That 21st Century essential accesory

 Yup, cup holders! My son recently laughed at the fact that my first few cars never had any - nowadays, its first on the check list...

I didn't want a cheap, plastic one for Zedster so ordered a stainless steel one for £17 - damn, it weighs a ton. Colin Chapman would be horrified...

It just about fits underneath the new storage unit:

I can now go out in polite society....

Radio GaGa

 Time to finally do an update I've been thinking about for ages; some sort of storage box on the bulkhead between the seats. This will mainly be somewhere to put my radio on road trips, to keep it from just sliding round on the passenger seat and to put it higher up so it might get a better signal. I can also put other odds and ends in it when I'm not using the radio.

Started with the ubiquitous sheet of ally and a scribbled plan:

Some cutting and bending later:

....and then some vinyl:

Looking not too shabby...drilled some holes and used larger 16x4mm pop rivets (to allow for the carpet) and voila!

Very solid and doesn't look too horrendous - very pleased with myself.

I bought a new mobile phone holder which is also a charger and automatically opens and closes around the phone, which is surprisingly advanced for £23. On a trip when I'm using the sat-nav on my phone, I'm always stopping and taking the phone in and out - this should make it less of a faff.

I've also ordered a cup holder which was going to go underneath that storage unit but I've got less space than I thought, so it may not go there - we'll see.

Route updated on day 1 to avoid Le Man's and to include the famous old race grandstand near Reims on the last day - seem stupid not to as we go past Reims anyway.

Two weeks to go - getting excited and a little nervous; my last Euro trip was a last minute thing which I had no expectations for and turned into my best trip ever, so this one has more scope to be a disappointment...

Gates of Heaven

My gear lever has always been a noisy so-and-so; not a gearbox problem, just the play in the GBS quickshift mechanism so it vibrates at almost all speeds.

Combined this with watching a video of an old Ferrari with its metal gate for the gearshift and I decided to try make my own. 

To start, a cardboard template cut a little at a time to get the basic H-shape:

I bought an 8mm thick ally plate and transferred the shape from the cardboard template onto it. The cardboard template wasn't the most accurate; I re-drew the shape on paper and made some minor adjustments in the dimensions. Not very scientific; look at the lever, see where it isn't quite right on the cardboard, subtract a few mm. 

I don't have the equipment needed to make this look even vaguely decent so I took the plate and measurements to a local metalwork shop. He did charge me a fortune (£200) but the result was AWESOME:

Some sandpaper to clean out the letters and a few coats of primer, paint, lacquer:

The next part was pretty crucial; getting holes drilled in my tunnel top in the right place. Much agonising later and it was done:

It looks great, I think but does it work? Ish... the lever slots in fine and in 1st, 2nd and 5th, the rattle is gone. However, 4th and especially 3rd is worse than it was before; now a full-on metal-on-metal rattle. Doh! But I think some strategically placed neoprene underneath the gate will do the trick - we'll see.

Otherwise, I love the look and adds something different from the norm.

Keeping it Cleaner

While watching a repeat of Wheeler Dealers, the guy on there was talking about the oil scavenging system on a Volvo. He was explaining what it did (redirected fumes from the top of the engine back into the inlet manifold, so that it reburnt the fumes/oil, making the exhaust emissions cleaner) and he dismissively mentioned how older cars might just vent these fumes and oil to air - and guess what Zedster does? Yup, this is my setup:

I have never liked this setup, mainly because it does add an oil mist to my engine bay, as you can see in that pic. So, a bit of shopping found a nice, shiny oil catch tank for £30 and, with a new filter, it was pretty quick to fit, looks good and should keep the bay a bit cleaner:

Its got a sight glass on the side so will be interesting to see how long it takes to fill up, if ever. 

Beauty and the Beast

 Regular fans (?) may recall my column shroud I made years ago was an unfettered gargoyle of an item which I always promised myself I'd replace as soon as I could. Well, almost 5 years later and after a chance conversation with Tony-who-owns-a-3D-printer-and-knows-how-to-use-it, this has appeared:

How awesome is that?! Took 3 days to print, I'm told... really pleased with it. 

