MadaboutKitcars

Thursday

Well, the door locks that I chose appear to have rattled certain cages, and upset the animals!

Seriously though, I put as much time and effort into research on which locks to use, as I have put into other things on the car, and came to the conclusion that what I have fitted, are the most simple, functional and hidden locks as I could find.

Especially given the odd angles and shapes of the XKSS doors in the first place.

Even the simple ones I have used were an absolute bitch to fit, and I had to make another " special tool" in order to actually get them in place.

The original plan was to then take them out, and paint the doors then refit,
but given how difficult and time consuming it was to fit them in the first place, the bastards are staying in there, and will end up painted BRG along with the door too.

Here are some pics:

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Redratbike, you may really want to see my car finished, but not half as much as me!!

Ref the time spent on the blog, it takes less than a minute to snap a few pics, and 30 minutes for the text, and believe me that is absolutely nothing compared with the time spent on the car.

I could be even more detailed with the build report, but I really don't have the time, so I actually miss quite a lot out!
Glad you appreciate it though!

Friday

I have spent the whole day on just the passengers door.
I had not intended to, and was going to finish the last rain channel, but with the door off, I realised I had yet to glass in the fitting holes and re-drill.

Having done that, and as it was a nice sunny day, I decided to make and fit some sort of mechanism so that the handle would open the door.
With the door off the car, I could turn it to any angle and see inside.

Well, I spent ages making the mechanism, and even longer trying to get it inside the restricted space, but I did it in the end, and tried it out, and it was a miserable failure. It just did not work at all, and worse still, jammed the lock, so it would not come back out.

I was gutted! Time is a commodity I am short of right now, and boy, had I wasted some!

I stripped it all out and went back to basics, I decided that using nuts and bolts in such a tight space was madness, so got rid of them, and worked out a system that was much simpler, which slotted together with no nuts or bolts. It now works perfectly, so doing the drivers side will be much quicker
now, as I know what to do first time.

Call me jaded, but I just could not dredge up any excitement for the "show of the century" I did watch it, but afterwards wondered why I'd bothered!

Pics:

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One picture must've fell off the cliff, here it is:

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I bet all your posts add up to more than 100 pages WCA!

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll even make it there, the work just seems to keep coming, and it all takes so long, but I will carry on and hope.
I am really tempted to ask, if you are on the pc for 14 hours and paying attention for only 4, WTF are you doing for 10 hours, watching porn?

Boo Hoo!
everyones on at me!

Sunday, and I have started on the final rain channel, it usually takes a whole day to fabricate one, and finalise it, so I may not complete it today, as I have other things to do, but we will see.

Pics:

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I certainly will be glad when the last of the rain channels are done
Paul, the odd thing is that, I may never get around to making a roof, Probably will never drive the car in the rain, so why the hell am I bothering?

I'll tell you why, when I was looking at the only XKSS replica I've ever been close up to, and the builder told me it leaked badly, I swore to myself that mine would NOT leak, hence all the extra work on the channels.

Wednesday

I have finally got the last rain channel made and in place.
For some reason it proved more difficult than the other three to make, and seemed to drag on forever.

Thankfully, I had the experience of the other three to stand me in good stead, so it was possible.

Normal life really got in the way, friends came to visit, and interrupted me, they no longer seemed to be put off by, "piss off, I'm busy", I think they have become hardened to it.

I just kept chipping away at it for moments at a time in between everything else, til it was finished.

Anyhow, here are some pics:
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Thanks for that y cymro, I'll check on the mag, and I also would like to see my car at Stoneleigh!

I'll have to keep at it though, it seems like there's still an awful lot to do.


( Liked the " links please" joke!)
Is he serious? ARE there other things on the net??

Go ahead and stick them on this thread Dave, I may not have them!

Hey Dave, Thanks a lot for those pics, its definitely a replica, just cannot figure out why someone put wires on it and not Dunlops!!

y cymro, totally blown away by both links! Don't know whether to be mega-inspired, or just gutted that my car won't be as stunning as those two!!

I'll carry on though, mine will look reasonably nice, and handle and sound quite good too, the major difference will be the price that I will have managed to build it for, and the fun I've had too.

Thursday

Another day on the car, having made the last rain channel, I needed to clean up, and join it to the side trim of the car, so it looks as though it should be that way.

I snapped the corner off the passengers side ( fibre glass body) where I had ground it too thin, Then made a mess of the side panel by cutting it too short, so the whole lot had to be sorted out , which is what I did today.

I made a small panel, which does not look out of place, and that solved all the problems in that area.

I was wondering what to do about the ugly nuts that hold the quarter lights on inside the car, and decided domed stainless nuts were the answer, and got some. I am pleased with the result and will do the other side tomorrow.

Pics:

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Jones, all suggestions are most welcome, but in this case I will do seperate covers.

The main reason is that it is going to be very difficult to make the support covers, and I know this because I have already made paper patterns, and even they were hard. I am on about mark 4 at present!

I am not looking forward to doing them in alloy, but will.
The thought of trying to combine corners and those, is most definitely a big no-no!

Got out early, made and fitted the drivers side corner cover,
(apologies to Jones!)

Perhaps more later

pic:

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I really hope so FB, but I thought I would get there last year!
How wrong can one be?

I will definitely go there, but whether my car gets to go there I can't say for sure yet.

I'm doing my best.

Saturday

I have spent half the day on the car and don't seem to have changed much, but half a day is half a day, so we are closer.

I have fixed the boot lid cable and pull toggle into the car, so when the boot lid goes back on after the paint job, the lock will just bolt into place as a five minute job.

Then I had to re-fit the dash, so I would know how much space I've got for the windscreen support covers, then work out how to make and shape them.

I now know what to do, and more importantly, how to do it and what to make it out of.

Who yelled out "aluminium?

I still have to chop some fibre glass out of the dash corners so's to get the trim all smooth and fitting correctly, at the edges, but that will be another day.

The final trim fitting, which is what I'm doing now, will always be on permanent show, and the car will be judged by how that looks, so I really cannot rush this stage as much as I want to!

I just had to fit the steering wheel to cheer me up a bit, but it did not really need to be there!

Here are some pics:

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I'll check on where I got the the bits, and get back to you Danny.

Okay Danny, the red pull handle cable thing came from here
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JJC-Race-Rally-Extinguisher-Master-Switch-Pull-Cable-Red-T-Handle-/301361005823?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item462a8404ff

I bought one for the bonnet, and was so impressed with the quality, I got a second one for the boot. So cheap, yet the same thing from Demon Tweaks is over £30. Four times the price.
The actual lock part came from a national chain store, called
B and M, but on checking today, they no longer do them.

However, this looks about the same, but I can't vouch for the qualty:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MORTICE-TUBULAR-LATCH-Internal-Door-Catch-Handle-2-or-3-in-SATIN-ZINC-/201032779303?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item2ece7cc627