Split lip

 When I took the nose off to fit the new throttle cable, I noticed it was in quite a state underneath :

Having seen a FB post of someone who had fitted a splitter (for aesthetic reasons), I realised that a splitter stretching the full size of the nose might look good and prevent further damage. 

Now, the other guy had paid someone to make his splitter but that's not for miserly me. The tricky bit was the rolled edge that a splitter really needed. I'd never done something like that but after watching a YT video, how hard could it be? 

Actually, it wasn't too bad; took me a few hours of gentle hammering using my vice and various metal bits as an anvil and it was done. Don't get me wrong, look closely and it's rubbish but from a distance, perfectly acceptable:

Then a few coats of primer, black paint and lacquer:

Bolted to the nose and it looks ok:

Quite proud of my new blacksmith skills. 

Went out for a drive to test out the new throttle and, as I predicted, at slow speeds, its a bit jerkier BUT the rest of the time, it's awesome - Zedster feels so much faster, I guess because I'm effectively revving harder than before? 

Decided to brave Rykas cafe at Box Hill (I was hungry), a well known biker hangout - don't think anyone noticed me 😏

 

Underneath the arches - again

Time to try refit the front wheel arches - first, some gunk on the underside of the arch as a first fix, arch positioned, tin of paint on top to weigh it down and left overnight. Annoyingly, it hasn't dried in exactly the right position but it's not miles out and, as you may have guessed by now, I'm no perfectionist.

Next stage was to fit the stronger brackets I made a few weeks ago - a bit of final tweaking, an excess of gunk and clamps:

 

Unfortunately, I don't have any more clamps, so I'll have to do one bracket per. night.

I trial fitted the upper door frame - looking pretty good:

A bit concerned how the sewing is going to go...well outside my comfort zone.

Ice Age Zero

Holy cow, it's cold and just when I wanted to spray paint, an activity that requires reasonable temperatures!

Getting bored of waiting, I bought my paints and wheelarches into the house and spray painted in my study. I didn't quite stink out the whole house but the wife had a good moan.

 I had put some pinstripe vinyl sticker on one of the arches but I then tried to spray lacquer over it and the lacquer seemed to have an effect of shrinking the pinstripe, so much so that it lifted off the surface of the arch. So I had to pull it off, which left a gluey residue behind, ruining the nice finish and forcing me to re-sand the arch which I did badly (you following this?). Despite several coats of paint, I haven't fully hidden the scratches, so on close inspection, it doesn't look great:

This is with the lacquer on, so not sure whether to put the pinstripe on again - it did look good.

 My door frames have been welded up (many thanks Bob) and look great. I've approached a couple of local companies about sewing the material over the frame; one never called back and the other sounded very dubious and obviously had no idea what a kit car is. So, I'm going to try do this myself (gawd help us) - I've ordered a cheap sewing machine which may not be up to the job but it was only £25, so not the end of the world if it doesn't work out and I have started drawing up some vague plans - we shall see.

 Despite the cold this week, I drove into work a couple of times (too icy for my motorbike and I hate trains). I imagine I got a few strange looks but it was no colder than my motorbike and quite fun in the snow:

Zedster's new clothes

With the weather being so cold, I haven't been able to get the painting of the wheelarches done. I was finally at home during the day this weekend and finished several coats of black on the one arch - it looks brilliant:

I initially only did the repaired arch, just in case the paint looked rubbish and i would have to resort to just buying a new arch to match the other side. Fortunately, I think it looks great, so I've primed the other side as well - no going back now. I've also put a thin silver pinstripe on the black arch - looks excellent but I'll save the pictures for when they're on.

Between coats of paint, i gave the car a wash, polish and applied the new sticker i got a few weeks ago:

Maybe it's just me but i flipping love it - I've totally fluked the colour and size and I just think it looks great.

My indicators went on the blink (strictly, that's exactly what they didn't do). After wasting some time on checking the bulb and wiring, turned out to be the indicator relay - the same brand (HC-Cargo) as my alternator that died a few months ago! Replaced it with a new one (unbranded)...

The Old Grey Wheelarch Test

So with the arch damage repaired, time to try out the wrap...

