BUILD ~ DECEMBER 2003

08 to12/12/2003

Today we got further with the nosecone mounting.  As the pictures show we fitted M6 rivnuts into the front lower corner of the chassis. These allow a bolt to go through the thickwall tube previously fibreglassed into the nose cone, and hey presto a pivot  (Positioning was worked out with the bonnet and scuttle).  We then debated the top fixings which will not only hold the back edge down, but will splay the nosecone to the correct width.  

Tuesday and another day off work.  Carried on with the nosecone, making brackets to secure the rear edge down to the chassis top rail and hold it in-line with the side panel.  These were made from some "L" section ali extrusion, cut and bent to fit.  There are also a pair of rivnuts in the back of the nosecone flange for the M5 bolts to secure into.

13 & 14/12/2003

Saturday was a brief spell on wiring, starting on the wiring of the intermittent wipe relay.  Before I broke off I glued the headlights and flasher relay bases to the inside of the scuttle.  This is high up on the nearside, hopefully clear of the windscreen mounting bolts.

Spent a while longer today on the wiper wiring.  The plan was to wire the intermittent wipe relay as per the instructions in the Dax build manual, then do the obvious parts of the stalk and finally running the obvious wires to the motor (wiper speed 1, 2, power and earth).  When the scuttle was re-fitted to the car flicked the stalk and it all worked, amazing stroke of luck!  That basically completes the wiring that I have to do, other than tidy up and wrap the loom in tape.  The next job is to find a friendly alarm specialist to come and fit a Cat 1 Alarm/Immobiliser.

Had a slight worry that the wipers moved in the wrong direction, particularly as I spent a long time considering this when fitting the motor and wheel boxes.  In the end I remembered that the wipers on a Dax are the opposite to most road cars, when parked the wipers point towards the offside.

I then started work on the bonnet's leading edge.  On the previous trial fit I decided there was too much of a step where it sat on the nose cone.  This is basically due to the thickness of the fibreglass, so off came the wing piping and I have started to sand away some of the thickness.

John Denyer came round for a look this weekend (he is just starting a locost build).  Gave a welcome opportunity to start the engine for the first time in over a month.

Sorry nothing much to take a picture of this weekend.

15 to 19/12/2003

Spent an hour this evening thinning down the thickness in the leading edge of the bonnet.  This is because there was an unacceptably large step where the bonnet sat on the nose cone.  Having taken out more than 2mm of fibreglass the result is better but not perfect.  Tomorrow I will start sticking fresh wing piping back on.

I have also arranged for a category 1 alarm to be fitted in the New Year, complete with microwave sensors (ultrasonics no good in an open car), tilt/shock sensor and bonnet sensor.

Stuck the flat run of wing piping on this evening, but as very cold in the garage I took over Mum's kitchen.

20 & 21/12/2003

Stock-check at work stopped play on Saturday, other than gluing the last corner of wing piping on the front of the bonnet.  Sunday was an all together better day.  First off I changed the wiper cog to a 130° sweep, as recommended by the Dax List.  This turned out to be a fairly simple job, with the scuttle off and turned upside down the motor was removed.  The cover was then taken off, circlip removed and cog removed.  As a Haynes manual would say, refit is the reverse of removal.  Sorted!

Then while the scuttle was upside down I tidied and loom wrapped some of the wires as well as gluing on the final relay base for the intermittent wipe.  I then moved on to the tunnel carpet and after some minor trimming round the step in the tunnel and the harness mounts this was glued in place.  Plenty of wood bracing to keep contact whilst it sets.  

As the next one to be done is the forward tunnel carpet I did some work with the finisher ring, this was positioned, tunnel drilled and rivnuts fitted.  Dax supply nuts for this, but you would need the propshaft disconnected to get your hand up far enough to fit them.  The positioning is quite difficult with the R380 gearbox as the finisher ring must be set as far aft as possible without overhanging the carpet.  Even with the lever in neutral it is behind the centre line.

