In the bleak midwinter

Actually, it’s just after midwinter which is a great relief. If I were to win the lottery, which isn’t likely as I’ve never bought a ticket, then I’d avoid the September to December bit as I’ve got to really hating the general darkness. However, we’re now on the way back out of the hole again.

As to the car, I’ve managed to do a few things. The problem is, though, that I keep remembering things that I never wrote on the to-do list so it doesn’t seem to get much shorter.

Here’s one thing though, which is the air dam that sits between the splitter and the front bodywork. This is just some aluminium with is secured to the splitter and to the wooden blocks that space the splitter from the bonnet properly. It looks quite neat though. I can’t decide how to finish this off though. I might leave it as it is, although I know from the Fury that means it’ll just end up with prodigious quantities of squashed flies on it. I could paint it, but I’m not sure I can be bothered orI could just stick black tape on it. At least with the last one I could take it off again if it looked awful.

While I was at the front of the car, I spent a while deciding how to fit the headlamp covers. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve done this right. I did spend a long time wondering whether I should just tape them in position with red tape. In the end I made these little bits of aluminium. They look kind of naff though. But, as they say, it is a race car. The covers do make the front of the car look finished though, which is nice.

That leaves the front of the car precious close to being finished. The rear wasn’t like that though. So, I went down there and added the towing strap there, using another bit of recovered webbing. That means another thing can be knocked off the list.

The next item was trying to insulate the seat back a  bit. I’ve done something here in adding this stuff to the back of the driver’s seatback. This is glass/foil insulation and, to be honest, I’m not sure how well it works. However, I’ll try it and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work well enough. I’ll buy some expensive stuff like this and see how that works. out. I’m sure I’ll be able to do something. There might well be an issue with the silencer in the left hand sidepod as well, depending on what the air-flow’s like. That was an issue with the original Fury before I cut a big hole in the sidepod. I shall have to be very careful with that; I don’t want to set the new car on fire as well.

Still at the back of the car I made a chain guard, of a form, out of sheet steel and attached it between the engine frame the the rear of the chassis. Heaven knows whether this is adult enough to stop the chain should it decide to go walkies but it is, at least, showing willing.

I finished off the day—before retiring for a Christmas day with Anthea, our kids and their partners—by cutting back and polishing (with real polish!) the bonnet. The paintwork could hardly be said to be good but it looks dramatically better than it did. Of course, as soon as I hit something with it that’ll all be ruined. For now, though, it’s a good start.

Finally, let’s see what the list looks like now. As I said I’ve added some things to this but I am making progress. Luckily they’re only small things. I’ve only got a week left before the end of the year, though, when I promised myself the car would be done. Eeek…

Pre test:

1. Make seat
2. Mount a camera somehow.
3. Do a mega bolt check.
4. Make a windscreen of some form.
5. Lubricate and re-tension the chain.
6. Setup the suspension. This’ll have to be a guess at first but it’s a start. One issue with this is that I think I’m going to have to modify the little gadgets that extend the track rod ends as I think they’re a smidge too long.
7. Pin the lower part of the sidepods to the chassis floor. I’m not totally sure that they need it, but just to be sure…
8. Make rear undertray
9. Adjust master cylinder pushrods and throttle pedal.
10. Trim exhaust tail-pipe
11. Fit mirrors.

Pre race:

1. Fabricate some sort of inlet for the airbox.
2. Possibly as part of that, make a cover for the upper injectors and fuel line. As it is at the moment it’ll give a scrutineer heart failure.
3. Fit roundels and race numbers. Fit other missing decals.
4. Think about adding additional triangulation to the engine compartment.
5. Touch up rear bodywork paint.
6. Add some yellow.
7. Fit the catch tank.
8. Get a lambda boss welded into the exhaust system. While this is being done, get the little fitting on the exhaust that I damaged re-welded.
9. Add cooling duct for oil cooler.