... And let's gloss over that because it was a disaster! I thought the arch, being a small area, would be easy to do but it actually has a lot of compound curves and these are very difficult to wrap. I did a pretty decent job of the nice, flat areas but I just couldn't get the wrinkles out of the side pieces, despite liberal use of heat and repeated removal and application.

Got a flat area? Wrapping is great but any curves involved, don't bother.

So, back to basics - spray paint. I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before as it's going well so far. Because of the cold weather, I've only managed the primer on the one arch (the instructions say not to spray in cold weather) but it actually looks quite good just in battleship grey:

Despite the cold weather, I've commuted in Zedster every day this week so far and that has been partly possible because even my prototype door is very good at keeping the wind (and hence cold) out:

However, what it has also shown me is that the plastic frame is just too flexible and flaps about too much. The thicker vinyl I will eventually cover it in would help but not enough, I don't think.

So, a metal frame it is - I've ordered the pieces (the company I've ordered from will cut it to the sizes I want) and Bob from the RHOCAR forum has kindly offered to weld it up for me (he did my VIN plate). At least the plastic frame is a useful template.

Fill 'er up

With P40 filler, I filled in the damage on the arch:

I've got P38 filler to go on top and I may have just been able to use that alone but no problem.

Bought some ally sheet, cut it into 4 and formed it round the wheelarch supports so they are the same basic shape as the mesh I used last time but hopefully, will be much stronger :

Garotted

So, on with the repairs... first, take off the N/S front wing. It's attached in the same way as the O/S so it may also make an escape attempt in the near future.

After 2 hours, I was debating the wisdom of this plan - I think I used every item in my garage to try get the damn thing off; screwdrivers, chisels, Dremel and selection of bits etc. Eventually, the best tool was some wire made into a garotte to slice through the gunk between arch and support. This got me some of the way through and then a previously-useless saw with a very flexible blade did most of the rest:

On my last trip, I was getting brake judder when braking hard at speed. Forum discussions suggested the problem may be a lack of grease on the caliper slider pins so while I had the wheel off on this side, I stripped the caliper and re-greased the pins. They didn't seem too dry originally but felt a bit smoother afterwards, so maybe it will help - time will tell. I'll do the other side as well when I take that wheel off.

I'm going to re-attach the arches by making full width ally brackets with large wings and lots of gunk - hopefully, this will make a larger contact patch than just the support was before and will be physically stronger than the mesh I used.

I'm going to repair the damage to the wing with P40 filler (never done this before!) and then, I have a cunning plan to wrap both wings in some vinyl pattern to be determined. This saves trying to find the same shade of blue as the rest of the car and will give Zedster a more unique look, assuming I don't make a dogs dinner of the wrap :-)

Striptease

I had an early start to meet up with a group from the SKCC forum and had a great 80 mile run on some lovely roads. With a couple of V8 powered kits, these runs always push my performance envelope and they can be... er... interesting.

None more so than when, 5 miles before the end of the route and on a particularly fast straight, my front wheel arch decided it was all too much and ejected:

Fortunately, it didn't hit either of the 2 guys behind me and I was able to stop and get the wing out of a ditch. It's got a major grazed section (hopefully repairable) and I'll also need a new indictator as that got ripped off.

When I put these on, I thought I was being over-zealous with the amount of gunk and adding the mesh - seems I wasn't cautious enough. I'm going to have to ask around to see if there is a better attachment method.

Shark gills

So the bunting has been put away,  the dancing girls have left,  time to return to work.

I found someone local to cut louvres in my bonnet and it looks epic - I love the look of them:

I connected up the wiper motor and immediately blew the fuse - I've got the wiper switch on my dash wired wrong,  as I expected because I didn't put a huge amount of thought into it (wasn't needed for IVA).

The Carling switches are great but trying to understand the technical data sheet about them requires a degree in electronics - which I have but it's not helping me ☺.  Need some quality time with a multimeter.

Bought the windscreen frame and mounts from GBS and I've found a local company who will cut me the glass.

