A bit more over the past week when time allows, tacking the frame
together and then this weekend start to fit the uprights and top frame,
tack welding it as I progress.
25th & 26th
July
2007
Did not get chance over the weekend, so had a go during the
evenings. What a disaster! I added four diagonal braces,
two in the sides in the arm rest area and two in the top seat back
area. When I checked them I found the seat back diagonals did not
match and discovered the back was leaning over by a degree or
two.
Enough to make one corner to corner measure 125 cm and the other 126 cm.
So the tack welds were ground out, the back braced, pulled and hammered
and then re-tacked. I also managed to set some paper's on fire,
so need to take a bit more care with combustibles in the area.
28th July 2007
Cut and angled the pieces for the rear suspension area, jigged it up
but have not attached to the chassis as I need some plates for
suspension area.
I have ordered the plates from a supplier on the forum and they are
being laser cut, bent and should be with me in about two weeks.
Also on order are Maxi ball joints and Transit drag link ends,
basically to make sure I can get the ball joints, I have been told by a
motor factors they are now obsolete!
Spent enough money on it this month, £141.12 on Steel tube,
£163.18 on the laser cut parts and £69.92 on the ball
joints and drag link ends. £374.22. I think some of my "not
used for a year or so things" need to go on that Internet bid thing!
11th & 12th
August 2007
Back from holidays this weekend so another chance to work in the
garage, attached more diagonals, started on the transmission tunnel,
attached the rear sub-frame for the differential. The pile of
tube bits slowly getting smaller as I attach them in place.
As work progresses, I am building the chassis as per the book, so
starting to look for a Sierra to use as a donor, initial thoughts are:
-
- Type 9 gear box
- Either 1600 Pinto or 1800 CVH
- Saloon not estate car (diff)
- Also later model year such as 1991 to 1993
- Sub £300
There is a better chance with the later model years of less corrosion
to deal with, possibility of ABS which means disks all round. I
am not after a very powerful engine just a simple installation at this
stage. Time will tell if I manage to meet the target price.
17th to 26th
August 2007
Work on the Roadster has been a bit slow this week, forgot to go and
buy some more 19 mm RHS must get some when possible. to complete
the back section.
The laser cut parts arrived and happy with them, saved my a lot of time
and effort trying to make the pieces the hard way by hand.
Managed to bend the rear tubes RP1 & RP2 on an old pipe bender I
have in the garage, new it was worth keeping!
I attached the rear top suspension points and then realised I had then
at the wrong end so out came the grinder to take them back off and then
another go, think I got it correct this time.
I hope that in a few weeks all the sections I can fit will be fitted
and then the chassis can be fully welded. I have to make up the
jigs to attach the front and rear wishbone points and tack these in
place, 4 tubes for the transmission tunnel and finish off the rear of
the car, perhaps three to four weeks then!
1st to 3rd
September 2007
Done a bit more, progress is slow, as I am not getting a lot of
time in
the garage. Have attached the round tube, finished off the
transmission tunnel and done the steering supports. Wishbone
brackets to tack on next, jigs first!
15th September 2007
Just an update on recent progress, the chassis has not changed much
from above. I have made the front wishbone mounting jigs and have
tried fit the wishbone brackets. I seem to be 8 mm ( 4mm per
side) out on the lower front frame mountings and this seems to be a
mixture of mounting the uprights inward slightly from book and the
brackets having at most a mm out on height. Nothing to major and
will be sorted either with a packing piece to fasten the brackets
onto, or I might just rebuild the front frame before the chassis
is welded.
Pre-fabricated wishbones have been ordered from a supplier on the
forum, and the parts should arrive in 3 weeks time. I also
received a few missing pieces from the laser cut parts, this was down
to the book not always listing the correct number wanted, so until you
build it you never know!
Lastly for whenever I get the donor car I am having a straight cut
reamer reground to a 1 in 8 taper required to modify the Sierra
uprights to take the Maxi ball joints.
This should also allow me to make my own mushroom inserts for the tops
of the Sierra to take the Transit drop link ends. Nothing like a
bit of forward thinking.
So although not much is going to show over the next few weeks.
Once the wishbones arrive these will be fitted to the jigs to make sure
all is a good fit and the brackets will then be welded in place, then I
also hope to have the chassis fully welded.
Simple cutting jig
to help with cutting compound angles
On some of the steel tube sections you have to cut two angles at
the same time, such as the 14° and 26° angles on FF2 and
FF3.
Well with a normal band saw or cut off saw, you can set one angle and
have to find a way to set the other.
So perhaps this little idea will help. It requires a bit of maths
and a few bits square tube, I used 19 mm. The maths bit is all
about a right angled triangle.
Tan (ø) = o/a or opposite over
adjacent sides. The opposite in this case is the 19 mm from the
tube and Tan 14° = 0.2493, so the adjacent length works out to be
76.2
mm or close. a = o/Tan (ø)
So I made a jig with these two lengths as in this picture: -
The opposite length is the top piece of 19 mm tube and the adjacent
length is 76.2 mm or closest I could make it.
So you rest a square tube on the edges and it will sit at an angle of
14 degrees. Put this in the bottom of the vice, rest the tube
across the corners then clamp up. Set the cut off or bandsaw
over at 26 degrees and the compound angle can be cut in one go.
The jig
shown has two angles on it, 14 on the left and 17 on the right.
Hope it helps.
22nd September 2007
I have remade the front frame and aligned the two verticals U1 and U2
to meet against the brackets when using the front wishbone jigs.
Therefore I should have less of a problem when they are attached.
