Thanks molleur - decided the black stripe along the centre has grown on me overnight :-) I have removed them though from the front bumper side quarters as a) they didn’t look right as the indent/lip sort of ends abruptly when it comes to the wheel arch and b) they don’t seem to be on all the original cars.
I haven’t been able to get much time on the car today, so decided I should crack on with fixing the battery isolator in place and then I can bolt down the rear screen and not have to keep removing it to access the battery.
I found a mounting point for the isolator on the rear frame between the engine and the rear of the clam, low down enough for me to reach up under the back of the clam without having to lie on the floor, and high enough up not to be covered with grime/water from the road.
The key is now on a short piece of cord attached to the isolator itself so when it’s unlocked it can’t drop down/get lost.
I used the junction box I mentioned in a previous post to take the existing negative wiring from the battery terminal and run the extension wires to the isolator down the rear of the engine bay.
Last couple of jobs before I had to call it a day where to have a go at wrapping the strut brace bar in the engine bay. I was going to paint this but thought I’d see how the dark blue vinyl wrap holds up. I suspect it won’t last long and will peel with the heat from the engine bay, but will give it a go.
The die cut vinyl lettering also turned up for the drivers names on the bonnet. The Image Works produced these for me and got them out to me overnight for a very reasonable figure (£15 all in with next day postage) given they are cut so no white background. Think they look a lot better anyway :-)
Jobs for the weekend are to get the rear screen back in and fit the mudflaps. I’m undecided if I should cut these down to half their size (top to bottom rather than across) given you see a lot of each one, particularly the front two, when looking at the front of the car. They are blue vinyl universal “Sparco” ones (although the Sparco stickers come separately so was planning to leave them off).
I did a bit of a trial fit and took some pics so will have a ponder on this overnight and then decide in the morning.
Many thanks DaveP - I sort of got carried away with the stickers and it became a bit of a challenge to myself to create as much of the 1986 Rally Livery as I could. I think though I will stop short now of applying the numbers!
Your comment about weight of stickers reminded me of some research I read in one of those RaceTech racing magazines a couple of years ago where someone in the US had researched weight of paint vs vinyl wrap for use in NASCAR. Outcome was the vinyl was half the weight of paint - on average paint was 15 lbs whereas vinyl wrap was 7lbs. Wasn’t clear if that was a full paint vs wrap job. There’s also plenty of research that says matte paint vs gloss is better aerodynamically (I guess stalling the air flow??) which is why Red Bull and now Ferrari have gone this route.
That means I must be well in on the weight vs performance stakes with matte white and vinyl :-)
Not a lot of time in the garage yesterday but enough to get the rear screen back in swapping the Dzus D rings for hex head Dzus bolts.
Before fitting the screen I gave the engine bay a good clean out - it was covered in dust from when I was sanding the panels. I also fixed down the intercooler pipes just to stop them flapping about. The strong cable ties don’t really show through the rear screen given the bronze tint.
Job for this afternoon is to cut down and fit the mudflaps. Looking back at pictures of car no 6 from when I was last at Goodwood FOS I’ve decided to reshape the flaps I’ve bought so this are wider and less deep.
I don’t really want a lot of the blue PVC showing in the arches when you look at the car front on so think this approach will sort this. Here’s a rough idea of what they will look like but they’ll be closer to the road than shown here.
Hopefully get some pictures posted later with them on the car.
Mudflaps fitted to both front and rear arches. Pleased with those on the rear ....
The front ones need a bit of adjustment ... the sills on my kit had a step/cut out in the front arch which means the flaps are at an angle. I’ve already made a cut out towards the inner edge of the arch. You can’t really notice it given the angles etc but it does mean that on full lock at low speed they are rubbing on the inside of the tyre. Probably an MOT warning or worse so will have to trim them a bit on the inside edge.
Was good to get the car out in the sun and inspect the vinyl wrap and stripes. Overall looks ok and as I’ve said previously million times better than the Plasti Dip.