I decided to sort out the issues of getting my car in and out the garage (I've got a 2 inch lip that keeps catching the seat bolts) .  I've been using some simple wooden ramps I made but they're rubbish and have mostly fallen apart. So,  out with the concrete... I've never done a decent amount of concrete before (built a brick BBQ years ago) so I thought the 4 bags of ready-mixed concrete would be enough - oh no! Sixteen bags (!)  later....

I am in SO much pain - mixing all that concrete by hand almost killed me. I hope this works OK,  it's a bit thin in places... we'll see in a few days.

Feeling horny

Fortunately,  the main beam flash problem was just a blown fuse and the horn was simply the fact that it only works when the ignition is on full - it doesn't work on ACC despite everything else being able to. Took me 3 sessions to work this out though...!

So finally got to tighten up the dash and fit the aux panel for the,  hopefully,  last time. Also removed plastic off the scuttle and fitted the edge trim - looks quite good apart from the painfully ugly column shroud - that has got to go one day soon:

I'd also like to thank the God's of Hindsight for ensuring I did NOT choose stainless steel panels for the car. I bought a couple of trim pieces for the cockpit edge which are stainless steel and, man,  are they a pain to trim! It took me an hour per.  piece,  using a Dremel and hacksaw.  When I think of how many times I've trimmed the ally panels...

Details, details

It's amazing how slow progress is at this stage - when you're putting an engine in,  or bolting on suspension units,  you feel like you're making big steps. Now,  it takes me 2 hours to get the front tunnel panel on:

Initially,  I was trying to get it on over the carpet on the side panels but I don't think you can ever do that - it comes bent and only enough to fit over the panels neatly. So,  I had to trim off the top inch of carpet to get it on and I may have to do that on the main tunnel piece when I get to that.

I got some foam to lie underneath the boot carpet,  to provide a bit of protection for the fuel tank:

It looks like I'm going to have to put the horn button on the aux panel after all. The steering boss I have has the metal rings that should work with the springs for the horn circuit.  The problem is that the springs won't stay on the rings; there's a small magnet on the end but it just doesn't seem to either be strong enough or maybe I've damaged it at some point in the build. Horn button on order...

The guy from Intatrim was supposed to call me back today to let me know if they had a set of seats ready but he either forget or they aren't open on a Saturday and he forgot it was Friday when I called ☺

Booti-ful

Well,  the boot panels took me a little longer than I expected but,  man,  was it fun.

The left side was simple as the piece fitted with no work needed. However,  the other side was more difficult. I guess GBS just make both pieces identical to save costs?

The piece on the right has to go round the fuel sender,  so needs some cutting:

So far,  so easy. Problem is that the wires for the fuel sender stick up and are vulnerable to anything moving round in the boot. So, with my amazing metalworking skills (?),  I fashioned a little tent to protect the connections:

At this stage of my build,  I'm running out of stuff so I had to use scraps to make the cover,  hence the rivets you can see on the top to connect a couple of scraps. The tab on the right will be bonded to the rear panel.

Great fun to do and I think is very useful.

Bling

Short session today to finish off the ECU map switch:

Will need to add a wire into the ECU plug and a short connection to earth and done.

I wanted to add some labels to the panel but I can't find the sticker sheet I bought months ago.

Couple of other minor jobs; a bit of small rubber trim to the front edge of the scuttle which makes it look 100 times better and some proper bling in the form of chrome-look trim for the bonnet:

Again,  looks  really good...

Need to get my delivery of bits to finish off the headlight wiring so I can test it before final cable ties and general tidying up of them can be done.

It's gone a bit Pete

Well,  my shroud was looking OK in bare metal and plastic but my vinyl covering skills have gone South for the winter and the final result looks,  to be frank,  crap.

Started by adding a piece of foam to try smooth out the shape:

... but not a good result:

(that mottled effect is supposed to make it look like alacantra/leather - yeah,  I regret that buying choice).

Assuming it still fits on OK (I haven't tried it yet),  it will have to do. Fortunately,  there are no requirements at IVA for the shroud unless being fugly is a problem.

Finished off the front wheel arches by bonding in a cable tie holder in each one,  to hold the indicator wiring in place.

