MadaboutKitcars

Don't worry about your tent Paul, bags of anchors and tie-downs are the answer! Believe me, mines still there!

Today

It just occurred to me that I want this car finished by April, which only gives me three months, I'm going to have to put more hours in, so I reluctantly left the warm room, and went out to the tented emporium of agony to do a bit more.

Apart, from spending a couple of hours trying to arrange the sides of the tent so they do not allow water to get in on the concrete, I managed to finish the bonding by doing the driver's side.

Hopefully, my extra work on the tent walls will be successful, and allow me to doss about on the cold floor at least keeping dry while I toil on.

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Wheels

On Monday I said I would tackle the bulkhead wheel fouling at a later date,

Well that date was today.

At first I thought it would be a simple straightforward job involving a bit of violence
With a heavy hammer. Well, it was not to be! Another hard job? Well what a surprise.
Firstly I trimmed the rear of the wheel arch a bit.

I slit the bulkhead and bashed it in, only to find, it was fouling in another area, which just happened to be a three dimensional nightmare.

Eventually I got to where I wanted, and welded it all back together, but the “simple”

Job took all bloody day.

I am really looking forward to doing the other side! It has the added complication of the
Pedals being possibly in the way!

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Very amusing Paul! I think you do know a song or two about bulkheads, I reckon you must be the number one expert on them!

Bulkhead, drivers side



Well, today I did the diver’s side bulkhead which was fouling the wheel on lock.

Today though was different, with the experience I gained yesterday doing the other side

I knew exactly where the hidden sill tubes were, and made swift cuts accordingly.

I had it sorted very quickly, welded it up, kurusted primed and painted in no time.

I checked the wheel clearance which was good, job done, but this time it only took 4 hours, which beats the whole day yesterday!

I am growing tired of doing all these mundane shitty jobs I have been doing recently,
As they do not actually change the appearance of the car.

I am itching to do work that does change the way the car looks.

I think I am close to reaching that point at the moment, just a few bits and bobs

Left to do, and then I think I will sort the windscreen out, that will make big difference.
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It has just occurred to me that it would have been very boring not to have been able to go round corners in my completed car, with that thought in mind, I am now even more pleased to have done the necessary work
in order to make that possible..............

Which was hard before! And where did you get the pop up thingy you showed a pic of WCA?

Popper

WCA,

Thanks for all the info, I already have the bonnet and boot catches in place and working. To keep things simple and reliable, I have used basic cable pulls.

What I was intending to do,was put a simple spring under the bootlid and bonnet, so they popped up a bit more positively than they do at present.

That spring thing you had, looked ideal. I have searched online with little success, as I am not sure what to call what I am searching for!

That is really all I need, as I deliberately steered away from electrically operated systems.

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Thanks for that, I already tried the door popper thing on google, but all it turns up is complicated electric kits that I don't need! All I want is a simple spring!

PM me your address and I'll send you something in return for the favour :-)

Today

I have a wood burning stove, which is very nice, but it consumes wood like a voracious monster, so I am constantly working with a chain saw to keep it alive.

Luckily I live in the country, (I didn’t know they grew on trees!) so there is a plentiful supply. (Wood that is, not the other)

So this slows down my work rate at times, however I did some small jobs today.

Thinking ahead, I looked at the Spitfire hood, which while it will not fit now.
some of the bits it has, I can use and modify to build one that will.

I took off the hood brackets and put them on the car to see if it was feasible to build my roof using the same anchor points.

It was, and I am sure it will be fairly straightforward, which will be a “first” with this build I think!

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boot rain channel drain tube



When I re-designed the boot lid aperture and put the rain channel in place, I was aware that eventually it would need a drain hole each side.

This is a bit obvious, but I had it illustrated to me one day when the cover blew off and it rained ( at that stage the body was outside) the boot had lots of water inside.

Well its done now, I used two lengths of 8mm copper tube, flared the ends and glassed them in.

Rubber pipe will be used to channel the water down through the floor later.

One more time consuming job that had to be done, finished at least,
another 5 thousand to go...........

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Inner wheel arches



Mister Towed:

It finally stopped raining enough for me to take the cover off my Triumph GT6 and study the inner wheel arches.
(Having sold my Spit bonnet, I could not remember what the arches looked like)

The arches are not attached at the rear, as obviously the whole front bonnet flips forward.

I will end up fabricating something similar, preferably removable if possible, to allow better access when and if.

I took some pictures which will definitely help me, and hopefully yourself also. Your comments most welcome, or anyone else for that matter!

(I did take a picture of the front part of the arch, but unfortunately it got deleted in the uploading process, however, it is not that important as you can see most of the front bit in the centre section pic)

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Thanks Paul that is helpful, I think Mr Towed is on the right track with possibly making the arches out of a plastic barrel.
I will be watching his progress!

Sounds good, I will look into that WCA.

Speedometer surgery



I have put a lot of thought into what I am going to do about a Speedo for my build.

I have, and will use, Jaguar dials. But it would be nice if I could get them to work, as Spitfire / Jaguar instruments are totally different, and cost hundreds of pounds (I am told) to get calibrated/ electronically modified etc.

I sorted the rev counter problem out by grafting the Spitfire rev counter guts into the the Jag housing and it worked . (Described earlier in this thread)

Anyway today I took the Spit speedo out of the car and had a good look at
It. I decided it may be “do-able” to copy what I had done with rev counter.

I couldn’t fit it on one plane, so I …………… put it on two.
Don’t you just love that TV advert!

Right, so I stripped both the speedo’s down, and successfully grafted

the two together and it only took a whole day!

Chris once said to me “it’s possible to make anything fit anything”

Of course that’s not strictly true, I could see enormous problems trying to graft a double decker bus body tub to a Sinclair C5 for instance…..

Anyway back to the speedo…..

It will not read totally accurately, as the Jag dial is calibrated slightly differently than the Spit, BUT, although the speedo will be out a bit, the recorded mileage will be as accurate as it was previously, so my trip mileage and total mileleage will be spot on. I have a mini GPS which I will mount discreetly so I can monitor my true speed when I need to.

Here are some pics, which may help others going down the same road.




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Mister T.

Have some faith!!
It worked when I took it off and it won't know it has a different face will it?

scimjim.

I had to do this, it worked with the rev counter, ( tested on the car and works well) I wanted to use 1950's Jag dials in keeping with the illusion of a 50's car.

I really enjoy the challenge as much as anything!

Kind of like therapy if you will.

C5

Well, you did ask WCA........


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Absolutely Mr T, The C5 needed an awful lot of bracing in order to avoid me ending up the same way!

Final finish

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