Lights and Spokes and Hinge

I managed to pick up some boot hinges off eBay for only £15 and with these being S&J hinges (same as on my Cobra) they are awesome quality and normally retail at around £85 so that’s a great saving. Fitting these is fairly straightforward and a nice little job to crack on with. I started off setting the boot lid as square on the body as possible then marking lines agains the body on the front, back and both sides. Then I measured off the centre line to the outside edge of each hinge as so they were spaced equally. I played around with the spacing for a bit before settling on eight inches off the centre, as that to me is what looked best. I masked the body and boot with tape and scribed the outline of each hinge which allowed me to mark the drill point for each stud. 

I had to use some blue tac to create a spacer between the body lip and underside of the boot in order to sit the boot lid level with the body. I will be fitting a rubber seal trim when all finished to also help with keeping the water out. I have ordered a keyed cam lock to secure the boot and I’m wanting some tan leather boot straps on the back edge also. But none of these have been delivered yet and are not that critical to fitting first, still it will be good to get all the fixing positions marked and drilled prior to prepping all the panel gaps. Once the boot and body were drilled the hinges simply fit on and are secured underside with some penny washers and nuts. I have used some dome nuts on the boot lid as they look nicer when the boot is open, and attention to details is what it’s all about!

Once the boot hinges were sorted I moved onto the wheels. I have had the tyres from the old steel wheels fitted to my recently acquired wire wheels.

I didn’t want to spend money on new tyres yet simply because tyres are date coded nowadays so if this project takes me another two years to finish then I won’t have lost any tyre life during this time. These tyres are in no way safe to use on the road but more importantly they are the correct size so they will allow me to fabricate my metalwork and fit the arches. I need to put a good bit of planning into these arches as I don’t want them to crack or come off when driving any bumpy roads. I specifically want the arches to be spaced off the tyres and to travel with the suspension movement. So this will require fitting to the rear of each hub as opposed to the body itself. 

It’s awesome to be able to see how the car will look with the wheels on now, it really makes the car look longer in my opinion, and the twinkle of the red calliper through the front spokes looks tremendous.

So with the wheels also now fitted and the chassis rolling on the wires I was able to continue with the next job, the headlights. I have previously fitted the outer and inner mounting brackets and all I had to do was open up the centre hole to accept the headlight bowl spigot. 

I splurged a little with the headlight bowls and went with the stainless steel units as opposed to the chrome on brass. Yes they were three times the price but they do look fantastic and really feel like good quality bits to bolt on. I had previously picked up some 7” headlights on a deal, the same as my Cobra (Lucas style P700) as I really like the look of these lights and I think they look perfect period for what I’m trying to achieve. They simply fit with the large hollow thread shaft and retaining nut from the inside. 

I opened up the centre hole with a step drill slowly until I was able to pass the spigot through and fix easily from inside with the lock washer and nut. Once I had fitted both headlights I was not happy with the overall level of each headlight. The off side sat 50cm from the bottom of the headlight bowl to the floor level and the near side sat at 51cm. I couldn’t drill one of the outer backplates again as it then would not be central and would look odd. I decided to remove the offside rear bracket and fill all the holes in the body before refitting the whole thing again and re making the offside rear bracket again from scratch in order to get the headlights to sit even. You can see in this picture the original holes just showing under the outer bracket. The mistake I made was I simply made both rear bracket’s initially to the same dimensions, just bent opposite for each side. This then dictated the mounting position for the front bracket which in hindsight was way off. Now I have remade the rear bracket which is longer than the near side it allows each outer bracket to sit evenly. Now if I measure from the bottom of the outer plates to the lower body edge they are both sitting at 9cm and thus the centre holes are both level for the headlights. 

I refitted the offside headlight and was relieved when I measured to the floor level and both lights are at 51cm and sitting level. This photo shows how they both look, as before I would have been ashamed to picture my bozz eyed attempt at the fitting… it just looked odd. Still all sorted now so I’m able to get on with the next job on the list. 

