Had a round trip to Wales to have a look at a diff and a steering rack. It seemed like a good idea to "downgrade" the power-assisted-steering rack to a manual. Partly coz the PAS one off the donor didn't work (most likely due to a knackered pump than the rack itself), and partly coz even if I spent time getting it working there would be more to go wrong. A circa-500kg car doesn't need PAS in any case.
The parts came from a Mk II Mx5, one that had been in quite a collision judging from the bent tracking rods on the steering rack, and unfortunately the diff wasn't a lot of use being from a later model. Interestingly I was assured that after the accident and until it had been dismantled the car had driven OK (I would guess only in circles due to the banana shaped rods).
Was a shame about the diff, but the rack was easily reconditioned with a couple of new rods and a bit of elbow grease. I've now got one duff diff and a different diff, ho hum.
The lower steering column came back from Westfield following their modification of it, which curiously turned the male end into a female - so how that will fit onto the female connection on the rack remains very much to be seen.
Besides the outstanding diff there is now one upright, the engine, the alloys, and the wiring loom to be sorted before I can start wrecking the nice shiney new bits.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
The Widowmaker - Heading Towards Stage 1
There was a stage 0, possibly a stage -1 as well. Certainly there was a stage 0.
Thinking about it, I would say that stage -1 was the "Uhm-ing" and "Ah-ing" over whether I should contemplate building a kit car. Whether I could build a kit car. Whether a kit car was affordable.
I mean - Airfix kits, we all grew up with Airfix kits (possibly not everyone added "realistic fire damage" or camouflaged them so well in the grasses that only mowing equipment ever found them again, albeit abruptly and terminally). But a kit car, something that has a lot of scary moving parts, parts that quite probably at least one life relies upon is an altogether different proposition. For starters, the bits don't come conveniently attached to a huge rack that you have to cut them from. And where are the painting guidelines eh? Where are the painting guidelines?
After reading magazines (Which Kit Car, which is has now merged and become Complete Kit Car - a very good reference point for reviews on kits, handy tips, and adverts for shiny bits and bobs), watching telly programs (not necessarily about kit building - for example Wheeler Dealers I found inspirational as it helps bring home that cars are like any other bit of DIY; you can indeed do-it-yourself), reading books (the Which Kit Car Guide to Kit Car Building covers everything to a useful if not detailed depth), and finally by snogging kit car manufacturer brochures I decided upon a kit car I would build if ever I could afford it.
In a stroke of luck my employer of over a dozen years made me redundant, and I (with the agreement of my wife Lou) decided to buy a kit car. There may have well been a bit of detail in this stage that I am skipping over here; like moving house in order to have a garage large enough for such a project, and changing my mind several times as to which kit to actually buy, oh and preparing the garage ready for working in.
The kit car I would build was always going to be a Lotus Seven replica - after all, how could it not be? I mean, it's a brilliantly designed iconic racing car that it is light weight and nimble, it was the first car to be produced as a llegitimate kit and so is simple to build, and it looks pretty neat too!
I changed my mind as to which breed of Seven replica I was going to build at pretty much the last moment. Mostly I have to admit, due to the glossy Westfield brochure; it showed a car that the proportions seemed to be close to the original Seven (possibly not the closest) and would just squeeze into budget. But I was also attracted to the fact that one of the options was to build it from an MX5 donor car.
The donor car would provide bits such as the engine, the wiring, the instrumentation, the transmission, and so on - the guts of the machine. It made sense to me to use a donor sports car to build a sports car - intuitively better than many that use a family saloon as the starting point.
Incidentally, I reasoned that a donor car was good as a starting point - it is possible to build a kit car from just supplied parts, but stripping a donor would give me much needed experience and hopefully confidence in mechanics. After all, if I made a complete wotsit of taking a car apart then I could bow out at that point without having wasted too much cash and effort.
So, the next stage was to buy a good spread of tools and equipment that would be useful in taking apart a car, and hopefully putting one together later. Anything from drill bits to engine cranes. The internet was very useful here - such as Machine Mart, Tooled-Up, Screwfix Direct, and even Halfords. Standard internet commerce smarts helped - checking reviews on bits of kit and comparing prices avoided more than one lemon. For some things eBay was cheaper or the only outlet, but there were the odd times things weren't quite bona fide. A certain engine stand springs immediately to mind here.
