Couple of hours got the last of the brakes sorted today. Pipes now bent (I had to shorten one and then re-flare the end to get it to fit properly) and connected to the master cylinder. Also cut the low pressure hoses from the reservoir to length and fitted them for both clutch and brakes. I had to order a special union for the clutch as its designed not to have a remote reservoir....
I made up a heat shield from stainless for the brake pipes on the inner wing as they will pretty close to the headers.

Finally got the header tank bolted down. Anyway pics speak a thousand words so they say!

Doors and Fuel Tank

Decided to have a go at the fitting the doors as all the little bits I've been doing just don't seem to visually do anything and i fancied an enthusiasm uplift! I've heard that this is one of those jobs that is a pain in the arse to get right so I approached the job with this in mind. I bolted the hinge in place with the sandwich plates on the drivers side loosely fitted and then offered the door up. All seemed to fit well so I marked the holes to be drilled in the door, drilled them and bolted the door in place. A bit of adjustment and hey presto fits like a glove! Not sure what all the fuss is about!

 

The passenger side however was more of a pain as either the door is different or the body isn't symmetrical. Given what I've seen of it so far I would suggest it is the latter! They (Dax) know the moulds aren't right so why don't they fix it???!!!?!

Rant over! Same order of the day with the passenger side door but the return lip at the front required a little 'fettling' to stop it fouling the body. It fits well now but I think it will need a little more material taking out as the paint will build it up again.

Finally got the Tank bolted in too. Once again this should have been straight forward but wasn't. Mr Hammerite had bent the retaining straps to size but hadn't accounted for the foam liner that goes between the tank and the strap. A small amount of massaging with number one tool solved the issue. Impact engineering - love it!

More small bits.....

A host of small jobs got done as well as a couple of big ones. Firstly the new Master Cylinder arrived so I've now bolted that in after removing the old one. I have to shorten one of the front lines and then re-flare it as well as bolt the lines into place on the inner wing but I can't do this until I get some more P clips (which i ordered over a week ago) - bloomin Xmas post!

One of the jobs I wanted to get out of the way was the offside side vent grill. It needs to be done now as access is starting to get restricted as more parts go into the engine bay. This has caused a headache as the grilles that came with the car are the earlier type and as such don't have any way of attaching them in. After speaking with Dax apparently they used to literally bodge a load of Wurth over the aperture and hold the grill in place until it set. I didn't like the idea of the grill being permanently in place so in the end I came up with this:

I then fabbed a couple of mounts that will be bonded into the inner arch above and below the aperture. Final attachment will then be via the long bolt that will go through the brackets on the grill itself. This way the grill is removable in the future.

Finally bonded the grill bracketry in place and used the grill itself as a clamp while the Wurth cured.

With this out of the way I made up a couple of small brackets to hold the P clips that will retain the reservoir hoses to the brake and clutch Masters.

Radiator 2

First job was to finish off the problems i've been having with the bonnet hinge. In the end I shaved the end of the hinge plate down and used the vice to bend it shape. A lot of bend a bit and then offer it up action but the end result is good. The hinge now rotates properly without any undue force needed as a result of misalignment.

with this done I turned to the rad and drilled the fixing holes for the lower radiator cradle into the chassis horns. Straight forward enough except for clearance to get the bloomin drill into the gap between the body and chassis. Sometime ago I purchased a cheap 90 degree angle attachment for my drill. Ive used this a couple of times and its now starting to fall apart but thankfully it held up long enough to allow me to drill the holes into the chassis. I tapped the holes and ran in 2 M6 socket head bolts each side. The cradle then came off again and I mounted the rad onto it using the threaded posts i had already tapped etc. The hole assembly was then lifted and bolted back into place (this is tricky on your own!).

The top mounting arms are relatively straight forward fitment and only required a little shortening and bending into exact position. These were then bolted into place on the inner fron arches again using M6 stainless socket cap bolts with load spreading washers and nylocs on 'tuther' side.

As a 'belt and braces' I drilled a 2mm hole through the lower mounting posts and pushed a split pin through under the nuts to fully secure them. It was hard enough trying to find some M9 nuts in the first place let alone Nyloc ones! Crap photo but it gives you the idea.....

This job is quite a big one and im glad to have got it out of the way but the rad is now in and solid.....

Boot 1

Started looking into the boot fixings and gas rams. Once again Dax supply a set of stainless brackets for the gas rams to bolt into and once again they dont fit! The manual (bless it!) suggests that the bracketry should be located on the boot 19 inches from the rear lip and on the body 6 inches forward of the aperture. Fitted at this distance the boot won't close!

So some measuring later and the holes were drilled.

The next issue is that these are the brackets supplied:

Clearly flat. And they have to fit into a curved boot lid. I employed the services of number one tool again and hey presto all good.

In the end I made some small plates spreader plates up as I didn't like the amount of pressure exerted onto the rivets that are supposed to be fitted straight through the fibreglass. Quite pleased with the result and the boot opens just about by itself and stays open. One of the issues I've seen on other builds is the boot shooting open because of the strength of the rams - I seem to have accidentally overcome this - happy days!

Christmas comes early

Had a phone call last week to say my engine was ready. Mike advised that he could drop it off for me and go through the various bits of info etc. So without further ado here she is in all her glory!!!

 Spec:

383 CuIn (6.3 Litre) Chevy Small Block V8
Edelbrock Performer RPM Cylinder Heads
Edelbrock Performer RPM Cam
Torker II Intake Manifold
Mallory Performance distributor
Edelbrock 600 CFM 4 Barrel Carb
Keith Black Pistons
Repower bellhousing
Uprated performance clutch

Fully balanced by Huddart engineering.