Tanks A Lot

 

I have managed to pressure up the brakes now and I’m pleased to say all seems well. I’m getting a good feel from the pedal, but I’m hoping for a slight improvement once the pads and shoes are bedded in a little, that will come in time obviously but I have bled the system fully and all brakes are engaging properly. The secondary line was a tad tricky to fit simply because of my cut out box that I had made in the bulkhead for the master cylinder. It only gave me enough space to fit a banjo union  (see picture) as I didn’t have the clearance to get a 90 degree bend on the pipe. The banjo seems to have worked well and I have ran the pipe down to a bulkhead fitting by the outer sill. This will run the feed back along the sill to the rear brakes. I have purposely left this brake pipe loose until I have my front dash and steering hoop bar fitted. This is/will be fitted down next to the outer sill so I need to rout the brake pipe around all this once it’s done. 

Next job was to tackle the petrol tank install. I have already fitted to two main sections of the boot floor and concluded that the boot floor alone will not support a fuel tank when it’s full and under road vibrations and knocks. My plan was to make a small but sturdy bracket that will fix to the rear bulkhead internal to the boot and then the recess in the tank will allow the full weight to be distributed on that, rather than the boot floor. I made some measurements then set about with some cuts of 6mm angle bar and fairly quickly had welded up a lovely solid bracket. 

I spent time cutting the angles correctly and making sure my welds were solid then I added some carpet to the top face as so it wasn’t metal on metal fitting, which would be silly. I also used an old bit of rubber hose split and fitted to the bottom of the tank seam to again help reduce the risk of metal on metal fitting. The back section of boot will also be carpeted to help reduce this risk and help dull any road noise. The bracket seemed to work really well and would certainly take the weight it will be subjected to. I will have to also make some brackets for either end to stop the tank from sliding left to right and hold it securely also. Can’t risk a tank full of fuel breaking free when hitting a road bump or hard corner. 

The bracket was easy enough to fit as once I had drilled two bolt holes through it I could just offer it up to the rear bulkhead a scribe through for the drill positions again. This was quickly done and the bracket is going to do a grand job of helping to spread the load of the tank. It really has worked well and should function perfectly. I now need to start making some brackets for either end of the tank to further support and stop any lateral movement when going round corners. I made these from some bits of angled steel that I measured and cut accordingly. I started off making the back brace by crudely measuring the centre points from two of the mounting holes on the fuel tank. I then just increases this by about 5cm overall to give me the length for each back piece. 

Then I measured from the tank flange seam to the rear edge of the tank which was roughly 12cm, then added a further 1cm onto this length as I don’t want the tank to physically rub against the rear bulkhead. I made four lengths and welded them to each back plate and finally finished the front face of the bracket with a small plate section in order to bolt the tank through. 

After a few trial fits I managed to scribe each bracket where they needed drilling for the fixings. The rear of the brackets will be simply bolt clamped onto the rear bulkhead and I have welded a nut on the backside of each front plate, so the tank can simply be bolted onto the brackets. 

I had some carpet already that I have lined the rear bulkhead with and the lower front boot floor, and with the tank back in it was rock solid. I’m extremely happy with how this has all gone and next I will be fitting the rear seat belt supports next which will be a couple of tube sections that run from the bulkhead down to the chassis points in the boot floor. When done will add even further strength to the whole setup and hopefully some safety also. I have to leave space for an electric fuel pump that I’m thinking of mounting on the holes at the top of the tank on the near side. I’m conscious that anything the fuel pump mounts to needs to be isolated for sound transmission…. Nothing worse than driving along listening to the fuel pump. 

Clutch and Brake Lines

 

I’ll start this update with some advice to anyone making or building anything. You must have the right tool for the job…. Fact. Years back when I build my Cobra I was lucky enough to borrow a neighbours vice mounted brake flare tool and the correct tool makes brake flares all day every day and consistently. I have a small extremely common hand clamp tool that has different dies that clamp onto the brake pipe and that can occasionally make a good brake flare….but. After about three hours playing in the garage practicing some flares on the cheap flare tool I concluded that it was basically shite. I failed to make even one flare that was half acceptable, so I was forced to purchasing a proper tool for the job. I picked one up of eBay brand new as I couldn’t find a used one cheaper anyway and the first flare…. Booom. Instant perfect brake flare bubble with even consistent manipulation time after time after time…. Bloody perfect. With this being a custom made car it wasn’t even an option to cut and bend the lines then take them to a garage to flare them… just not practical, so the new tool has justified itself and paid for itself already with the time I have saved. 