Buying the tools was good fun.
The donor car was eventually supplied by eBay - I was trying to get a MkI MX5 for no more than £1000. I felt this would be possible by looking for one which would have sound mechanicals but damaged and/or rotting bodywork. The early MkIs are over 15 years old after all.
After a couple of unsuccessful attempts that's what I managed to buy. Well, the mechanicals were *mostly* sound - driving an unfamiliar car with a slippy clutch and knackered power-assisted-steering back from Oxford was interesting. Certainly the bodywork was both damaged and rotting.
Yes - it does have after-market boots on, a set of alloys from BK Racing. They were in a sorry state though, kerbed so badly I could only assume that the previous owner habitually parked by touch. Worth reconditioning though as they would look good on a Seven I thought...
Disassembling the MX5 was pretty straightforward. I had obtained a copy of the Mazda workshop manual for the MkI (after reading accounts that the Hayes manual for it was not a lot of use), and following it made the process mostly idiot-proof. Of course, I was a pretty cunning idiot a couple of times :)
I needed all of the steering and rack, the scuffed wheels, the engine and transmission, wheel uprights and driveshafts, instrument pod and controls, the entire wiring loom, and sundry bits and pieces - Westfield provide a good list in their build manual as to which pieces are required.
Friends Gavin, Martin, and Sam helped with the engine removal. Gav ably assisted with dismantling of the transmission and hauling the engine out (although showing a strange reluctance to get under the car even though it was well supported by axle stands). Mart helped lever the engine out of the bay with a broom handle (which alas passed away during the operation) coz we had managed to get the gearstick turret caught on the chassis hole through which it protrudes. Meanwhile, Sam took all the pictures for the sake of posterity.
The wiring loom was the most difficult to actually remove, and was left to last. It pervades the entire vehicle; above, below and through the chassis - often by way of holes that the cabling can barely be retrieved from.
During the filthy job of reconditioning these parts (including removal of a mummified and oil coated bird stuck to the steering rack) I contacted Westfield and placed an order for the first part of the kit - basically the chassis and interior/exterior panels. I had previously decided that the car would be in British Racing Green, possibly adding a period style Lotus yellow stripe down the bonnet at a later date.
Many of the unwanted MX5 parts, such as the seats, the roof, lights, a couple of the undamaged panels and a few other items were sold on eBay. Doing this resulted in the car more-or-less paying for itself which was a bonus. In retrospect, if I had been a little more greedy and also put a bit more effort into stripping some other parts a profit could have been made on the car.
Disposing of the carcass of the MX5 was not easy - there was not a lot of it left, practically only the monocoque chassis. This made it unappealing for salvage merchants to dispose of - particularly as I was intent on keeping the VIN and the registration so that hopefully I would be able to get the resulting kit car registered with at least an age-related plate rather than the less desirable "Q".
Eventually I managed to get a local scrap merchant to dispose of it - after much chasing. The rear wheels had to be re-attached (including some of the drive supports of course) in order to get it onto the flatbed. These, I was assured, would be returned later. The process of loading it onto the flatbed was a brute-force and ignorance affair - at one point it looked possible that I was to be crushed between the car and the rear wall of the garage which would have been somewhat inconvenient. Some accidental smashing of the rear lights of the lorry occurred around then too.
The wheels were indeed returned not very long after - although minus the wheel nuts (which required me to source a replacement set from eBay) , and the wheel uprights had been removed from the suspension using an angle grinder as the 6 bolts that would have had to have been removed to do the job properly obviously had an aversion to being touched. Thankfully the unneeded suspension had been cut through rather than the wheel uprights, but there was some light damage to the bits I wanted (grinders not being known as precision instruments). Hopefully repairable.
The engine turned out to be not quite as fault-free as I would have liked. It looked as though somewhen in the past it had suffered from a head gasket failure as from that point down it was pretty thickly coated in oil. It may have been as a result of overheating due to the broken thermostat that was discovered as it was disassembled. As it had run OK on the way down from Oxford, I thought it would be fine with a bit of reconditioning.
And the differential was pretty rotten - to the point where it was oozing oil, and so I decided not to use it. The differential saga then began...
A limited slip differential was up for sale on eBay, and I managed to buy it at a (suspiciously?) low price. When it arrived it certainly seemed to be in far better condition than the rotten one on the MX5 - and I was looking forward to the improved handling an LSD would offer the kit car.