Many thanks, Tony.... 

High Lights

So, with lots of spare time, a high-level brake light is a long-overdue upgrade; with Zedster being so low it has worried me that some brain-dead driver may not see my brakes.

The first problem is that all the high-level brake lights I could find are made to attach to a flat surface and I want to attach mine to my roll-bar. So, time to roll out my amazing, bracket-making skills. Two pieces cut out of ally sheet and spray-painted black:

 

These will bend round the rollbar and provide a flat surface to attach the brake light too, with a couple of tabs to fit into the feet of the light unit.

Next was the electrics - I had to get the brake signal from one of the rear brake lights. This involved taking off the rear wheel, cutting off the existing wire to the rear light and making up a new link with an extra branch (the blue section in the pic below) for the new light:

To make it neat, I really needed the wire to feed up through the rollbar, so I had to - gulp - drill holes in my so-far pristine rollbar:

One at the foot, another up where the light goes. It took me an hour to feed the wire through and then fish it out at the bottom with a butchered wire coat hanger. A hole in the boot carpet through to the inspection hole in the chassis for the top suspension bolt and I could connect the wire up to my new plug. A quick test of the brake pedal to make sure the connections all worked and the light works and then a couple of p-clips riveted into the rear panel hold the wire out of the way of the suspension.

The brackets were then bent round the rollbar (the paint split in places, so I had to re-do that at the end), the tabs bent over and trial-fitted into the feet of the light unit (difficult to explain - trust me). Firstly, I had to trim the tabs as they were too big and then the cheap light unit fell apart in my hands! Fortunately, it just clips back together - not the greatest quality. With the brackets bent into place, 4 more holes in my rollbar (in for a penny...) and 2 rivets per bracket to hold them in place.

Finally, a couple more layers of spray paint to patch up the peeled sections, a final coat of lacquer and job done:

It's not the greatest piece of work ever (not much of mine is) but it's nice and solid, neat and should do the job.

The circus is in town

I do feel like Zedster is a clown car sometimes... (and I guess that makes me a clown? Which is about right, I guess..).

So the speedo wiring was fine - it just seems like the spade terminals I tried to use to connect the wires weren't good enough. I ended up soldering them instead (my soldering skills are horrendous, lumpy and yuck) and it seems to now be working BUT half my aux panel is now dead!

Either I've blown a fuse or I've knocked off a wire when putting the dash back in - jees! And one of the fluorescent strips in my garage has blown, so half my garage is in darkness.

Well, at least the speedo works (for now)....

Show me the speed!

So, my original Smiths speedo hasn't been working properly for a while (OK up to 40mph, then won't go back to zero and so you end up showing as doing 140mph, with the odometer going up in unison). So time for a new speedo...

I decided I wanted a GPS controlled speedo which means 2 options; a £50 Chinese item or a £250 unit from someone more trustworthy (there is honestly nothing in between) . Normally, I'd go the cheap route but the cheap ones don't have a trip meter and I use that all the time because I can't trust my fuel gauge. So the expensive option it had to be... Speedhut in the US do an infinitely customisable unit, so that's what I went for.

It arrived a few weeks ago and wasn't quite right; the blue of the dial was much darker than their website showed, making the silver numbers not very legible. But I couldn't be bothered to wait weeks sending it back, so it will do:

It does feel very good quality, solid and well made. Fitting it was fairly simple; first, remove the old dial and widen the hole slightly:

The wiring should have been simple (but see later) - 12v ignition, earth, dial illumination and a permanent live feed for the unit to store GPS data so it gets a quick signal the next time you start up. The permanent live was a simple wire direct to the positive terminal of the battery and I decided to reuse the plug from the old Smiths dial - I had the original wiring diagram it came with, so it should have been simple - snip the 3 wires out of the plug I needed (for some reason, it has about 7 wires, most of which aren't used), fit terminals and job done.