So, first up was making the clutch line. I’m trying to really plan ahead with routs for these copper lines. I want them neat and clean looking but they must also not hinder other components getting fitted later on in the build of which I don’t know what or where really, but a fair few photos on Google and the Fiorano website to help guide me. I made up my clutch line shape and took my time to form the bends evenly and neatly along with adding a pig tail curl at the vibration point between the body and gearbox. The pigtail corkscrew as such is an old fashioned technique to help eliminate metal fatigue through vibration and whilst they do look interesting within the engine bay they don’t really work that well and can be a sod to clear air locks when bleeding. Still was either this or flexible lines that I didn’t really want. I’m trying to get a classic vintage look to the whole car, not a blingy show piece like the Cobra. 

 Once the clutch line was formed and flared I was able to fit it and pressure up the clutch. This was a tad daunting because upon delivery of the donor car the clutch was not engaging or giving any sign of life whatsoever. Granted I have replaced pretty much everything with exception of the master cylinder, which has had new seals but the fear of it not being correct or operating correctly were certainly present. 

This attached video should display that my fears were unnecessary. After bleeding the clutch line I was able to sit in the car and rotate the prop shaft by had and so long as the car was in gear and the clutch depressed. Then if you realise the clutch the prop shaft will no longer rotate as the drive line is engaged through the gearbox. This is extremely satisfying to me as it’s genuinely the first mechanical part of the car that actually is working as it should.

Next up was just following the same process for the brake lines. The brake system here is a dual line system consisting of “Primary” (front) and “secondary” (rear) I have rebuilt the master cylinder and replaced all the seals etc, along with the new cap included the float switch for a warning light. I spend a methodical few hours just taking my time a manipulating the brake lines how I wanted them. I have gone to the same effort as if building to IVA standard with the correct clip spacing and overall the front brake lines are looking great. I took extra effort to bend a crossover into the pipe where it crosses the clutch line, which really adds some detail to build which is exactly what I want from the whole car…. Attention to detail. 

I routed the primary line from the master cylinder along the bulkhead then down to the chassis leg where it runs forward to just in front of the engine mount. Here it’s split into a union where it feeds the near side brake and the second feed routed round the front chassis crossmember back to the offside. 

I have started on the rear brake lines also, however I have had to stop whilst I wait for parts. I’m intending to run the secondary feed from the master, straight down the bulkhead and into a bulkhead union. Then I can run the brake line all the way back along the outside face of the floor pan, under/around the rear half shaft and into another three way union. So until my fittings arrive I can’t continue with the install and disappointingly can’t pressure up the brakes. Still relatively straightforward so long as no joints leak when finished but once that’s all sorted I will be able to seal the boot floor and start making plans for the fuel tank, seat belt mounts and possibly even things like the fuel filler also. So I bit more progress and another few ticks off the list…. Still plenty more to go mind!! 

Studs and Floors

 With my new wheels and knock on hubs sat ready for a trial fit, it was time to start tackling the wheel studs. I had noticed ages ago when stripping all the running gear that a fair few of the wheel studs were showing signs of trauma and stress. The spitfire wheel studs do have a slight reputation from being weak, but so long as they are torqued correctly and not over tightened they will be fine. Many people upgrade the studs to Freelander studs that are a tad thicker and stronger, however because I’m converting to knock on hubs this is not an option for me. You can see pictured hear one of the studs that is looking seriously knackerd  and thin which is not good at all, so time to replace. I have ordered a full set of sixteen studs and knock on nuts online and the old ones are easy enough to knock out from both the front and rear hubs. The front hubs have undergone another strip down as in order to press the new studs in I have had to remove the calliper and disc so have to take the hub off again.

