Phew! I have finished as much of the panelling that I’m doing at the moment, leaving the car looking like the photo here which, I’m sure you’ll agree is not one of my better photographic efforts. Still, it’s the best I could find without venturing back to the (bloody freezing) garage. All of the panels are there now, apart from the seat back and above the driver’s legs. The former’s not there because I want to retain easy access to the engine compartment and the latter because I need to finish the steering column first.
Tag: J15
Another day, another panel
I’ve nothing to say really, but posting things makes me think that things are moving forwards, and I can continue whining to you lot about the tedium of panelling.
I added another two of the little b*******s to the car today, the first being the “shoulder” panel in the photo. By the way, in the background you can see the Fury sitting there all unloved and neglected. However, I’m going to have to start re-invigorating it soon. I’m hoping to get the J15 to a rolling chassis versi0n fairly soon so as to facilitate that.
The return of the tedium
If you remember, I said I was bored with panelling. Well, I am so again. However, before moaning about that, here’s another picture of the diff assembly.
The only difference between this and the previous ones, is that I’ve made one of the spacers that hold the plates in the right position. Of the other two apices of the triangle, one will bolt to the rear engine mounting and the other will have another spacer, but one with a connection to one (or two, I haven’t decided yet) turnbuckles for getting tension in the chain.
Sprocket to me
It’s another of those three steps forward, two back posts. Actually, I don’t know how many back it is really.
First, though, the forward bits. Most importantly, the chassis is now back home again. As you can see, I took the trailer off back up to Soham and collected it. To be honest it isn’t a fantastic job, but it’s good enough. It’s not quite the shade of grey that I was after either, but that’s no big deal. Mind you, I wonder if I want to make the roll cage a different colour from this? In which case, I wonder if it’s possible to paint on top of powder coating? Seems possible that it’s not.
All on my ownsome…
There’s still no chassis here, so I’ve been getting on with other things. i did phone up the powder coating company on Friday afternoon when it became apparent that I might be able to get over to Soham. However, there was no answer so I guess they’d gone home early. Either that or they’ve gone out of business taking my chassis with them… 🙁
Here’s something though, in that I’ve finally finished the rear brakes. The new taps I ordered arrived and I was able to properly cut the threads. I did have an experiment using helicoils but, for some reason, I didn’t feel confident about it. All the same, I’ll keep the helicoiled part as a spare.
All gone!
I thought I might as well try the rear bodywork on as well, so I persuaded Anthea to give me a hand to manoeuvre it into position and here it is. It was sort of interesting to see the car like this, if only to convince myself that I was making some progress, even if I was going to take everything to bits again.
Well, that’s annoying…
I ordered a set of taps from RDG Tools and tapped one of the brake mounting blocks to M10x1.5 for the mounting bolts through the calipers. The end result is shown in the photo here. I’ll make some spacers of the proper size, and get the correct length bolts, rather than using stacks of washers. However, it seems to fit fine which is good.
Bored, bored, bored
This is boring, really it is. I’ve got to that bit where I’m making the panels for the chassis. I haven’t sorted out the powder coating yet so I can’t actually rivet anything together but I am nonetheless making the panels.
And, it’s boring; did I say it was?
And stitching her back together again…
As good as my word, I fixed the central tub back together again. The photo here is of one side of the re-attached bodywork. Anthea commented that it actually looks quite good, and it could even be left like this. I don’t actually think that’s the case as when I paint the rest of the bodywork it’s bound to degrade.
And for my next trick…
… I will saw this attractive young woman in half. Well, I will in a minute but I need to explain why first.
The thing is, I wanted to check the steering rather more carefully, and perhaps change the routing of the column a soupçon. In order to do that, I needed to check how it fitted under the bodywork. The problem is, I had to do lots of faffing around to get the central portion to fit over the cage; for example to allow the front hoops of the cage to stick through the bodywork, and also to allow the steering column to poke through the front of the central bodywork section. You can see both of these in the photo on the right.