legendlives

Back at the rear axle, I realised I needed a rear lower tie-bracket to hold the two wishbone pivots together, so after a bit of head-scratching, cutting, drilling and grinding I ended up with these parts: Which after welding together looked like this: It's now a 4-function bracket: 1) It ties the wishbone pivots together and wraps underneath to pick up the bolt-holes on the underside of the pivot brackets. 2) The large aluminium boss in the middle is the parachute pick-up. 3) The two circular brackets on either end are for tie-downs to be hooked to (it will undoubtedly spend some of its time on a trailer). 4) it will provide a strong jacking point. Baby's going to have a fat ass! New rear arches, about 3" wider than stock. Arrived at the weekend. Whilst I was trying on the new panels I thought I'd snap a few pics: In the last one you can see a couple of gauges hanging underneath, these are Lucas gauges, probably fitted to the car in the 70's judging by the 'Lucas' logo. Hey I'll need gauges! Pulled them off and tested them (they are both capillary gauges) and they work fine, so here's the 'before restoration' photo:

More updates posted.

Glovebox lid - had an hour spare so knocked this up: It's in 1.6mm aluminium with returns around the entire perimeter. It's also compound curved to match the dash.

Whilst the body and chassis are waiting for their matrimony I thought I'd have a dabble at the dashboard: It's a stock, steel '38 dash. The car was always going to be LHD (don't ask), so my initial thought was to just fill all of the holes and leave it smooth, ready to add the dials on the 'new' drivers side, but part-way through this process I decided that it would be nice to have a glovebox to put all of the fuse boxes etc into. So here we have it. The slots in the bottom are for the wiring to pass through, there is also a slot at the top just in case there is no room to turn the wires. It's customary in my builds to use some domestic appliance somewhere in the build (my first drag car had steel from a tumble drier, my 105E Anglia had the engine bulkhead made from washing machine sides and my last car the dash was made from steel taken from an old cooker), so the mods on this one are made from a fire surround...... And the (almost) finished dash:

Chassis out in the sun for the first time. Stage one on it's journey home to meet the body.

Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, here are all of the narrowed rear suspension components:

Narrowing the halfshafts: I've only got a small-ish lathe to use, so had to come up with an plan that would work without me killing myself with flying shafts! So stuck shaft 1 into the lathe and turned these two areas. The left-hand side is turned to 32mm, the centre to 28mm: Then hack it into bite size lumps: Then turn the short yoke internal diameter to a nice interference fit on 28mm: Cut off the 32mm diameter revealing the 28mm internal bore, then press the yoke onto the shaft: This took around 10 tons of pressure, so it's a proper interference fit. Not sure I needed to weld it, but I did anyway: And here it is next to it's unmodified brother: The other shaft will be shortened the same way.

So back with the IRS lower arms, these are now welded together and within a few thou of each other in length. I cut the shock tubes from the original arms and smoothed them off ready to weld back in. The tubes are welded back in exactly on the weld lines. As there will only be the front shock there will be a bracket which bolts between the shock and the lower hub pivot and takes the rose-joint for the radius arm. More of that later. I'm quite happy with the result so far.

Discuss please. It would be nice to get some feedback. Link in the sig V

Whilst the chassis awaits it's marriage to the body, I thought I'd start with the axle narrowing. Cut through the lower arms and removed 160mm of material.The point of no return........ So having chewed through the lower arms I thought I'd better sort out a way of getting them back together, and came up with this tool: Which has a solid boss at one end, and a sliding sleeve at the other end, both machined to fit the holes at the ends of the arm. When bolted together looks like this: The ends will be set up level on the bench before I weld them together, but this will hold them solid and at the correct length whilst I weld.

I now have the wheels. Rears are 15x15 Weld Pro-Stars, and fronts are skinny Centerlines. Tyres are OK for set-up, but will need changing when/if the car gets on the road.

Although this isn't a new idea, I thought I'd flip it round from the way it is usually mounted on solid rear axles, and put the adjustable bits on the chassis. The mount is made from 3mm steel with 3mm gusset and a 3mm box section internally to give support where the bolt-holes are. So there are 6mm thick side panels with effectively two 3mm vertical blades either side of the hole-line. 'Moveable' brackets are in 5mm steel. These give 75mm of total adjustment in 15mm increments from this: To this: Welded on to the chassis: I'm only using one pair of coil-overs which will be mounted in front of the axle.

I have managed to get the rear diff-mount 'gusset' made and in place: Which you will notice has a captive nut welded into it which is for this: Brake pipe Tee. The feed will come in as a hard-line to the front, and short flexi's will then go out to the calipers from either side.

I've now got the rear 'K' member in place with the cross-strengthening. That's the main frame done then (once I've turned it over and finish welded the underside). Mounts for rear suspension, gearbox etc will be fitted at a later date, but for now I'm well chuffed with it. When it's finish-welded I'll take it home and start making the body fit (it's going to be channelled by about 4"), and then mock-up the cage, engine mounts etc.

