Bye bye baby.....

So she's gone! A nice chap called Graham came and bought her today :-( and took her away.
Its been a fantastice experience building a car from scratch and I have loved every minute. Hope to see her again some time at the shows and hear that fantastic exhaust note again.
Enjoy it Graham and take good care of her. Thanks to all who have followed my blog and sent so many cool messages........... I WILL BE BACK........

Tick tock, tick tock

Nothing happened but Ive nearly finished all domestic tasks since moving in so not too much longer I hope. The benefit will be a quicker test date for the IVA out of the summer months!............

Waiting

I had another rolling road booked and this time I got let down by a guy with a car transporter! Things aren't moving on but at least the weathers crap! Silver stone this weekend and then back at it with vigour!

Rolling Road cancelled!

Well the RR I had booked for this Saturday called to say they had forgotten that they were actually racing this weekend and so would not be able to carry out the work on the car! Grrrrreat! I have however now finally got the bonnet vent properly sorted and the Dominator lights fitted and aligned(ish)

Luckily for me this weather has been the way it has otherwise I would literally be climbing the walls with this sat in the garage and so nearly on the road.

IVA Front lighting & Catch tank

I was going to wait 'til after IVA to fit the Dominator headlamps as I was concerned the beam pattern wouldnt pass IVA or MOT standards but having heard from a guy on SKCC that hes just passed IVA with them and at the same station I am going to so I decided to crack on. The dominators are smaller and more modern which suits the finish of my car. They are also much more streamlined than the old 'air brakes'.....

The wiring on the back is quite simple, sidelight can be wired either way and the headlight is black - earth, white - dip and yellow main beam.

The lamps also need a minor mod to create a 15 degree kick up on the beam pattern. To achieve this you need to dismantle the light unit....

Above you should be able to see a small cut out in the mounting rim.....

You then need to file another one approx 13mm to the right (when viewed from the front of the car)

 

Then reassemble and voila! 15 degrees of left kick up!

I also fitted a different catch tank, the last one was cylindrical and didnt fit so well. I now have a square one. I have run the crank case breather straight to the tank with a filter and have fitted a seperate filter to the camshaft breather, only because I had two smart filters otherwise I would have run both to the tank on a T-piece.

Twiddling my thumbs.........

Whislt waiting for IVA and rolling road Ive been spending my time reading peoples fail sheets and making necessary adjustments, so thank you to the guys who have been honest enough to post their fails/advisories. I also decided to start work on some of the jobs that I had done that needed correction but was going to leave  'til IVA was done.

Those that have followed this blog will know I have worked on the bonnet scoop on 3 seperate occasions and still was not happy with it. The problem was that the inside edge of the scoop I had only had a bout 4-5 mm surface to bond to the bonnet and with all the best will in the world there seemed to be no clean and tidy way of achieving a smart fit.

I got inspiration from a mates 4X4 when I clocked the size of the scoop on it and knew it was just that little bit bigger than the one I'd fitted and it also came with bolt fixings. So off to ebay I went.

I removed the old one by cutting with a scalpel through the Tiger Seal.....

Below is the new one laid on for size. Unfortunately the width of the hole in the bonnet just allows the four side bolts to slip through so I'll be making two stainless braces to cross the whole then the bolts can pass through and tighten the vent to the bonnet....

The front bolt has been cut off as there is a large flat area which offers a great opportunity to bond it firmly to the bonnet. This was clamped in place and then raised (heater helped) to take up some of the sag that wont be there when the bonnet is fitted....

Now if this doesnt work its new bonnet time or an even bigger vent lol

Dettling 2012

Popped down to Dettling show today and I have to be honest if it wasnt for Southern Kit Car Club there wouldve been nothing to see. Good turn out by SKCC and Im glad its my local club....

The SKCC stand was definitely the one with most attendance and made the trip worth it,

Above Tony B's Zero looking great as ever! But my favourite has to be Lindas Tiger in Gulf livery, this photo doesnt really do it justice as the livery is soooo well done with authentic race decals taken from Steve McQueens Porsche in 'Le Mans' 

IVA Bits and bobs

I started work on some of the little fiddly jobs for the IVA test. I had a massive amount of vibration on the wing mirror when the car was on tick over so using the old wooden former that I made when shaping the scuttle I shaped two ali plates to fit inside the scuttle as reinforcement.....

The plates are about the size of envelope and have eliminated a hell of a lot of the vibration..

I then set about a lot of edging trim to suspect areas that the IVA man will check. The photo below is hard to see but there is a sharp edge between the fog lamp and the rear wing and this must be trimmed...

One that really amazes me is that you have to trim round the edges of the harnesses as they will also be radius tested..... crazy!!

Also the holes round the wishbones in the side panel have also received the same trimming attention

All in all not a bad afternoons work and a few jobs ticked off the list and looking at this photo I see I forgot to reattach the repeater wire ! lol

1 step further!

Well as previously mentioned things have been slow but today I spent my time emptying my old workshop and moving the car to my new house. I have to say it was a great lift to see it again and start it up and drive it the short journey on to my mate Matts trailer. Matt works for Winner Group so if you ever need trailer or plant hire give him a shout!