Once the front hubs were off the old studs simply tap out with the aid of a hammer. The rear studs are removed in a similar fashion however I only needed to remove the brake drum as I had enough clearance to drop the old studs out without removing the brake backplate. When side by side you can see the damaged and potentially dangerous old stud agains the new replacement. These really were ready to let go anytime if they were left on. Notice also the new replacement studs are threaded the full shaft length, the older presumed original studs have a slight smooth taper at the end to aid even threading of the wheel nut, with less risk of cross thread. When I get some tyres for my wires and fit the wheel’s properly I will need to cut these new studs down slightly, so that they won’t void on the rear of the wheels, however I’m not going to do this until I need to as I need to just wait until I have the tyres are fitted and balanced first….pointless otherwise.

The picture here shows a front knock on hub fitted and also showing the protruding stud that will need to be cut back a touch. The rear face of the wheel sits extremely close to the studs so if they are not cut back the wire wheel will not seat properly or evenly on the hub, which in turn would put excessive wear on the main center lock and could be dangerous and unbalanced when driving. When they are cut back correctly the nuts are torqued down and center punched to reduce wind back to achieve the correct fitting procedure. I can’t decide if I should hunt for tyres now or wait until closer to completion, after all tyres are date stamped now, so what’s the point in new tyres now when the build end date is still unknown. I possibly will take the current steel wheel tyres off and temporally fit them to the wires so I can continue to roll around, this will help with setting alignment and geometry easier than if changing wheels later on down the line.

Next on the list is to make a start on the boot floor. I started by marking a line on the rear bulkhead 470mm from top centre then scoring a horizontal line across from this mark. The boot floor is made up from three separate sections of bent alloy sheet. The first is fixed to the rear bulkhead with rivets spaced equally every two inches and then the outer edges are sealed with polyurethane sealant against the body. I can’t progress too much hear or fix to much of the boot floor, as I still need access to fit the brake lines which will be much easier from above as opposed to lying on my back underneath, I think that will be my next little update and progress in a week or so. 

With the correct horizontal line drawn I started making a template using a takeaway pizza box which is used to mirror the shape against the panel. Once I had one end cut to suit I just mirrored the same process for the other side. To calculate the length of the panel in order to cut to size I just ran a length of masking tape along the bulkhead horizontal line and with it cut either end to the edge of the body I could simply remove and stick onto the boot floor panel, which would give me the correct length and measurement to cut it down to. The fit doesn’t have to be millimetre perfect as the PU sealer will grip and fill any small gaps between the panel and the body, and that will all be covered with the boot floor carpet so it doesn’t even need to look pretty as it will all be covered when finished. This first section of boot floor will house the fuel tank so it does have to be solid and firm, as a full tank of fuel will be heavy and must be secure and safe. 

The firsts section of floor once cut and trimmed to fit was then marked down the centre of the rear flange and marks made from the center line every two inches, I drilled these out and then I was able to offer the panel into place and drill through the bulkhead for the rivets. Fitting the first panel was harder then I thought it would be. Probably because a few weeks back I have already fixed the body tub and bonded the rear bulkhead to the shell. This has removed all the side flex out of the tub and so fitting this panel was a tad tricky. As mentioned previously I can fix this first panel properly but can’t secure the second or third until after I have sorted the brake lines and fuel lines. 

The first panel is now in and I have bonded it either side also, next is to trim and cut the second panel which is going to be slightly more tricky because of how it is shaped and wraps over the rear swing spring and diff. This really has to be fitted correctly because the rear seatbelt triangulation mounts also fix into the suspension bridge on the chassis. So a lot of accurate measurements coming up and possibly some spacers will be needed so that the panel sits correctly. Luckily for me when I got my chassis bits manufactured locally I got two sections of the second boot floor panel. This allows me a second chance incase I cut the first one badly, but more importantly I can creat an access panel within this panel so I can access the top of the spring if needed and make a nice cover plate to fit over the top. 