....
Overall really pleased with the result and just the interior to sort out now.
Cheers - just spotted the one on the drivers side in the last picture here looks like it isn’t on level. It is (as you can see on the earlier pics) but the PVC seems to have a bit of memory still from when the flaps arrived in the post and were bowed.
Upshot is that they are angling towards the front of the car - nothing a good gravel stage won’t sort out :-)
Thanks froggyman - I’m looking forward to MOTing it now and getting out on the road in it
Thanks Wozzy - worth the effort on the vinyl and wrap. As I said in Facebook PM, the ears are by far the hardest parts to wrap due to the compound curves.
Managed to make a start on tidying the interior/doors up today after a couple of days off from the car.
I wanted to beef up the frame around the window of the door skin, which is supplied with a metal bar bonded in to the GRP skin. I wasn’t happy with where this attached to the MR2 door outer skin (the metal outer skin) so took the Perspex side windows out and strengthened this area on both driver and passenger side.
Whilst I had the windows out I also painted the upper visible part of the MR2 door skin that shows behind the perspex side windows matt black as I felt the gloss black of the donor car doors made this stand out.
I also painted the inside edge of the door mirror mounting plates I previously fabricated and glassed in.
Windows all back in (I added another rubber channel strip to provide a better join with the door mirror plinths), matt black paint work touched up (yes, it does seem possible to patch up PlastiDip!).
Next on the list for tomorrow is refitting the door cards and giving the interior a good clean, before fitting the RS200 door mats I had made up nearly 3 years ago now!
I was a bit curtailed today by the weather, as I really wanted to get the car out of the garage and give the interior a good clean, before refitting the door cards.
So instead, I decided I would try to sort out the front wheel arch/inner wing area. Ever since I’ve seen the car from a distance I’ve been bothered by the view looking into the front wheel arch.
Having thought about it, it was too much white GRP in the inner arch area from the upper area of the sills. So out came the matte black paint, this time I decided it was too tricky to try and spray with black PlastiDip so decided I could sacrifice these areas in terms of using normal paint (e.g. paint that doesn’t come off!) so bought a small pot of rustoleum matte black universal paint that I’d heard lots of good things about.
Wow, this stuff is great. Coverage is excellent and it appears you can brush it on and get a really good finish ... no brush strokes visible.
So I decided to paint the inner arch area to cover the white GRP sill area and I’m pretty happy with the improvement here. Note in the picture here the bonnet isn’t locked down.
Armed with the Rustoleum paint and brush there was no holding me back, and with the rain beating down outside I set about the front bumper arch area and inner bumper top as well as the inside area of the door jam.
Hoping the rain eases off over the next few days and I can sort the interior out. Then it’s off to the MOT station...yippee!
Oh... I nearly forgot .... ever since I started my build I was inspired by Retro200’s (Mick) MRS200 build. I remember early on in my build he sent me a picture of his kit and the shut lines of the front door, sill/bonnet area and how it compared to the original car. So for Mick if he’s still following my thread here’s a similar picture ... I don’t think they are too far out compared to the originals :-)
And the original ....
Been a bit of a bitsa day today tidying up little areas like the petrol release flap not always ‘flipping’ open when pressing the release switch inside (fixed by using a small foam strip on the inner edge where the flap closes against to provide a small amount of tension), adjusting the front mud flaps to reduce the width so they don’t catch the tyres of full lock, and a bit more adjustment of the rear screen fixings to tighten up the edges.
Interior cleaned up as well as door cards - both of which were covered in dust!
Will take some pics and post them once the door cards are back in.
Well.....funny you should say that Nick. I’m also finding that just after I have also hoovered and wiped the rear screen, of both the MRS200 and the MR2 hardtop rear screen, about 2-3 hours later there’s also a thin covering of dust.
I’ve come to accept that the dust particles from sanding the car down are in the air in and around the garage and I’m just moving them from one surface to another.