22 to 26/12/2003

Only progress this evening was to glue the gear lever gaiter to the finisher ring.  This is in hope that it will make it easier to fit.  We have used a 12mm off cut of rope to ensure the two surfaces are held together whilst being glued (pushes the vinyl into the concave underside of the chromed ring).  Once dried the excess vinyl will be trimmed off.

Christmas Day, but still made it into the garage for a short while in the evening.  And started making holes for fitting the headlights into the shells and glued in the wiring conduit and fixing bolt.

Boxing Day yielded more progress. First Mum gave me a helping hand with the carpets, we fitted the forward tunnel carpet and the long carpet (with pocket) on the nearside.

Dad and I pushed the bushes into the front wishbones.  The lower balljoints had been pushed in by Dax when I collected the kit back in September 2002.  Then started fitting the nearside front suspension.  The Dax bolt kit is not very clear and has most of the nuts missing.  After much struggling we lined up the holes for the upper wishbone and bolted it all up including the SVA bar.  After dinner we then moved onto the lower wishbone, only to find the bolts would not fit through the chassis brackets.  Therefore had to swap the bolts around, thankfully they went in easier the second time as the holes were lined up.

We then fitted the Gaz shock/spring.  However, the space in the lower wishbone was not wide enough to include the 'top hat reducers'.  To solve this we had to put a nut and bolt in between and unwind the nut to force the metal apart.  Then jammed it with a lump of wood whilst fitting the shock absorber in place.  After that minor success we called it quits for the night.

27 & 28/12/2003

Saturday, now that the forward tunnel carpet has set, I fitted gear lever gaiter and finisher ring as well as screwing down the choke cable bracket.

Dad and I then started fitting the nearside hub, unlike the build manual recommendation, we fitted the cycle wing bracket to the hub whilst it was on the bench.  This is because it needed a little persuasion from Mr Hammer.  Then with the balljoint fitted moved the hub onto the car.

The build manual requires a 5mm collar to fit on the balljoint shank before the shims.  However, this is missing from bag of bits labelled front suspension (along with most of the nuts).  I can cope with the nuts as I have a selection of nylocs, but I will need to get the collars from Dax in the new year.  It should be OK to continue as the balljoint gets withdrawn to add/remove shims during suspension set-up.

Very loosely assembled the nearside steering track rod extensions and ends just to see how it goes together.  I will now need to take these off again and paint them.  Decided on black for the track and extensions, with silver on the track rod end as this connects to the silver hubs.

Then moved onto the brake disc, calliper and pads.  The hardest part of this the correct number and thickness of shims to use in conjunction with the Dax big brake conversion.  Once fairly certain of this being correct, I took apart and re-assembled with threadlock.  The pads and piston half of the calliper slotted together with no problem.  

Before we could fit the wheel the new wheel studs need pulling tight into the hubs.  This was done by placing a spacer outboard of the brake disc and then using an old wheel nut tightening the nut while the assistant prevents the hub turning using a long spanner across the other wheel studs.  The completed nearside suspension and hub can be seen in the following photos.

We then moved on to the offside.  This time we knew which bolts to use and despite the electric water pump making access even harder the bolts were soon driven home.  By the time Ian & Dee arrived we had upper and lower wishbones in place.  Time for a drink!

Later I slipped back outside and fitted the shock/spring.  Like before the lower wishbone needed forcing apart slightly.

Sunday, with visitors going out for a walk I sneaked out to the garage.

Continued with the offside front suspension, when fitting the cycle wing bracket to the hub the pinch bolt refused to pull in.  Thankfully 20 minutes with a M12 tap and some cutting fluid cleaned out some debris and rust.  After that the bolt went in all the way by hand.  So the hub was dutifully fitted to the car.