I followed the same process for cutting the second boot floor panel using a cardboard template to attempt to cut a nice tight fitting panel. Unfortunately I’m not to happy with how it came out but I do have a plan on sorting it and keeping it cosmetically nice. More importantly the panel seats perfectly onto the chassis mounts and is nice and solid. I also made my access point for the rear spring should I need it in the future so I just need to mark and drill the two mounting holes for the seatbelt mounting brackets and tidy up either edge where it meet the body. 

I have put the fuel tank in to gauge fitting and positioning and I’m a tad concerned about how it will be secured and fitted. When this is full of fuel it will have a good amount of weight to it, so I’m going to have to be creative on how it fixes and mounts securely. Possibly configure a bracket with the seat belt mounts to help beef everything up. 

Next update will be some brake lines I think. I need to plumb up and pressurise the brakes in order to final fit the boot and thus the fuel tank, seat belts etc… etc… but progress is progress

Brace Yourself for Progress

Cracking on with the build and I now needed to fix and secure the body tub to the chassis. The front and rear bulkheads were in situ now and just need sealing with polyurethane sealer and so the sills needed fixing to the chassis sill flange. I had already drilled the rear bolt hole when I was aligning the body but now I need to fix the sills the full length. This is simply done by drilling through the flange from underneath up through the body and then securing in place with nyloc nuts, bolts and a spreader washer. This clamps the body side to the chassis and combined with the front and back bulkhead it’s becoming a surprisingly solid structure. 

Now most of the body fixings are in place I can start to provisionally cut and fit the boot floor. I won’t be fixing it permanently yet as I still need access in order to fit then brake lines and fuel line. There is a void between the chassis sill and the curve of the body tub which will be perfect to run the lines down. I will be fitting a closure plate along the top of each side also for visual aesthetics, trimmed the same as my interior. I need to start making some decisions for fuel and brake lines in either ridged or flexi pipe. I think I will use ridged pipe for the brake runs but flexi  for the fuel line. This car has relatively zero side impact protection  in case of an accident and a ridged fuel line is much more likely to split if involved in an accident as opposed to a flexi pipe. There will be no pressure in the fuel line naturally as this is only a little 1500 engine on carbs, but I might fit an electric fuel pump which might change all of this thought process…. We shall see. 

So final body fixings are all at the front of the car. I need to fabricate the two headlight fitting brackets and fix the body right at the front under where the radiator brackets which will be welded on still. The headlight brackets are made from a few strips of steel. I started marking 40mm from the end and making a 90degree bend and then a single fixing hole. These brackets are mounted to the top of the suspension towers and bolted through to give a solid fixing. I haven’t pictured the bolt but I used a low profile pan head bolt which will not void with the top wishbone through its travel. Once I have an initial fixing of the bracket it then needs to be bent/manipulated to match the contour of the body. This wasn’t as hard as a first thought and a just a single return bend further up the bracket allowed it to sit nicely up against the body. 

The headlight themselves are mounted on a single spigot and bolt through a central hole, which is opened up in brackets once fitted. The inner bracket creates the backplate and a front bracket aligned with the rear sandwiches the body tub between them. In order to get the headlights sitting level and even with the dimensions of the body it’s imperative that I mirror each bracket correctly and keep the dimensions the same. The only issue is it’s a fibreglass body so  there is no such thing as centrelines or symmetry as such, but I will get as close to identical as possible… 3-4 mm should be an acceptable tolerance to deal with but all I can do is fit one and hope my second is relatively the same. 

In order to align the front bracket with the back bracket I simply marked and drilled a small center hole through the front bracket. Then when offered up to the rear bracket drilled the hole through that one also. 

I then marked a line 8mm internal on the front bracket around each side. This then gives me my corner marked to drill for the fixing bolts. The same again as the center hole just simply drilled through to mirror onto the back bracket also. Once that was done I trial fitted the bracket onto the body and one at a time drilled each hole through the body, starting with the center hole. I was really pleased with the fixing of the first bracket and it gave me a starting point for some dimensions in regards to fixing the other side. I followed the same method for creating the second bracket and once done started the fixing exactly the same. 