Shrouded in mystery

Well,  my column shroud is turning into a (relative) masterpiece. Obviously,  for anyone with a modicum of skill,  it's a pile of junk but for a rank amateur like myself,  it's awesome! The U-shaped bracket is brilliant - very sturdy and supports the whole structure nicely. I've improved it a lot since yesterday by re-bending the metal lower piece so that it fits inside the plastic top part:

Looks OK in place and will be much better once vinyl  covered:

Added the mesh pieces to the other front wheel arch:

Gunk tortillas

Well,  the ice age returned this week - just too cold to be out in the garage in the evening,  even with my little heater doing its best. So had to wait for some daytime...

With the front wheel arches now lightly glued on,  time to improve that. I bought some light metal mesh:

Molded it to the right shape:

... And then smothered with gunk:

Used some very dodgy Heath-Robinson style methods of holding the mesh in place while it dries. Man,  that gunk is messy - you just have to vaguely touch a surface and it sticks - half the work is trying to keep it off places it's not supposed to be.

I've only managed to do one arch today,  so the other next time.

UPDATE: sadly, this was not sufficient, resulting in a front wing ejection event. See later posts for an improved method.

Continued with probably the most 'creative' (ie. no idea what I'm doing) task of the build - a steering column shroud.

I've bought the top half of a Fiesta shroud (couldn't find a Sierra one) for £3 and,  amazingly it fits my steering boss quite well. However,  that still leaves the bottom half to make from scratch and work out how to support the whole contraption.

This is vaguely what I have so far:

The black plastic is the piece I bought,  the bottom half is what I've made. The smaller U-shaped strip is intended to be a bracket - there are 4 holes on the side of the column where this will bolt in and my lower metal piece will bolt onto that.

The plastic piece is not quite long enough to cover the column,  so I've made a smaller flap which just slots in to the back of the plastic piece:

The whole thing will eventually be covered in vinyl,  so holes and gaps will be covered up.

I still need to find a decent way of fixing that plastic top half to the metal bottom piece but looking promising so far.

Harlequin wires

To complete the wiring for the front side indicators,  I ran out of black heatshrink so I had to resort to the smaller, multicoloured pack I had left - quite a pretty  result,  I thought:

Shame I covered them with a boring black sleeve...

Next step was to get those front arches on - paper on the tyres to stop any gunk getting on them,  bit of sandpaper to roughen up the powder coat for the gunk to get a decent hold and then the infamous stuff itself:

The arches have a notch in them for the arch support to sit in,  which I assume ensures they are in the right place for IVA,  so no complicated measuring needed. Not sure if there is a proper way of making them sit right - I just went by eye and put a tin of paint on top to hold it in place while it sets.

Once it's dry,  I've bought some light metal mesh which I'll layer lots of gunk on and then bend the mesh round the supports - should ensure it all stays in place.

Started to try design a steering column shroud. I've got half of a Sierra shroud but I'm not sure whether to use it - it sticks out too far. Started on making my own but it's a tricky shape and not sure how best to attach it to the column,  although there are a few options.

Batten down the hatches

A tricky job were the bonnet catches; apart from the fact you don't want it blowing off at speed,  it's also a large sheet of metal on the front of the car and it needs to look like it fits.

I tried to make a template so I could just drill straight into the sides and bonnet but I wasn't sure how much to allow for the small gap between bonnet and side panel. So I decided to fit the main latch piece and then the smaller keeper piece on the bonnet -  in theory,  that would allow better placement of the 2 pieces.

Well,  as mentioned before,  my drilling abilities are sorely lacking so this whole process took me a while and required a bit of filing to get holes to match:

... But eventually all done and I even managed to get 2 of them straight!

That last pic is deceptive; the rear catch is straight and the front one slightly crooked but not as bad as it looks,  honest! The bonnet seems to be on nice and firmly,  although it's not pulled tight over the scuttle - not sure if I should have made sure of that? However,  I think the slight gaps at each side may help with engine cooling,  acting as rear vents?

My list of bits left is getting shorter:

... but I'm worried I might not be done by May,  in time for Stoneleigh.