I’ve tried to leave the garage doors open to create a draft to get stuff out in the open and also left the car outside for a while but to no avail!
On a side note, we had some work done on the house this week and the folks doing the work had to go through the garage. I was most heartened when they spotted the RS200 and first thought it was an original but on hearing it was a replica said ‘I’d never have guessed there was an MR2 roadster under there’!
Bit of a nightmare day on the car yesterday. I should have just put the door cards back in and I would be ready for the MOT.....instead I took another look at the door rod/handle set up on the drivers door.
Big mistake. I still wasn’t 100% happy with the action and could see a bit of play in the rod I’d used to piggyback from the Sierra handle to the MR2 latch rod. First mistake was to try to reshape this which just resulted in the 4mm rod snapping!
So I had already ordered some new 4mm stainless rod which arrived mid afternoon and I managed to bend this and get a better radius in the area I was trying to sort.
So back onto the car and I’m tightening up the connector block (a repurposed central locking rod clamp) when the thread in the aluminium block strips. They’ve been on and off the rods as I shaped the bar originally and then when the door skins were bonded on so no real surprise. Nightmare indeed and no spares.
It was time to call it a day and I’ve ordered 4 new connectors/rod clamps but they won’t arrive until later in the week. I might try and see if a new grub screw in the connector works today but I will need to wait for the new blocks now before the door cards can go back - i had also planned on doing the same on the passenger door as well as there is also play in the rod on that side.
Whilst waiting for the new rod clamps to arrive I remembered I had bought a solenoid when originally fitting the door skins as I wasn’t sure piggybacking onto the MR2 rod was going to be reliable enough in operation.
I’d never even taken it out of the box so found it in the garage and took a look at whether it would fit. Well it’s small enough to clear the glass when it’s dropped and it looks like there’s a suitable mounting point just below the MR2 release rod.
......
It pulls up to 5kg in force and there seems to be enough movement on the solenoid to adjust the cable such that it will move the bar enough. I need to sort a mounting plate out as the one supplied isn’t wide enough to pick up the mounting point. I will sort some plate out and have it as a back up - my idea was to mount a microswitch behind the Sierra handle which is operated when the handle is pulled. There looks to be a 12v feed already in the door for central locking so shouldn’t be too hard to wire it up
Any views from folks reading this as to the engineering / feasibility of this longer term?
Forgot to say I would use a rod clamp on the MR2 rod and hook the wire from the solenoid through that otherwise it will just slip on the MR2 rod
Thanks for the response - I’d thought of that but the block I’ve got has quite a bit of movement between the connector pairs - will hunt out another block and give it a try
I also got another suggestion from Nostromo on using wire rope grips to join the two rods so I’ve ordered a bag of 4mm sized grips/clamps as they look like they will be a bit sturdier than the connecting blocks.
So until they arrive there wasn’t much to do on the car. I decided to have another go at bending the handle connecting rod to improve the radius of the bends and make them tighter, this time applying heat to the area to be bent on the rod which made a huge difference and it looks a lot better now.
Will probably be Friday now when I can next spend time on the door handle rods, but there was a nice surprise when my wife presented me with the following she’d had produced ....
Now I have chance to admire my handy work every time I have a cuppa :-)
And that also spurred me on to dig out a print I bought at the Castle Coombe Rally Day, now suitably personalised ....
Definitely Nick .... especially if you get a nice pic with that new sunstrip on yours :-)
Success at last with the door handle rod! Persevered with the rods as opposed to using the solenoid as I know the method works on other kits.
Rebent a new rod using a bit more heat on the bends to get them tighter and took Nostromo’s advice to use wire rope grips. I also repositioned the Sierra rod to attach underneath the MR2 rod so it was pulling rather than pushing from above.
Cable tie around where the rod slots into the door handle and feels a lot better in terms of the action. Door opens without needing to pull the door handle fully.
Need to repeat this now on the passenger side, door cards back in and a bit more black painting around the inner edge of the door then it’s ready for the MOT.