After a serious amount of cleaning using a wire brush on the angle grinder, I was disappointed to see a crack revealed upon one of the arms of the diff. As the arms seemed to be more for stability than load bearing, and with it being an LSD that I thought worth rescuing, following welding info from Brendon (who frequently and patiently provided tele-advice) I sought an aluminium specialist to fix the problem.
Southampton Welding (also trading under the name of Kempsafe Limited) did a great job repairing the arm. Then with a lot more cleaning, priming, and painting with Hammerite the
diff was ready for re-assembly.
Whilst putting the oil drain plug back in (with a torque wrench set towards the lower end of the scale advised in the MX5 workshop manual) disaster struck - a crack appeared along the side of the diff propagating from the oil drain hole. It didn't look salvageable to me and after all the work and expense on the thing I felt pretty demoralised. I started a half-hearted search for an affordable replacement (sadly unlikely to be an LSD), and did some research into how to construct an LSD from the marrying together of an old RX7 and MX5 diff.
And I think I would have stayed demoralised for a while, apart from the fact that Westfield phoned me the very next day to tell me the starter kit was ready for collection from their factory. This threw me back into action - the next task was to clean the garage from top to bottom in readiness for receiving the clean kit car parts.
Again, with nothing being completely straightforward on this build, I had to try and hire a Luton van at short notice and additionally ask for a favour from friends who had a more comprehensive driving license than myself to pilot it for me (the newer driving licenses drop a lot of the commercial vehicle and trailer coverage that the old had). Steve very kindly agreed to do the driving, all I had to do was get a Luton. I failed on that, and instead the best I could secure was a long wheel base Transit, being assured by Westfield that this would be big enough - just.
The trip up to Birmingham to collect the kit went extremely well following an early start - collecting the van from Pitter Self Drive went without a hitch. Being open 7 days a week and providing a security guard for out-of-hours vehicle return is a terrific service that puts the larger hire companies to shame.
The Westfield staff were very polite and helpful - loading the van went smoothly in a factory environment that was like a big kid's sweetshop with all the shiny car parts everywhere. It did all just fit, in fact I think that a larger van like the Luton would have made bracing the parts a bit more difficult. Once the loading was over we had a quick mooch at some of the demonstrator cars, partly to get some ideas for the later upholstery and interior colours. A period Seven in BRG would have a red interior - but I'm not convinced whether it is a bit too stark a contrast for my tastes. However, there is a bit of time until I have to commit to a colour scheme.
The return journey was as uneventful as the outbound - although I winced with every slight pothole in the road and at every corner. Once home, unloading with just Steve and myself was slightly hairy as well - one mistake would have been catastrophic. But with a bit of a struggle, the kit was installed within the garage ready for the next stage.
There's actually still a fair amount of the preparation to do before I wade into the kit proper; the engine is not even half-disassembled and cleaned, a couple of the wheel uprights still need reconditioning, as does the steering rack, the wiring loom needs modifying, the wheel curbing repaired ... and then there is that cursed differential.
Thinking about it, I would say that stage -1 was the "Uhm-ing" and "Ah-ing" over whether I should contemplate building a kit car. Whether I could build a kit car. Whether a kit car was affordable.
I mean - Airfix kits, we all grew up with Airfix kits (possibly not everyone added "realistic fire damage" or camouflaged them so well in the grasses that only mowing equipment ever found them again, albeit abruptly and terminally). But a kit car, something that has a lot of scary moving parts, parts that quite probably at least one life relies upon is an altogether different proposition. For starters, the bits don't come conveniently attached to a huge rack that you have to cut them from. And where are the painting guidelines eh? Where are the painting guidelines?
After reading magazines (Which Kit Car, which is has now merged and become Complete Kit Car - a very good reference point for reviews on kits, handy tips, and adverts for shiny bits and bobs), watching telly programs (not necessarily about kit building - for example Wheeler Dealers I found inspirational as it helps bring home that cars are like any other bit of DIY; you can indeed do-it-yourself), reading books (the Which Kit Car Guide to Kit Car Building covers everything to a useful if not detailed depth), and finally by snogging kit car manufacturer brochures I decided upon a kit car I would build if ever I could afford it.