Although Im annoyed its not yet completed I have to say it was amazing to see it out in the sunshine even though it was covered in dust.....

On to the trailer and away!

A bit of a posey shot at the bottom of my new garden....

and now all tucked up in the new workshop ready for me to get cracking and get her finished. A few questions for the lads on the forums and I'll have it all done. Got her booked in for the rolling road sesh then its IVA and away we go!!! :-)

Im so glad to have got it up here and reignite the need/desire to get it on the road!

A manic few months....

Hi all, for those asking for blog updates I apologise for the lack of updates. 2011 / 12 has been a bit of a whirlwind and all for the better although the build has suffered. I started the build then we found out we were pregnant, then I started my own business and last week we moved house so hence the lazy blog / build. I hope to get back at it in the next couple of weeks to get her ready for IVA as the car is pretty much finished bar a rolling road session and a shakedown. Watch this space, she will be on the road this summer!!
Thanks for reading and the continued support !

Fog light and boot cover

Well BIG thanks to my mate Frampy we have finally got a Fog lamp that will work in accordance with the IVA rules. I still cant believe that this issue is one oif the most asked about things on all the forums. Its a friggin' nightmare!

I mentioned before how I'd fabricated a 3 piece rear boot cover panel

and was planning on fitting the GBS vinyl boot cover but at over £100 and whilst doing the sums for IVA/registration I came up with this............

Black leatherette £5 on ebay, contact adhesive £8......

Black rivets ebay £3......

Admiring your own work and saving big money......Priceless!!

Well big thanks to Simon and or Will but the manifold did arrive today so I got it all fitted. The fitting kit is good and the bracket fits to the chassis with 2 X 10mil rivnuts

Now I need to sort the running out as the CAT and silencer glow RED HOT on idle, which means either its running lean or the timing is out. Still it was very cool blasting it through the village today! My GOD its QUICK!! ;-)

Exhaust continued....

After waiting 2 weeks for my exhaust it doesnt fit! I spoke to them and they explained they had changed the design and now have two different fittings. Shame they dont tell you that at the time or ask any questions before they take your order. Anyway hopefully they will be true to their word and a new manifold will be here tomorrow.

 Ive now had to strip the water rail and manifold to account for this so we're probably looking at a 3 week delay all in all.

Tracking and exhaust

So I have a list of minor jobs (mmm) to do whilst prepping for IVA. I did the tracking today, I used some ribbon and a stapler to align the front wheels with the rears. Its quite simple, take a piece of ribbon or string and run it through the centre line of the rear wheels. Then staple it in to a proper piece of tread on the tyre, then run the ribbon to the front wheel and make sure there is no deviation on the line. Important to note befor you do this make sure you have the same left/right movement on the steering wheel. Once its all done adjust the steering whell mounting position.

The exhaust came back from GBS today with the CAT welded so I set about fitting that. 1 hours work I reckoned but not so. The GBS manifold really doesnt seem too keen on accepting the rest of the system so I walked away and will revisit it tomorrow.!

Front indicators

I received the threaded tube which I got from Bygone Lighting as this is going to be the solution to mount the horrible front indicators and extensions required for IVA. Its M10 but has a fine pitch thread (1mm) 

So I cut 2 x 35mm lengths and added a nylock at one end 

This then fits onto the GBS extension bracket

Then using the Peugeot 205 steering gaiters which I shortened a bit I covered all this making it IVA compatible.

Ugly I know but they will be replaced after the test for sure!

Not much but a bit more...

With it so nearly finished now the updates will be be having less and less techy content and just basic progress. I've fitted the Lambda (loosely) and am going to need to think of a heat proof shroud to get this through the IVA radius test...

Having made various threaded solutions for my old gear knob I fitted this Sparco unit with a threaded insert that came with it and it looks cool and keeps the black/ali theme through the car.....

My last post spoke about the minging 'streetlamps' with extensions required for IVA as front indicators and the pic below shows the cool ones which will replace them the day after I pass IVA.......

Which would you prefer????

Boot cover and a bit more trimming

A while ago I made a wooden pattern of the rear boot cover and then I designed a 3 piece solution and then fabricated 3 ali panels. The left and right will be rivetted and the centre panel will be riv-nutted to allow access to all the mechanicals in the back, after that a vinyl hood type cover will be placed on top .....

Ive shown before my idea/solution for my gear gaiter and today I bonded it whilst finishing a couple of other bonding jobs. The sealant doesnt last once you've opened it so it pays to line up a few jobs as its expensive stuff.

One of my least favourite of the standard Zero parts are the front indicators. They're minging! AND you need to fit extensions to make sure they pass IVA......

THEN to add to the minging factor they need shrouding to make them compliant with the IVA radius test (sharp edges) so Im using peugeot 205 steering gaiters.

Trust me this whole set up will 'fall off' the night after IVA and be replaced with some nice Gucci superbike ones.

More fettling

I got the VIN plate from GBS which is nice and no longer carries the RH logo and its in my colour scheme! Very thoughtful.

Front wings now fitted with IVA trim which I got from cbsonline, its much nicer and tidier than others Ive seen. It takes some time and patience but its well worth it...

Another go at bonding the bonnet scoop and I think its worked out well this time....