The old frame has been re-cycled, as in cut up so I may reuse the
straight bits if needed. Time has also been spent rearranging the
contents of the garage to allow me to walk around the chassis without
having to climb over everything.
6th October 2007
Bit of a gap again before work continued on the chassis. I have
reworked a Cosmo Welder, putting on a Euro torch and a separate power
supply for the wire feed. Results with it are now quite
good. It is a 150 amp device with bottle carrier and top lid
containing the wire. Anyway have been doing some welding with it
on the chassis, actually started last weekend but only a small
amount. Managed to get a few hours in today before my welding
mask started to fail! Tried replacement batteries but with no
change so think before I dazzle myself altogether I need a new
mask. One comment, there are lots of joints to weld up and lots
of grinding to do as well in my case!
Views here with the chassis upside down and one on it's side. I
am trying to do all the "from top" welds, then turn it over and do all
the welds that are once again "from top", then turn on side
etc. Hopefully this will make it easier for me to do. Must
get them walls painted sometime.
5th and 6th July
2008
Damn, it's been a long time since I updated the page. I did not
do much over the winter months to be honest, the garage gets very cold
and damp. The chassis has suffered with a bit of rust coating any
upright surfaces, this has been cleaned and a bit of paint applied to
protect it for a while. I have welded all the chassis together
and added the front and rear wishbone brackets. I have also
got most of the donor parts for the car, it cost me my van! But
with the price of fuel I could not justify it sat on the drive for 9
months out of 12. I have made some dummy rear uprights and shock
absorber's so that I could check positioning before welding up the
brackets. Last weekend was spent in the garage using the lathe to
turn some mushrooms? a couple of pictures below show what I mean. and
lastly I have also started to clean up some of the old donor bits such
as the drive shafts for the back axle.
Having now got the donor vehicle a Sierra sapphire 1.8 CVH, I have just
ordered the rear uprights to take the drum brakes. I know that it
is suggested that the engine and gearbox are not fitted at an early
stage, but I am finding it more and more difficult to work around
the chassis on the table, so getting it on the floor and the big bits
inside it would be a great help.
12th to 14th July
2008
More time in the garage, running very short of space as I had donor
parts under the table and sticking out all over the place. So bit
of a tidy up, move the chassis outside when it was not raining and chop
up and remove the bench. Gave me a opportunity to take a few
snaps of the chassis when outside and the sun is shinning!
I have painted it black for the time being to stop it rusting when it
gets damp in the garage, I will have to remove the paint from the
underneath when I weld on the floor plate, but I imagine that will be a
while off at present. The rear uprights should be with me later
this week, that should allow me to fit the wheels and push the chassis
out to work on the engine etc in the garage.
I have also started on the engine by removing the sump and chopping an
inch from the bottom of it. The next picture shows what stage I
am up to with it. It is having a soak in Nitromors to remove any paint,
that way I can tell what condition it is in before welding and
repainting. It is amazing how much rust is under the paint!
19th and 20th July
2008
The sump did not go too well as it leeks like a sieve. I will have
another go sometime or see if it can be done for me if I can get a
decent newish one. So I have cleaned up the engine and gearbox a
bit and put them together. The idea will next be to sort out the
gearbox and engine mounts on the chassis.
I also turned down some bar to make the steering extensions. Just need
to get the taps and dies to complete then I will cut the flats.
29th July 2008
I used a ratchet hoist today to lift the engine and place in the engine
bay of the chassis. The next step would be to locate and weld in
the brackets for the gearbox and engine. I need to sort out a few
things before I do but at least the lifting is done the LO-Cost way.
7th September 2008
Once again some time has passed. I have fabricated the engine
mounts from tube I managed to scrounge, it was 50 x 50 mm box section
so quite large for my needs, but it works. Sections cut and
welded to 6 mm plate, all drilled and mounted. The gearbox mounts
fitted and welded. The rear diff fitted, wishbones and steering
rack extensions that I made on the lathe, I will have to do some more
of these later as they are to long when done to the book dimensions and
leaves me no adjustment and possibility of fitting lock nuts so will
shorted them by 15 mm per side I think. I managed recently to get
a non adjustable steering rack so have fitted that, welded the plates
for the handbrake in place, fitted the drive shafts and put the chassis
on its wheels so I can move it out of the garage when needed. I
did this recently and then the heavens opened and it pored with rain,
still a long way to go but looking better!
14th September 2008
Done a bit more during the evenings and this weekend. Started on
the pedal box and have welded the parts together to form the back and
the pedals. Bought some Acetel bar to make the pivot bushes. Just
short of some 45 x 3 mm plate to make the brake pedal pad, which I hope
to get this week to complete then this lot will be done. Also
made some top-hat bushes from mild steel to locate the steering column
mounts better then just using some large washers to cover the mounting
holes in the cast aluminium mount. You may have noticed I have
stopped putting on the page how much I spend. It's a lot!
I have to figure a way to fasten the clutch cable and accelerator
cables to the pedals, a few questions on to the forum I think!
As I mentioned above, I had cut all the steel in one go, well as the
progress continues I find the odd error in my cutting chart, things
like missing the odd metre from a piece of bar. I am finding
small discrepancies in the book where the appendix is not listing
quantities of tube, so I find things out when trying to put it all
together. Such as not cutting 4 off
SB1 and 2 off SB2, 2 off is this and that. Cutting FF2 and FF3
too short at 320 mm instead of
359.5 mm. So all in all a few mistakes, so to help any others I
am including a link to my cutting charts at the bottom of the
page. As I find mistakes I will update this link. Saved
as a normal text file it should be opened by any basic text package.
Weekend Workshop
It needs tack welding together before I go any further.