She made 430Bhp on the Dyno and 450 ft lbs torque @ 3500 revs. Mike tells me the power should be a little more when the proper headers are on too!

Xmas comes early for 2012......

Bonnet 1

Had a go at the bonnet today. A theoretical straight forward affair - yeah right! The hinge is basically a tube bolted to the front of the bonnet with two slightly smaller tubes (one each side) that bolt into the inner wings. All good in theory so I drilled into the plates that are glassed into the bonnet at the factory, tapped them and then bolted in the main part of the hinge. You have to be really careful here not to go right through the gel coat on the other side!

The use of some plastercine in the bonnet recess held the bonnet at the correct height until I have everything painted and the rubbers are glued in. Next discovery - one side of the hinge tube fits perfectly the other is way out - angle wise..... Yet another sigh and more thought, swearing and adaptation required! It would appear the body's offside inner wing has been bonded in about 5mm more towards the centre line than the near side. I know this because the body externally sits absolutely smack on centre to within 0.1mm according to the plumb lines to the centre of the hubs. I'm going to have to give this some thought as the only way round I can see is to hack off the plate and the re-weld it at the correct angle. Engineering tolerances my arse!

Body final fix.....

So with two mates at the ready for bang on 10 am to help me lift the body into place I started to apply the adhesive to areas that are going to bond. This Wurth stuff is horrible and I would thoroughly recommend you don't get it on you as it will only come off when your skin sheds!

I applied the adhesive on the bare metal contact patches recommended in the manual, spread it out and then ran a final bead over the top. A couple of mates then helped me lift the body into position. It lined it self up perfectly with the drilled holes straight away so no adjustment necessary and I set about it with the riveter. I managed to get a decent air riveter from Ebay a couple of weeks ago for this job and I'm glad I did - doing this with a manual jobby would have taken ages!

After securing the cockpit and bolting down the scuttle hoop I placed the bonnet into position and the curvature of the body didn't need any adjustment to match so I riveted down the two inner wing areas and then attached the plates which I had previously made up.

200 rivets or so and 6 bolts later this body is not coming off again!

Body Final Fix Prep

When I had the body on last to drill the holes for final fixing i noticed that there was a gap of about 8mm between the rear crossbraces and the body. To get around this i made up some sandwich plates from 40x8mm aluminum flat bar. This was then wurthed and then riveted in place ready.

I also made up two bracing plates to attached the front wheel arches to the front horns. I'll admit to a bit of overkill here opting for some 4mm steel flatbar for this as it will be taking the most pressure in terms of the wind trying to lift the body from the chassis.

Tomorrows the day for final fix!

Oil Cooler & Boot Hinges

It would appear that Mr Huddart doesn't like Oil Coolers! In fact he went so far as to say he wouldn't warranty the engine if I used one as the oil never gets up to temperature and the oil bypasses the filter until it gets to 85 degrees. Fair one then!

As I dont want a gaping hole where the cooler should be i decided to fit one and then take Dave Brookes' advice and simply run the hose off one side, round the back of the rad and back onto the other side!

A quick sqiuzz on Ebay and a brand new 13 Row cooler came up and is mine for £25 - happy days...

As far as mounting it is concerned I didn't like the idea of simply bolting it straight onto the fibreglass in the mouth of the car so I have used a couple of lengths of alloy tubing (found this on an old light fitting!) and some threaded rod to give some support to the mounting flanges. A piece of steel flat bar will go under the body and the whole thing will bolt down onto this.....

Also fitted the first piece of brightwork, the boot hinges. Drilling holes into the bodywork and gelcoat is a nerve racking task! To get the holes aligned properly i fitted the boot lid rubber and then spent about 30 mins measuring from various points to get the absolute centre of the car. The build manual states the hinges should be 8 inches either side of the centre line so I ran a piece of string down the centre of the body and then double doble checked the measurements before sticking down some masking tape and taking the plunge. The hinges look great....sigh of relief!

It looks like the boot lid hasn't been stored correctly in the past so one side of the bottom lip is further into the boot aperture than the other. It isn't that obvious but I know its there and its annoying!

Im hoping that once i get the latching mech in it will pull it out otherwise im going to have to put a spacer in between the rubber and the bottom of the lid and hope that the force of the boot being closed will pull the distortion out.... This something that i have seen on other blogs so im not too worried.

Radiator 1

Spent a productive hour or so in the garage and have now mounted the radiator fan using 1 Inch steel angle iron which i've sprayed in silver engine paint. The Pacet fan comes with two types of mounting bracketry one of which I have decided is the best option. Dax recommend using cable ties that go through the rad and are fixed on the other side. Ive never liked this option and i've heard of issues with the plastic rubbing and causing problems with the rad matrix.

In the end I decided to use the posts sticking out of the top and bottom of the rad to mount it which leaves two threaded holes at the top and a couple of brackets on the bottom that I could use for the fan. Anyway pictures speak for themselves so to speak.....

The last couple of jobs needed - remove the blow off valve tube in the filler neck as this wont be used and thread the mounting posts. After unbolting the valve tube I ran an 8mm tap through the hole and bolted in a stainless dome head socket cap with some PTFE tape to seal it - job done. 

The posts are 9mm in diameter so I spent a while trying to find a supplier of some M9 nuts which are like the perverbial rocking horse &*@*! As it turns out the Citroen DS uses M9 nuts somewhere in its suspension so a call to a specialist had this sorted - £4 though! 

The use of a standard M9 die was employed and the nuts are on. The Rad is now complete and ready for mounting when I have got the body on.

 

Definitely need to improve my photography!