More progress. Side (sill) members Made from 25x50 3mm box and just ever-so-slightly bent to echo the original chassis. These will ultimately have the body bolted to them: The seatbelt mounts are more Escort DNA. These were made some months ago. They will need to be modified to do the job, but the funky drilled panels will stay: Diff mount is now in. The underside of the front member is exactly the same angle as the mount plate. You'll notice the cut-throughs on either side of the crossmember for hoses etc again. The top mount will have a logitudinal member at the centre of it for more strength, but also to take the mounts for the brake hoses. 'K' member components are made and just clamped into place to check fit. These need the hose/wire cut outs at the top of them and the 'C' sections welded into place before the members can be fitted. There will be a 50x25x3mm box section welded in flat across the very front of the 'K', and ultimately it will have another prop-hoop as soon as I can mock-up the gearbox (which I haven't got yet....) K member should be in on Monday/Tuesday, then I can flip it over and finish-weld the underneath.

I've at last made the rear crossmember and got it into place. The channels welded into the top corners are for fuel, brake and wiring. The hoop is made from 3mm steel plate, seam welded and formed into a 40mm box. This arrived yesterday, and it's f*ck*ng huge! It's certainly going to fill the engine bay nicely....

Chassis is coming together nicely: A bit to go, but the main framework should be finished next week. I got the Jag IRS this week And stripped out anything I didn't want, which left the good bits: I just need to narrow it around 450mm. The engine I'll be using is a Falcon XR8 5.4 litre DOHC like this one: Deal done this week! Very happy, I'll be converting it to carb/distributor which should do away with all of the wiring and the need for an ECU.

I was building a Ford Escort Mk1 gasser and documenting the build on here and on facebook, but a few things made me totally change direction. After spending a huge amount of time on the Escort chassis, I still wasn't happy with the compromise of it. That coupled with the amount of new (read bloody expensive) panels needed to make it as good as I wanted it made me lose a bit of interest. Total interest was lost when I started to build the engine and found a crack through one of the bores. So the shell/chassis and all of the engine parts were sold off (at quite a handsome profit I'd like to add), and I concentrated on my bike for a while. Then this popped up for sale. It's a 1938 Ford model 7Y (which is dimensionally and physically similar to a Ford Pop). It's very straight and solid and was bought complete. The nice stuff from the Escort build will find it's way to the 7Y, so it will still be 'Cheatin' The Reaper' - just a genetically modified version. It didn't take long to strip it down to just the body, leaving the chassis to be sold off along with the engine, gearbox, interior etc I designed a new chassis, made out of 75x40x3 steel box, which is at this stage at the moment: Front suspension is parallel leaf springs. I made the shackles & mounts: Then narrowed the drop-tube axle to suit: I found a nice and perfectly sized fuel tank on TradeMe and made the crossmember to suit. This is 75x40x3 box again, with 3mm gussets: I've bent up the hoops for the rollcage (no pics yet) and am just waiting for a nice full day to get the whole lot jigged up and welded together. Rear axle will hopefully be a Jag IRS. Engine will be Ford V8. Body will be chopped about 2.5" and front end will be fibreglass flip front. Keep checking either here or on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mk1gasser/

As mentioned, when I bought my VTR it had a hideous carbon hugger which was so much the wrong shape that it had been worn through by the tyre. The design was terrible also, directing all of the road shit and grime straight onto the chain. The obvious thing to do was therefore make my own out of aluminium. Just after starting to beat out the mudguard section it occurred to me that it would be virtually impossible to do it nicely without an English wheel. I didn't have an English wheel so I delayed the project while I knocked up this: Made from tube left over from a previous car project, two old clutch release bearings pressed into a bit of stainless tube, and an old iron caster wheel. It works well enough: The chainguard was the first thing I made. This needs a bit of fettling as it was copied from the dimensions of the hugger which bears no relation to the run of the chain! You can see the 'mod' line in marker pen. These are the two sides which will join everything together. They also need some shaping: Hopefully will have it largely finished this week. Will keep you posted!

Latest mod. Bobbins: In the second and third photos you can just see the alloy chainguard - the first part in the new alloy hugger assembly. More pics to follow as I progress.

HEL gold brake hoses. I did look at the yellow ones but the colour clash was horrible.... I've also had the calipers off and given them a dan good clean:Clutch line; Rear brakes: Front brakes: With the front brakes I went with twin hoses rather than the original linked hose.

I think the big Hondas are lightweight enough. I had a Fireblade before this and the weight was never an issue. Anyway, yesterday I wasted a whole day of my life polishing the exhaust system. Doesn't look fantastic until you compare it with the original 'as bought' picture. Still haven't fitted the HEL lines (From GSS Performance in Penrose. Plug plug....) but that's this week's job.

Next mod will be gold brake lines. Handy that I work for a HEL hose dealer.......

Bought this a few weeks ago. Not really a project per-se, but I plan to do some mods (shorty levers and front mudguard extender already fitted) and make it as good as it can be. It's already pretty good though.... Shorty levers:

This is now (possibly) up for sale in the 'cars for sale' section. Unfortunate as I'd love to finish it, but work and race commitments mean I will have zero free time over the next two years, and I'd rather sell it than leave it half-finished gathering dust. I'm looking for a sportsbike (fireblade preferably) to help my commute so if you have one you don't want i'll swap or trade with cash either way.