I then fitted the brake disc, calliper and pads.  However, when connecting the flexible brake pipe I noticed that it comes extremely taught before full left lock is reached.  This might be due to the big brake kit as this causes the need for an extra 30mm (approx) of pipe.  This will have to wait and be queried with Dax in the new year.  So I cannot yet fill and bleed the hydraulics, a shame as I want to test the clutch (I dread this not working and requiring the engine out again).

When Dad got home I borrowed him to help pull in the new wheel studs as we had done on the other side.

In the afternoon the front wheel was fitted, nose cone put back on (at least temporarily).  Decided three wheels looked odd, so the fourth which has been an ornament in my bedroom was retrieved and fitted.  Fitted the start button to the temporary dashboard along with its new wiring which means it lights up when you switch the ignition on, but once the engine is started the light goes out.  Then fitted the dashboard into the car.

With the wiring connected I had another go at fine tuning the fuel gauge.  It only needed the slightest bend of the arm to achieve a reading of zero when the bottom of the tank is just covered with fuel.  I think it is quite important that zero means virtually zero, although the most important think is knowing your gauge.  With a bit of guesswork, full should also read full, but I don't have enough petrol to try this.  Whilst on the petrol topic, I adjusted the regulator down to 2.5psi as this will then match the settings on the dyno sheets. 

Slipped the partially trimmed bonnet and air filter onto the car, ready for showing off to our visitors.  Could not resist taking a picture, it really does look like a car now.  Although there is still quite a job list, I will try and write that up for the last entry of this year.

Although the wheels are on, the fronts are on blocks of wood to stop the suspension hanging and the de dion tube is chocked up at the rear.  Hopefully this means the suspension will not take as long to settle when the car is finally on the ground.

29 to 31/12/2003

Dad continued replacing the steel brackets for the cooling water vent pipe, with shiny ali brackets, whilst I worked on the trailing edge of the bonnet.  Although I have done this before and stuck wing piping on, when offered up to the scuttle there was rather a step.  Therefore I have reduced the thickness of fibreglass and now have to stick new wing piping on.

Wednesday, first job today was the headlights.  I really hate these fibreglass shells provided by Dax, they let the whole car down.  The square chrome headlights I ordered would have looked great and been a lot less work.  Anyway today's work meant sorting the top fixing for the light unit, this was achieved by a 4mm hole just back from the front edge and tapping a 4mm thread into the headlights top clip.  The shells were then bolted to the angle brackets above the front shocks.  This turned up another fault in the moulding, they sit lopsided due to the uneven fibreglass thickness.  This necessitated a small washer jammed in on the low side to even it up.  Wires were then fed in through the previously prepared holes and through a stainless conduit, so at least the wires look neat as can be seen in one of the following photos.  You can also see the brackets for the radiator vent pipe, Dad has made these to replace the black steel items, great improvement!

We then moved onto the radiator grill.  Instead of the Dax SVA bar (usually glued into the nose cone) I am fitting a ali mesh grill, this will effectively hide the radiator and fan from view.  A cardboard cut out was first made that would fit inside the nose cone.  Then with this held in place I drew the aperture onto the cardboard and cut 1" outside this line.  Two slits were made for the nudge bar, after a little fettling the template was transferred to the mesh.

The top of the grill is being held in place by a angle bracket on the top of the nudge bar, so we started to make these.  Hopefully will finish this off tomorrow.

As another year comes to a close, an approximate summary of my to do list follows;

	Finish front suspension, collars and longer brake pipes.
	Finish cockpit carpets
	Shorter rocker cover breather
	Stronger throttle return spring
	Bonnet trimming and fixing
	Windscreen (& mirrors)
	Permanent fit of scuttle
	Kick Strips
	Harnesses
	Fill and bleed hydraulics, then test clutch.
	Cat 1 Alarm / Immobiliser
	Dashboard
	Front and Rear Wings
	Rear Lights
	Rear tub liner and carpet

Go to January 2004

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Last Updated 31/12/2003