You can see here the external bracket fitted and bolted through to the rear bracket, leaving a small central hole which will be drilled out to the correct size for the headlight mounts (when I can afford them) I have seen these front brackets made from a polished stainless steel but I want mine body colours, so will need to remove them prep and prime and whack any old paint on to seal them temporarily from any moisture. I will also round off the corners to make them look nicer with a file… attention to detail. Also the fixing bolts match the same as the bulkhead fixing used so I’m trying to keep the theme running throughout the build. 

So both headlight brackets now fitted, just need removing once more for painting and after measuring the external brackets off a fixed chassis point either side, I have 3mm difference between the offside against nearside external bracket. That will not be noticeable whatsoever when looking at the car so overall am fairly happy with how that all went… a productive and enjoyable day for sure and another little tick on the list of jobs. 

Finally for this update very very exciting news, in my opinion. I took delivery of my wheels and knock on hubs. I knew from the start of this build that I wanted wire wheels but after concluding brand new chrome wheels and tyres were just simply unaffordable for me I had settled for a painted alternative either new or second hand. The problem or risk you take with secondhand wire wheels is that sometimes the wheels themselves are beyond their lifespan and the cost of refurb or repair then outweighs replacement units. Inspecting my latest purchase and it would seem that I have dropped on with a superb set of chrome finish wheels which have been well cared for and looked after. Initial inspection shows all the splines are tight and nicely tapered with no rounding which would cause the wheel to jump on the hub. Cosmically they look great also, just a slight patina that you would expect with a second hand used wheel without compromising the overall finish. So some further cleaning will maintain the finish and shine 100%

The wheels came up for sale nice and local to me in Dartford, so only a 10 hour drive or so… haha. Luckily after some negotiations the chap selling them agreed to have them shipped to me up North so long as I arranged the logistics and covered the cost. Can’t say fairer than that really and I struck a deal and transferred him some cash….granted I’m skint currently and the money came out the family holiday fund pot that I had ring-fenced separately. But considering it’s only me that has put into this pot, it’s technically mine to take out also, so I did. Anyway I only “want” a holiday but I “need” wheels for my car. 

They really are superb and will look beautiful when all fitted against the car, truly stand the car out in a crowd with wheels like these but I’m a tad intimidated by the cleaning processes…. Those that have seen my daily drive will agree, I’m not a car cleaner type of person. More of a £5 for a drive through car wash, job done. 

I will have a play over the upcoming weekend and take some pictures of the wheels temporarily fitted along with some other little jobs like rounding off the edges of the headlight brackets and painting them etc… All in all a bloody great chunk of progress. Shout out to Pete who sold me the wheels, great to know honest people still exist in the world without trying to scam people out of cash, unlike most sale posts on social media. Thanks again Pete you have definitely put the icing on my cake when it comes to my latest project. 

Thinking Ahead Make Me See Red

 

This is a fun update for you all here, as it will show you the final colour I have chosen for my Spyder. I’m still many many hours away from actually painting the car but you have to plan this build and think stages and stages ahead of where you currently are in order to achieve a quality finish. So this update I have removed the front and rear bulkhead in preparation for painting and final finish. Removing these is an absolute ball ache of a job to be fair and one which does not get any easier with experience. Fingers crossed this is the last time it is removed now, as after the paint finish is on I want them fitted and sealing into place not to be removed again…. I hope. 

In the last update I had finished all the trimming and cutting needed for the front bulkhead so once it was removed it was just a simple prep and prime with a bloody good clean first. The rear bulkhead also has been given a similar treatment and has just been brush painted with the textured black that I used for the chassis. The texture for this paint is achieved with the application gun but considering this will never be seen it can just be brushed on and left to cure in order to protect the metal. To be fair whilst the back side of this rear bulkhead is exposed to the elements it will take relatively no wash or road spray simply because the wheels are external to the body and thus wont throw hardly any road thrash onto the underside or engine bay. Whilst I was in between priming the front and painting the back I have to put a little final colour onto the body around where the front bulkhead fits. The front bulkhead once fitted again now is going to be bonded in with a polyurethane sealant so removing it again is not really possible. Because of this I need/want to paint round the body tub up against the front bulkhead flange and so when final paint gets applied then I don’t get any show through or joins of then grey gelcoat finish of the body tub as it stands now.

