4 October 2007
Session 202 - Rear stoneguards
You remember last week I made a template for my stoneguards which I ordered from carbonmods they arrive yesterday. They are superb. I installed these on the rear wings this evening.
Nice!
Okay, I could resist no longer, I have remove the clear protective film of the carbon look cycle wings. When I started this project I thought I would not get bitten by the carbon fibre look but when you get some you want it everywhere!
you may have noticed a white thing on top of the trumpet base on the engine. Yep, I have started making another pattern/plug! I made this one out of plaster from the last mould I made which I was not entirely happy with. I am using this as a basis and will carve and sand into a new one. Know that I have the bodywork, bonnet and engine in place I have a better chance of getting the clearances right, however to be fair it does fit but there's only about 2mm clearance and by the time I have installed a flange on the plenum base then this clearance will be no more.
7 October 2007
Session 203 - bonnet latches and side repeaters
Bonnet latches and side repeaters, is that all, erm, 6 hours! These two topics are the worst part of the build apparently and I had to do both in one day!
Started off making the template for the side repeaters as described in the construction manual (Page 138). I did these three times mainly because the compass I have is rubbish.
As you can see not the simplest of shapes and the manual gives a warning it has to be exact otherwise the ratched and spring clip on the indicator will not hold it in, potentially embarassing.
This template has to be placed in the exact righ position in order to comply with the neccessary legal requirements of lighting, pretty much like all of it but get this in the wrong place and you need a new tub or some cleverly applied graphics.
Template applied to the car 300mm from the skuttle datum and 50mm down the panel.
A few hours later I have both sides cut, yep, I went very slowly and did most of the filling and cutting with hand tools.
Another 20 minutes of final fettling later and...
And the other side
And the loom fits the indicators without changing connectors, bonus. I may change this for white ones with an orange bulb at a later date, but I do not think they look to bad even though they are from the standard Ford parts bin.
I went straight into fitting the bonnet lock latches next. You remember that they are half on and half off on the tub return edge. I marked up throuygh the bonnet vents and double checked, adjusted slightly, tripple checked and adjust a litte more then commited two pilot holes a piece. As the holes had to be drilled on the edge of the fibre glass I removed two circular bits of fibre glass per side with my dremel sand stone. This circular hole would be large enough to place some 4mm washers to support the latches on the edge of the tub return lip and ensuring that they are level, I had to use 3 washers per rivet. I have a good tip here which I wished I had thought about before, this is golden, when you cannot get you rivet gun head completely level and down on the rivet due to space, i.e. these latches are the perfect example, just put a few 4mm washers over the rivert tail to take up the gap, this works wonderfully.
Latches firmly held down straight. To my joy and bonnet locks engage with the latches perfectly.
I have installed some close cell foam on the skuttle and nose cone and now the locks pull the bonnet down nice and tight.
11 October 2007
Westfield Sportscar Club
Nothing to report on the build here but some news. I have taken over from Philip Stratton-Lake as the Local Area Organiser of the WSCC for the Thames Valley region. Phil sold his Westfield and bought a Lotus. I am looking forward to the Role and seek to get members in the area more active and involved in the club. If you are a fully paid up memeber of the club or wish to be become one and run a westfield sportscar then contact me. It also seems that I have another website to administer, this can be found here.
14 October 2007
Session 204 - Bonnet vents and rear lights
Yesterday I cut out the ali mesh that I got for my bonnet vents and sprayed them with etch primer and gloss black. Today I glued to the underside of the bonnet using silkaflex and here's the finished job. Bonnet is complete now, spent quite a bit of time messing about with the bonnet what with the locks, latches, etc.
The other job I started today was installing the rear lights, like all this bodywork sort of stuff is tricky and time consuming. This took me three hours to fetting it just right and drill out the holes. I started making a template but then decided against it as the light housing is plastic and quite flexible. Also had to cut out two 45mm holes in the bodywork so the lights can be pushed home and connected up to the loom. I didn't even mark or measure these holes, what I hear you say. Well this bit was easy as once the light housing is screwed in place you can just push the hole saw through the 45mm hole in the housing.