In a stroke of luck my employer of over a dozen years made me redundant, and I (with the agreement of my wife Lou) decided to buy a kit car. There may have well been a bit of detail in this stage that I am skipping over here; like moving house in order to have a garage large enough for such a project, and changing my mind several times as to which kit to actually buy, oh and preparing the garage ready for working in.
The kit car I would build was always going to be a Lotus Seven replica - after all, how could it not be? I mean, it's a brilliantly designed iconic racing car that it is light weight and nimble, it was the first car to be produced as a llegitimate kit and so is simple to build, and it looks pretty neat too!
I changed my mind as to which breed of Seven replica I was going to build at pretty much the last moment. Mostly I have to admit, due to the glossy Westfield brochure; it showed a car that the proportions seemed to be close to the original Seven (possibly not the closest) and would just squeeze into budget. But I was also attracted to the fact that one of the options was to build it from an MX5 donor car.
The donor car would provide bits such as the engine, the wiring, the instrumentation, the transmission, and so on - the guts of the machine. It made sense to me to use a donor sports car to build a sports car - intuitively better than many that use a family saloon as the starting point.
Incidentally, I reasoned that a donor car was good as a starting point - it is possible to build a kit car from just supplied parts, but stripping a donor would give me much needed experience and hopefully confidence in mechanics. After all, if I made a complete wotsit of taking a car apart then I could bow out at that point without having wasted too much cash and effort.
So, the next stage was to buy a good spread of tools and equipment that would be useful in taking apart a car, and hopefully putting one together later. Anything from drill bits to engine cranes. The internet was very useful here - such as Machine Mart, Tooled-Up, Screwfix Direct, and even Halfords. Standard internet commerce smarts helped - checking reviews on bits of kit and comparing prices avoided more than one lemon. For some things eBay was cheaper or the only outlet, but there were the odd times things weren't quite bona fide. A certain engine stand springs immediately to mind here.
Buying the tools was good fun.
The donor car was eventually supplied by eBay - I was trying to get a MkI MX5 for no more than £1000. I felt this would be possible by looking for one which would have sound mechanicals but damaged and/or rotting bodywork. The early MkIs are over 15 years old after all.
After a couple of unsuccessful attempts that's what I managed to buy. Well, the mechanicals were *mostly* sound - driving an unfamiliar car with a slippy clutch and knackered power-assisted-steering back from Oxford was interesting. Certainly the bodywork was both damaged and rotting.
Yes - it does have after-market boots on, a set of alloys from BK Racing. They were in a sorry state though, kerbed so badly I could only assume that the previous owner habitually parked by touch. Worth reconditioning though as they would look good on a Seven I thought...Disassembling the MX5 was pretty straightforward. I had obtained a copy of the Mazda workshop manual for the MkI (after reading accounts that the Hayes manual for it was not a lot of use), and following it made the process mostly idiot-proof. Of course, I was a pretty cunning idiot a couple of times :)
I needed all of the steering and rack, the scuffed wheels, the engine and transmission, wheel uprights and driveshafts, instrument pod and controls, the entire wiring loom, and sundry bits and pieces - Westfield provide a good list in their build manual as to which pieces are required.
Friends Gavin, Martin, and Sam helped with the engine removal. Gav ably assisted with dismantling of the transmission and hauling the engine out (although showing a strange reluctance to get under the car even though it was well supported by axle stands). Mart helped lever the engine out of the bay with a broom handle (which alas passed away during the operation) coz we had managed to get the gearstick turret caught on the chassis hole through which it protrudes. Meanwhile, Sam took all the pictures for the sake of posterity.The wiring loom was the most difficult to actually remove, and was left to last. It pervades the entire vehicle; above, below and through the chassis - often by way of holes that the cabling can barely be retrieved from.
During the filthy job of reconditioning these parts (including removal of a mummified and oil coated bird stuck to the steering rack) I contacted Westfield and placed an order for the first part of the kit - basically the chassis and interior/exterior panels. I had previously decided that the car would be in British Racing Green, possibly adding a period style Lotus yellow stripe down the bonnet at a later date.
Many of the unwanted MX5 parts, such as the seats, the roof, lights, a couple of the undamaged panels and a few other items were sold on eBay. Doing this resulted in the car more-or-less paying for itself which was a bonus. In retrospect, if I had been a little more greedy and also put a bit more effort into stripping some other parts a profit could have been made on the car.
