust them, then fill as necessary, to make them as near perfect as I can.

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So far I have used around 36 square feet of aluminium on the interior and other parts of the car, and a lot more will go inside for the central transmission tunnel and the sides too.

A lot of that will remain un-painted bare aluminium, so there should be a fairly strong suggestion that the car has an alloy body. Which of course is the aim of the exercise!

Incidentally, one of the companies that will build a replica similar to mine for you, starting at £60, 000, increase the price to £108, 000 if you want the body in aluminium!!

So an ally body costs 48 grand??

I should have a well presentable fraudulent car for a lot less than that!

Well it looks like a million bucks worth Towed!

Can't wait for mine to be in a similar condition.

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Monday

Well I started today with a visit to the dentist, as, over the weekend, I broke a tooth chewing on some stoneless dates, one of which I discovered wasn't.

That sorted, I set about the car.

Way back in December when I fitted my electric fan, having stripped out the crappy little mechanical fan that Triumph put there, (Although it was effective), I received some flak from Landmannn and Oxford, about the crappy little cheap thing I was fitting.

At the time also, I knew they were both right! However, my shitty little fan did work, (but for how long? Who knows!) BUT, I did vow one day to change it for a more robust jobbie that shifted a lot more luft.

Today was that day, I swapped some big leather cushions I had left over from the three piece suite, for a really nice powerful fan from a modern car.

The fan was made in 2011, and looks almost new, and compared to the cheapo fan in the car, this thing really moves air.

I connected it to a battery and switched it on and almost did a Mary-Poppins, over the rooftops.

Once I have it installed I KNOW when it kicks ,it will cool the living daylights out of the system.

I needed to make a cowl as it came without one, so I used some aluminium,
and fixed the fan to it with three stainless arms.

Being an incurable hoarder, I still had all the old rubber strips that came off the Spitfire donar, so used some of that to go around the cowl where it will touch the radiator.

I will finally fit it to the car tomorrow, but all the graft is done.

Landmannn and Oxford, thank you for your input!!

Does this one have your blessing?

No. it won't fit on the other side! Bollox to Canleys!

This thing'll really cool it believe me!

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Tuesday morning

I took the small fan out of the car, and fitted the beefy one on steroids.

I was lucky to be able to use the brackets that were in place already, with a bit of twisting, re-drilling and so on, the cowling is in a good solid position, and the fan works well without fouling the sides etc.

I do admit, I feel much happier with such a robust unit in place.

As I said before, there never was an overheating problem anyway, but it is always nice to know that if you are stuck in heavy traffic during a heatwave,

The fan is going to whack the temperature down in a hurry when it kicks in.

My thanks to Landmannn, and Oxford for their constructive criticism, which is always welcome.

I also fitted both doors back on the car, and will now start the long tedious
and difficult task of shimming them up to fit as best I can.

I know how hard its going to be, because I spent an hour doing it first thing this morning and got so peed of with it, I left it, and did the fan fitting as that was easier!!

Oh well, its gotta be done...........

P.S. The bigger fan and cowling somehow makes the car look as though its got a giant turbine engine fitted!


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Oxford
WCA
Garyh
Swifty

Thanks for your support fellahs!

Swifty, the alluminium that I have in the car so far, will mostly be covered up by the seats and stuff, the top 2 inches or so above the seat tops will be connaught green, same as the rest of the body.

The inside side panels and central transmission tunnel, (yet to be fitted) will be left bare ally. I have no plans to coat it in anything as I just see future trouble when the lacquer starts peeling off etc. It would look awful, and the lacquer would prove hard to remove to re-do.
Providing I wipe it off now and then, it should not corrode at all.
Perhaps I'll wipe it with WD 40 or some other stuff.

I want it to have its natural sheen.

Not as much as there was, but JUST enough!

Later

Hi Alpha, I reckon there were more than you that wondered about the bonnet!

I did check before I fitted, I would have preferred the original gap, but the cooling must come first. It is fairly tight, here are the pics for the disbelievers!

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I have a brilliant piece of kit I found on the net.
I can dial any temperature from zero to 120 centigrade for the fan to kick in. The beauty of this is the fan can be checked at any time by dialling the temp down to the ambient temp, and it just kicks in.
I have it all on a 25amp fuse as well. ( And a relay)

Nah fatbloke, they're okay!

Thanx Paul!

Landmannnnnnnnnnnn, I just found a pic of the controller:

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