So the final colour as you can now see is going to be red, or Ferrari Rosso Corsa the shade from 1997 to 2021 to be more precise… many different red variants from Ferrari over the years. So as you can see I have quickly primed and painted the front flange as so when the bulkhead is up against it there will be no risk of any show through or edges that don’t match colour. 

I am painting the bulkhead the same colour but I’m following the theme of the chassis and using the texture bed liner finish. I’m really trying to keep a standard of finish to this car, just like my Cobra I have a vision in my head what I want it to look like and I’m making the provisions to achieve this every step of the build. Attention to detail is what finishes any kit car build and it can make or break how the finished car can look. 

I purchased another litre of the texture paint from work last week, but this time it was the tintable as opposed to black. I mixed this accordingly with my chosen base colour and started to coat all the panels that needed painting. I ran over the panels with two passes in order to get the coverage as I did not lay down a drop coat first like I did with the chassis, straight on with the texture from the start here and was surprised how much paint it actually consumed. I still had a good 3rd of a litre left after I had the coverage so I decanted the leftover into a pot and used it to brush onto the inner panels of the engine bay. I don’t want or need a glass smooth finish in the engine bay, just a uniform flat colour that matches the exterior so a brush finish is fine, but the nature of this paint will self level to the panel it’s applied to so all in all it looks fairly good and is child’s play to touch up and blend easily without showing edges or brush strokes. 

I couldn’t resist refitting the bulkhead back in and pedal box brackets with master cylinders etc…. It really shows how the overall finish is going to look in the engine bay and the matching red callipers are going to look awesome. A real little red racing machine… it’s going to be great fun to kick about in. I have also decided that I no longer like the red rocker cover on the engine as I feel it is going to be red overload within the engine bay so I’ll upgrade that to a nice alloy cover at a later date. 

I have another little surprise coming in the next week so will possibly do another little update next weekend. I still need to bond in the bulkheads front and back and make some final fixings to fit the body…. Then I can crack on with the next stage of the build. 

Booting Off

 

I really need to make some progress on this little project, but I’m struggling to find the time and the disposable income currently. I’m sort of waiting for the spring and slightly warmer weather so I can start painting the bulkhead etc… which then allows me to fix the body properly and then progress with other stages. 

So one little job to do is to open up the metal on the bulkhead at the pivot points for the pedal box. I have the original rubber boots that were on the Spitfire and they keep any dust or debris from gunging up the clevis pins and linkages. This is really a fairly trivial job and took no longer than an hour or so real to sort.

I started off removing all the master cylinders and associated brackets along with the pedal box also to give me access to mark and cut. 

Second up was to create a cardboard template in order to mark the metal correctly to accept the boot seal. Easily done and cut to shape and the boot fits the cardboard, so will also fit the metal once cut. Once marked out I drilled the four corners of each markings with a 5mm bit and then just used the angle grinder to straight cut each side. I then tidied up each opening with a file to de-burr and square everything up. Quick trial fit to make sure no issues and then on to refit everything again. 

I need to get all these bits cut and sorted now before the paint finish as you can see on some of the pictures the metal is taking a bit of abuse with all the scratches and marks, however I’m not really taking much care or concern over this as I fully intended to prime and paint before the final fit anyway. I’m still not 100% what colour to go with yet, but will definitely be continuing the bed liner/texture finish on the bulkhead like I did on the chassis. 

Can’t really say much more on this really, everything fitted back together ok and the boots now fit and seal nicely. Think I’ll start the tedious process of removing everything in the next week or so, then with some extra fast hardener in the paint I can have a bash at priming and painting before it all goes back on…. Hopefully for the final fit. I want to start making the brackets and fixings for the headlights however it would be pointless to really start all this when it all has to be removed again and potentially change position slightly… so better hang fire and wait until after. I have got my headlights and rear lights all planned with what style I’m going with… and they are not exactly cheap but they need to be correct aesthetically and functionally.