mattj Posted November 22, 2015 Author Share Posted November 22, 2015 More progress from the last couple of weeks, I got the rollcage all welded up It went together pretty well, I haven't made one before so lots of measuring and re-measuring but I got there in the end. So all this effort was pretty much for these little bits which are the bosses that make the upper seatbelt mounts that go into the main hoop here So all done and in place it looks like this I have a couple of things to finish on the mounting plates inside the car and then it is on to the exhaust. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted April 17, 2016 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 17, 2016 wow haven't updated this since November, oops, it isn't because things haven't been happening, just that I have been really slack at taking photos. Got this in the mail the other day I had the cage inspected after getting it all finished off and in the car and it was all good, so the car is officially a race car if I want to go that way with it. in reality I did it to make cert a bit easier and so that if I want to turn it into a full cage later on then it is already in the system but still... So that has helped with the motivation a fair bit but over the last few months I have done a lot to it Got the exhaust finished, wrapped the headers because I didn't like looking at the join between the schedule pipe elbows and the exhaust tube. Pretty happy with how it came out and learnt a valuable lesson on why you should wear gloves when putting this stuff on. I didn't and my hands itched for days Then it was on to the wiring, the old motor was running a generator so I ripped out all the wiring for that and wired up the new alternator, coils etc. I was going to leave the wiring in the engine bay (the standard Anglia wiring runs out through the firewall just below the windscreen) but it really looked bad so I rerouted it all through the guards where it is all out of sight. Wasn't too much work and makes the engine bay look heaps cleaner. And the engine bay all wired up Now I just need to deal to the washer bottle...... So what next? well I have been patching up all the little (and not so little) holes, finally go the gearlever all sealed up, ended up making a bit to cover over the hole and to adapt the type 9 boot to the shifter, that was the biggest hole to be filled so it is nice to have that one sorted. I decided to rivet it on just in case things have to move in the future. So that's where it's at, I am really just tidying up all of the little jobs now to get it ready to fire up, the wiring behind the dash is a real mess and needs some attention but that's about the worst of it I think. Hopefully the next update will be to say that it is all running........ 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted May 29, 2016 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 29, 2016 It's alive! Video proof to follow shortly if I can figure out how to get it off my phone. I am pretty excited about it as it has been a long time coming! 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted May 30, 2016 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 30, 2016 Ok lets see if this works http://vid225.photobucket.com/albums/dd95/105re/TRIM_20160530_061135_zpsn99jdybk.mp4 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattj Posted May 30, 2016 Author Share Posted May 30, 2016 Not a great video but you get the idea, it is quite loud although there is more induction noise than exhaust noise, will probably be better (worse?) with the bonnet on. I think it sounds awesome 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted June 24, 2016 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 24, 2016 Had the first drive of this thing on Thursday, trailered it out of town to a garage near work to get the wheel alignment done so took it for a spin to see how it goes. First drive one of the driveshaft loops came loose and dropped onto the driveshaft but once that was sorted it was all go. So it pretty much makes no sense going slow and to be honest I was a little disappointed until I opened it up, then it all came together. Goes good, handles good, sounds awesome, so I am pretty happy. I do have a bunch of things to fix though, the main one being that it is too low at the back, exhaust hits everything and it is a pain to get out of the drive so unfortunately it is going to have to come up. Anyway I will get that sorted this weekend (along with a couple of other minor things) and once that is all done it will be ready for cert. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted July 8, 2016 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 8, 2016 Well it's been a busy couple of days, had cert booked for Thursday and before that I took the 1" blocks out of the back to raise it up a little, it doesn't look as good but now I can actually get it out of the drive without scraping the crap out of the exhaust. So Thursday morning I drove it out to get a warrant then the garage let me borrow a hoist for the inspection. That all went pretty good, there were a couple of things but nothing major, then we went to do the road test and the car wouldn't start, stupid thing!! anyway I think what happened is the fuel pressure was too high and was overflowing the float bowl and flooding the carb, anyway I eventually got it going but only on one rotor and just couldn't get it to clear. So the certifier left to have a look at another car and I went off and got some new plugs chucked them in and wound back the fuel pressure and it was good to go. Here's the car on the hoist (kind of boring pic but I haven't posted any for a while) Then it was off for the bump steer test which it passed and I went home to fix some of the small issues that had come up on the inspection. The certifier came back at about 10pm so we could do the road test which unfortunately didn't go so well, the car goes good, handles good but wasn't so flash on the stopping so it failed the brake test. There was no fade or anything it just wouldn't pull up properly anyway I was a bit surprised by this as I had researched it pretty thoroughly but what can you do, so we headed for home and on the way back started talking about master cylinders and sizing etc. Then this morning I had a thought and went to check the cylinders and found that I had the front and rear cylinders swapped, so I had a bigger cylinder on the front which meant it was much harder to push the pedal and explains why it wasn't stopping as it should. So yeah my bad, what a dumbass. Still it's good to know what the problem is, I have swapped them over now so hopefully they will be sorted. There are a couple of other things as well, the coilover platforms sit quite close to the tyre so I will put some shorter springs in and wind the platforms up to get some more clearance, and I need to get some documentation for the driveshaft mods. So assuming that the brakes will now be ok it is pretty much sorted, unfortunately the certifier only comes to Nelson once every 4-6 weeks so I have a bit of a wait but hey it's taken years to get to this point so another month won't hurt, it's not exactly a practical winter car anyway..... There are a couple of other things that I will do while I wait like replace the 3.9 diff with a 4.1 and look at adding some interior (specifically some sound deadening, I reckon it's louder in the car then out.....) So yeah I guess that's a win 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted July 17, 2016 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 17, 2016 So the last few days have been spent sorting out the brakes, funnily enough with the master cylinders switched over it now stops like a champ so pretty happy about that. Drove the neighbors crazy running