Here's a picture of the interior side trim panels that I will be using.
17 October 2007
Session 205 - Carbon fibre dash
Not a big session but I just want to show off my carbon fibre dash really! Tonight I cut the hole for the steering column, something I approached very carefully. As the steering column is at an angle to the dash you have to measure in line with the scuttle. I made a cardboard template and then I drilled a 22mm hole in some fibreboard to double check. Having confirmed that the hole is in the right place on a £2 piece of fibreboard I proceeded to drill the carbon fibre with a step drill. Here's the result, phew.
Pleased to say spot on.
Obviously I need to trim the dahboard to fit the skuttle profile and cut holes for the dials, which I haven't decided on yet.
20 October 2007
Spent far longer on this topic than I wanted to. I had done the right hand side rear light last week and was quite happy with it. Today I did the left hand and was quite happy with, both lights where position accurately on the line you can see the following photograph but be aware the rear wings are not completely aligned to each other and you do not notice this until the lights are installed. Had I known that the rear wings where not level to each other I would have worked out the best line to place both lights on. I had no alternative but to change the position of the right hand light. A bit annoying when you have to rework something.
Photo above showing drilled holes for the light housing, a bit tricky to work out where to drill.
Photo below showing light holder in place, leave the clear protective film on as long as you can, trust me.
Both light housing installed. Note the the left hand side of car seems to be a 1/4" down at the moment, I probably due to all the crap I have left in the passenger side of the car and might have lost some air pressure. I hope anyway.
Lights installed in the housing. Was it worth the effort spent intalling these over the standard trailer lights, er, ask me in six months time!
Tomorrow I plan to finish the rear lights, i.e. the fog and reverse lights but before that I shall need to install the fuel filler cap as it is close to the fog lamp and the fuel filler cap cannot be moved easily! This means taking my boot box out and to do that removal of the rollbar!
21 October 2007
Session 207 - fuel filler cap & rear lights
To mark the position of the fuel cap I had to mark the centre point of the fuel tank inlet then I drilled from the reverse side with a very small drill bit to mark the centre position on the gel coat side. I then drilled this to a pilot hole for the hole saw. Then cut of a 63mm hole as below, thank god it aligns.
Then using the fuel filler cap as a template I marked the 6 holes and drilled as below.
And a small while later, instaleld the filler cap, nice.
Picture below showing the fuel filler to tank pipe.
Now with the fuel filler cap installed I can make a more informed decision on where the the fog lamp shoud be positioned.
Reverse and fog lamp installed and now quickly throw everything back in the garage, F1 is on in 2 minutes.. Come on Hamilton!
I would just like to add that I used tigger's guide to SVA lighting position. This is an interpretation of the rules represented in an easy to see representation of a westfield, click here.
22 October 2007
Session 208 - Carbon fibre dash
You wont be surprised to hear that I was not looking forward to cutting the CF dash. I wanted to cut the dash last weekend but with the drama of the lights I ran out of time. With it get dark early and the wife being away this was my solution below. Vanessa, I tightened the screws up on the light stand and cleaned all the carbon fibre dust of it after I finished with it.
As you can see I managed to cut the dash without damage. I actually cut it from the reverse side as that was where my guide line was from the skuttle. I did a couple of test cuts on the corners of the blank and I would say it makes no difference but then when you take into account that the platform to the jigsaw could put fine scratches in the gel coat I would say it is better cutting from the reverse side. I also did a number of test cuts with different blades and concluded that the best blade to use was a fine 24TPI steel cutting blade. The ceramic/ GRP blade caused the gel coat to chip on my test cut.
Here's a picture of the dash placed in situ.
28 October 2007
Session 209 - Wiring rear lights into loom
Not down masses of work on the build this weekend as I went to watch a six hour endurance race at Silverstone and other commitments I had to do. The weather was quite terible as well so could get the car out of the garage so I stuck to jobs that could be done in the confines of my garage.
