Kitting the boot out

Decided to kit the boot out with some basic tools just in case required when out on the road, I didn’t want the tools rattling around while driving so I made and type of insert to go in the boot. I used 6mm ply and covered it in acoustic carpet, I also covered the sides of the boot with the acoustic carpet.

I also made a lid to go over the tools to leave a small storage space for anything, trouble is the ply has bowed since making so I need to try and straighten it or make a new one.

Painted Brake Disks

Saturday 7^th April 2012

Now its done a few miles I can see where the brake pads contact the discs, where they don’t touch you can see the disc gets a covering of surface rust and this doesn’t look the best, so I took off all the discs, cleaned them up, masked off and painted the areas that get the surface rust on.

Refitted the discs to the car once all dried.

Clutch Pedal Modification

Thursday 29^th March 2012

After driving it for a while I wasn’t happy with the clutch bite, it was not biting until close to the end of the pedal travel in its full released position, It was a new clutch so that wasn’t the problem, after looking at the clutch pedal there seemed to be a lot of travel, so I decided to make the pedal adjustable. There is a stop on the bracket at the rear bottom of the pedal, this stops the pedal falling forward once released, I drilled and tapped a 5mm hole in the stop, then fitted a small 5mm bolt with a lock nut into the hole, by adjusting the bolt it adjusts where the pedal stops.

With the bolt in the fully adjusted position lowered the bite point by quite a bit and now it is much nicer to drive and change gears. Take a look at the pictures below and you can see how much difference it has made to where the pedal sits when released on the first picture the clutch pedal is closer to the driver than the brake pedal, and the second you can see it is behind the brake pedal, further away. I should have took a picture before doing the mod but forgot to do it, but you can see the difference, the first picture is one from when I was building the car.

Oil / filter change and painting the nosecone

Sunday 25^th March 2012

I have done over 500 miles now so the engine should have bedded itself in nicely, so I done the oil and filter change. I also decided to paint the inner front part of the nosecone black.

Bootlid and Doors

Saturday 24^th March 2012

Fitted the lockable boot lid today, I bought 2 stainless steel hinges and two cupboard magnets to use for fitting it to the body. The boot lid has a lip all the way around in, this needed filing down to ensure it fitted into the hole flush, once I got it fitting nice I then marked up where the hinges would be fitted to the lid. The best way I found was to completely remove the lip from boot lid where the hinges fitted, I then use epoxy to fit them to lid side as I didn’t want rivets showing on top of the boot. Then I put the boot lid in place and marked and drilled the holes where I was riveting it to the body, I then fitted magnets to the body and the metal catch plates to the lid to ensure the corners were held down flush the to finish it off I applied the stripes.

The doors that Tiger supplied me arrived so I decided to fit these too, they will help keep the wind down on those longer journeys. They come with 4 barrel and pin type hinges and poppers that need to be fitted to the doors and car to keep them in place.

First I fitted the hinges to the windscreen frame

Then I fitted the poppers to the doors and also to the car, there are three fitted to the door and three to the car for each door, I popper on the outside and two on the inside. It may need more at later stage I will see how it goes.

DVLA paperwork arrives

Wednesday 21^st March 2012

Tax disk and paperwork to get plates made arrived to day, so went into town and got the plates made up J, my car is now legal to drive on the road, so took it out for a its first proper run.