I've recently rewired my dash to make it easily removable with plugs for all the wires - the problem here was the GPS receiver has to go on top of the scuttle and I couldn't easily make a plug for the special coax cable it uses to connect to the dial. So I had to fit the unit so that it comes away with the dash, rather than being permanently attached to the scuttle. This required a little bit of jiggery-pokery - first a slot in the ally that the dash bolts to:

Then a piece of steel 3Md to the scuttle (because the magnetic GPS receiver can't stick to the ally scuttle) :

And now the GPS receiver attaches to that and its cable slots behind the dash - visible but not too horrendous and means the whole dash can come away:

Sadly, on a test drive, the darn thing didn't work, I think because I used the wires from the old Smiths wiring plug for the power and I guess the generic wiring diagram is incorrect (green wire for the +12v did seem a bit weird now I think about it). So I need to redo the wiring using my known 12v ignition terminals. I'm pretty sure the dial itself is fine because the illumination does work, so it's just the main power.

Hopefully have it working next time and I can play with the built-in 0-60 timer 😉

A Call to Arms

Continuing with the upgrades, next up are armrests. I was inspired by seeing some Caterham armrests - not only do they act as straps to hold the door against the side of the car, they also prevent water splashing up into the cabin.

So, first up was some measurements transferred to a sheet of 1.5mm ally (sorry, pretty rubbish picture):

The strange shape is because my drivers side door has a bulge for my elbow. This was then cutout and bent into shape, using a combination of Black and Decker workmate and plain old bending by hand (quite surprised it worked so well):

 

Then a layer of foam to protect my delicate elbow:

...and vinyl applied with contact adhesive:

 

A set of M3 stainless steel bolts (hopefully won't go rusty and look crud) with countersunk cups, through the door material and into the flange on the armrest and job done:

 

Not been out to test them yet but looks great, doors feel firm and they lift up easily enough.

I also replaced the side mirrors with some funky (read 'tiny') numbers:

I've also got a new gear knob and USB sockets to fit...all good fun...

Happy New Year to you all!

The road ahead

Another first yesterday - first drive to work. Zedster looks tiny in a car park next to those huge Ford Fiestas...

Long-term, I am considering commuting to work in Zedster instead of my motorbike, partly because I know I won't get enough free time at weekends for drives out (the wife just won't be happy) and partly because I'm not sure I can justify owning the bike and car, paying 2 lots of insurance and tax etc.

I love my bike but as I get older, I'm getting more conscious of the dangers and the hassle of getting changed at work every day is beginning to get irksome. The advantage of Zedster is that at least my wife will be a passenger (unlike my bike) which may get her to come out with me. Having said that, the drive home from work was crap - trouble on the M25 meant all the local roads were clogged and it took me 40 minutes to get home instead of the 20 minutes it would have been on the bike.

So with a few drives under my belt, a few concerns to be checked/fixed:

1. Wipers - I had a spit of rain yesterday but they wouldn't move correctly. Need to try and sort this at some point.

2. Suspension setup - my tyres squeal like a 70s American cop show at any speed in a corner. I don't know if this is just because they are so new or that all cars do that and you don't normally hear it but I could do with a pro going over my setup. Comfort-wise, Zedster is great, much more so than I expected, except when going through potholes - then you feel it and the car gets knocked off-line (although not sure much can be done about that).

3. Tighten up the windscreen screws - they do look crud from the drivers seat - big gaps between frame and bracket.

And then there is the list of upgrades (in order of importance):

1. Roof (on order). Need to lower seats (maybe just the drivers side?) for this as well.

2. A clock - amazing how annoying it is not knowing the time.

3. Doors - I have a cunning plan/design in mind. Not sure if it's feasible but I'll keep you posted.

4. Decals, graphics, badges - ok, I've ruled out flames but I want some decals on the car, maybe a stripe down the bonnet? But I am artistically-challenged so it could easily come out a mess - I need to get expert advice (wife, probably). I have a vague design for a rear badge but I need to get to grips with 3D software.

5. High level rear brake light.

6. Glove box - storage is a problem and there is a large open space on the dashboard which could have a small, traditional glove box built into it.

That should keep me going for a while...