Well no big deal wiring the rear lights into the loom as I have gone for the westfield items the tails just plug straight into the loom. I changed the bolts holding the lamp holders on for more suitable ones I bought specifically in the week. I also used load spreading washers, maybe an overkill. I had the idea to also put a p-clips under some of the bolts which could be used to insert a tie wrap to support the loom and make it neat and tidy.
If you look at the top left bolt you can make out the p-clip and tie.
Here's a photo at the rear of the fog lamp you can make out the p-clip and tie much better here.
I took the opportunity to locate the speedo transducer, this works on the hall effect. This basically detects the allen bolts on the lobo joint and gives a pulse to the speedo. The speedo is digial and can be caliberated to give the correct reading as requred.
The photo below shows this clearly.
The transducer has to be betweeen 1 - 3mm of the bolt heads to get a good reading. Heres a photo showing how close. Note I have not torqued the nuts up yet so will probably be close on to 1 mm closer.
Wells that all the loom bolted down at the back. I also decided where to stick my reflectors on the rear.
A while ago I received my coil packs, EDIS-8, trigger wheel, hall effect sensor kit to drive my ignition. I forgot I had this box hiding in one corner of my garage, with little actibvity today I thought I'd post the photo with an explanation.
So starting at the top left, we have some shielded cable for the hall effect sensor. A set of ignition leads to wire up the spark plugs to the coil packs and the box they came in.
Lower left we have the actual hall effect sensor to read the trigger wheel and its bracket. Next we have the 36-1 trigger wheel so called because it has 35 teeth! it has a missing tooth which gives the position of the crank, this should be placed at 50degrees BTDC. Next up we have the EDIS-8 system, this I have covered before. Now we have the bracket to mount the coil packs and finally 2 coil packs of 4 coils. This is enough to drive the ignition of the car in a limp home mode, i.e. static timing. The megasquirt provides this system the amount of advance/retard to supply. I am not going to cover any real technical descriptions here I shall save then until later!
31 October 2007
Halloween - Am I getting old
Door bell ringing every 5 mins between 17:30 till 20:00 was driving me crazy. I couldn't believe one little boy he took one of the sweets out of the bowl, looked it as, sighed, put it back and chose another! Anyway end of rant my reason for the blog tonight it to show off my new sump which I ordered a little while ago, well worth the wait. When I ordered it I thought it was a little pricey but the fabricator came well recommended and he does work for some of the big boys. Now I have the sump I can tell you it was cheap, the design and workmanship is second to none. Where from, I hear you ask, Peter Mulbery of Mulfab.
Click on the photos for the high res version to see the details.
Basically an old sump is taken from and SD1 and cut down and re-worked, this can be done on an exchange basis. It comes complete with the oil pickup and strainer which is modified to fit the shallower sump. As you can see its also powdercoated as well.
This is a shallower sump with baffles and trapdoors and also wings!
The wings give extra oil capacity, yes even more capacity than the standard deeper sump. You will notice the wings are different sizes this is to allow clearance for the clutch slave cylinder. The trapdoor acton is smooth unlike some of the other ones I had a look at. The fore and aft doors have a stop to prevent them opening too much under acceleration and braking, if they opened too much then they could fowl on the oil strainer. The front section of the sump as you can see it spit and push down this allows extra clearance for the front crankshaft counterweight as required on the 4.6 Litre. The slit also aids oil drain back. There's also a lip on the left hand side which actually acts as a crank scaper to prevent oil being flung up inside the block from the crank. I spent about 20 minutes looking inside the trapdoors, baffles and also the intricities of the sump, each one designed for a specific purpose. This sump has been track designed and it the very best you can get without resorting to a dry sump system.
This picture of the underneath showing a good view of the wings and extra capacity provided by them. You will also notice that the bottom front of the sump has been modified to give a little exrta ground clearance. I have yet to fit the sump but believe the bottom of the bellhousing will be closer to the ground but only just so in theory that would ground before the sump that is unless you do a noise dive that could ground the front part of the sump, hence this little tweak here not use a lot of the volume but maybe just enough to safe the day.
Cannot wait till the weekend when I plan to install this!
Go to November 2007