the car up and down the street slamming on the brakes but it had to be done. I also got the new shorter springs and threw them in and there is no heaps of clearance on the tyre so that will be all good now. So it is already for it's retest now. I had some time today so I sorted out something that has been bugging me for a while, there is a small cover at the top of the bonnet that I took off a while back to get some paint colour matched and then I left it out as the engine generates a bit more heat than the old crossflow and I thought it would be a good idea to let it escape, anyway it is a reasonable sized hole and it looked a bit messy with nothing on it so I did this. First holesaw some holes Then swage them with the tool I made a while back And fit to car and here is the car now that I have raised the back up by 25mm I can now get out of the drive without scraping but it still looks good I reckon. Fingers crossed that the next post will be to say that I have cert 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted November 18, 2016 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 18, 2016 Right, so this happened then this Even managed to get it insured...... So yeah all done, well not really still needs an interior and some paint touchups but that can wait, its now time to put some kms on it, this has been a pretty long project so now all I am going to do is enjoy driving it. Pretty funny car to drive gets a fair few looks some good some not so good and mostly surprised, gas mileage is so bad, like next level bad, I took it out today and my average was about 4.4kms per liter but it is running really rich (yeah that'll be it, not the rotary under the bonnet ha ha), anyway combine that with the 30l Anglia tank and I am going to be spending some time at the gas station for sure! The biggest problem that I will have now is keeping it under 5000RPM (so hard to do when all it wants to do is rev....) for the next 1000kms which is what the engine builder recommended, work is about a 30km round trip so I only have to do that 34 times and at current gas milage it will only cost me about $500 ha ha ha Anyway it's all good And I will leave this as the last shot, and in my opinion the best angle of the car 33 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted February 16, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 16, 2017 Bit of an update, I have been driving this a bit and there is a small issue that needs to be dealt with, basically when sitting in traffic the temperature creeps up slowly even with the fans running, it is fine when moving but it is probably only a matter of time until it becomes a problem. when I put the fans on I went for 2 10" ones as they were the easiest to fit, anything else was going to require a bit more cutting, also the opening in the front of the car isn't really big enough and was blocking some of the radiator. I made the radiator as big as I could to have it fit between the chassis rails and below the bonnet and the fact that it keeps everything cool when moving says to me that it will be able to do the job if I can get the airflow up when the car isn't moving. So I did this Motor out start unstitching the front Then cut the lower part of the front off so i could get in At this stage I found that the crossmember at the front of the car was pretty much a write off, it looks ok in the photos but it had rusted out and had some 3mm plate welded in and all bogged over, basically it was a real mess. So after trying to decide about whether I bodge it or fix it properly I cut it out So now I have a massive opening in the front, that should fix the airflow to the radiator..... I have also bought a 16" fan so I am hoping that between increasing the airflow to the radiator and putting a bigger fan that it will take care of it. This weekend I will start putting it back together.... 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattj Posted February 18, 2017 Author Share Posted February 18, 2017 More progress from yesterday, I decided to remove a bit more steel, basically the bits at the side were going to end up looking a bit funny as I was going to chop away most of them, so I cut them out as well leaving this. Then I made up some new ones So these will mount here and from the front this is going to give me an extra 140mm of width in the front intake and probably about 200mm of height, so that is a pretty massive gain. It is going to end up wider than it needs to be but I am thinking that if I end up needing to go to a bigger radiator (not that there is really any room for that....) down the track then at least I have some provision for it. So todays mission is to get those bits welded in and replace the crossmember that I cut out, rather than replace the crossmember with something like it had I am going to make it out of tube as I have some left over rollcage tubing that should do the trick. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted February 19, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 19, 2017 Today I got those side panels all welded in then made up the crossmember and welded that in as well Crossmember Goes here had to tidy up a few other things while I was doing this and found some more rust which has been dealt to but it slowed me down a bit and I didn't get quite as far as I had hoped. I have started cutting and fitting the front sheet metal that I un-stitched, so will carry on with it this week. 16 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattj Posted March 15, 2017 Author Share Posted March 15, 2017 Got a bit more done, not quite as much as I hoped as the weekend was a total fail but I am getting there All the fab is done Front welded back together So the motor can go back in now, however there is one small snag, because I can't leave things along there was something else that has been bothering me, basically the muffler hangs too low and it would be good to quieten it down a bit so a few months ago I bought these Now the exhaust is a bit of a basted to get in as it is all one piece so I chopped it and added some v-bands, this way the headers won't have to come out again Not sure if I will get the whole exhaust made this week as there are a few bits to figure out so it may end up with the old one back in for a bit longer yet, will just have to see how the week goes.... 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mattj Posted March 19, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 19, 2017 Bit more progress, I was trying to get this done so I could take it to the grasskhana that the Nelson car club ran today, but didn't quite make it, part of the reason is this When I was getting the front panel lined up ready for welding a crack opened up about 50mm from the join, so while I was cleaning up the welds I had made I did a little bit of investigating and found this. Left side Right side So it appears that I was not the first person to chop off the front sheet metal, I was however the first person to weld it up properly.... apparently a few spot welds and heaps of bog was the order of the day for that particular repair, in fairness they had used heaps of underseal behind it which kept the rust away so it was just a matter of cutting the welds re-aligning it all and welding it back together. Next up fitting the fan to the radiator, I got a bit lazy and just used those push through tie things And engine back in, oil cooler and radiator fitted, fan re-wired with a digital controller as the analogue one was a bit huckory So all that work was basically just for this Before After I have some bits turning up for the exhaust tomorrow so have decided to build the new one rather than fit the old one back on 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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