Disposing of the carcass of the MX5 was not easy - there was not a lot of it left, practically only the monocoque chassis. This made it unappealing for salvage merchants to dispose of - particularly as I was intent on keeping the VIN and the registration so that hopefully I would be able to get the resulting kit car registered with at least an age-related plate rather than the less desirable "Q".
Eventually I managed to get a local scrap merchant to dispose of it - after much chasing. The rear wheels had to be re-attached (including some of the drive supports of course) in order to get it onto the flatbed. These, I was assured, would be returned later. The process of loading it onto the flatbed was a brute-force and ignorance affair - at one point it looked possible that I was to be crushed between the car and the rear wall of the garage which would have been somewhat inconvenient. Some accidental smashing of the rear lights of the lorry occurred around then too.
The wheels were indeed returned not very long after - although minus the wheel nuts (which required me to source a replacement set from eBay) , and the wheel uprights had been removed from the suspension using an angle grinder as the 6 bolts that would have had to have been removed to do the job properly obviously had an aversion to being touched. Thankfully the unneeded suspension had been cut through rather than the wheel uprights, but there was some light damage to the bits I wanted (grinders not being known as precision instruments). Hopefully repairable.
The engine turned out to be not quite as fault-free as I would have liked. It looked as though somewhen in the past it had suffered from a head gasket failure as from that point down it was pretty thickly coated in oil. It may have been as a result of overheating due to the broken thermostat that was discovered as it was disassembled. As it had run OK on the way down from Oxford, I thought it would be fine with a bit of reconditioning.
And the differential was pretty rotten - to the point where it was oozing oil, and so I decided not to use it. The differential saga then began...
A limited slip differential was up for sale on eBay, and I managed to buy it at a (suspiciously?) low price. When it arrived it certainly seemed to be in far better condition than the rotten one on the MX5 - and I was looking forward to the improved handling an LSD would offer the kit car.
After a serious amount of cleaning using a wire brush on the angle grinder, I was disappointed to see a crack revealed upon one of the arms of the diff. As the arms seemed to be more for stability than load bearing, and with it being an LSD that I thought worth rescuing, following welding info from Brendon (who frequently and patiently provided tele-advice) I sought an aluminium specialist to fix the problem.
Southampton Welding (also trading under the name of Kempsafe Limited) did a great job repairing the arm. Then with a lot more cleaning, priming, and painting with Hammerite the
diff was ready for re-assembly.
Whilst putting the oil drain plug back in (with a torque wrench set towards the lower end of the scale advised in the MX5 workshop manual) disaster struck - a crack appeared along the side of the diff propagating from the oil drain hole. It didn't look salvageable to me and after all the work and expense on the thing I felt pretty demoralised. I started a half-hearted search for an affordable replacement (sadly unlikely to be an LSD), and did some research into how to construct an LSD from the marrying together of an old RX7 and MX5 diff.
And I think I would have stayed demoralised for a while, apart from the fact that Westfield phoned me the very next day to tell me the starter kit was ready for collection from their factory. This threw me back into action - the next task was to clean the garage from top to bottom in readiness for receiving the clean kit car parts.
Again, with nothing being completely straightforward on this build, I had to try and hire a Luton van at short notice and additionally ask for a favour from friends who had a more comprehensive driving license than myself to pilot it for me (the newer driving licenses drop a lot of the commercial vehicle and trailer coverage that the old had). Steve very kindly agreed to do the driving, all I had to do was get a Luton. I failed on that, and instead the best I could secure was a long wheel base Transit, being assured by Westfield that this would be big enough - just.
The trip up to Birmingham to collect the kit went extremely well following an early start - collecting the van from Pitter Self Drive went without a hitch. Being open 7 days a week and providing a security guard for out-of-hours vehicle return is a terrific service that puts the larger hire companies to shame.
The Westfield staff were very polite and helpful - loading the van went smoothly in a factory environment that was like a big kid's sweetshop with all the shiny car parts everywhere. It did all just fit, in fact I think that a larger van like the Luton would have made bracing the parts a bit more difficult. Once the loading was over we had a quick mooch at some of the demonstrator cars, partly to get some ideas for the later upholstery and interior colours. A period Seven in BRG would have a red interior - but I'm not convinced whether it is a bit too stark a contrast for my tastes. However, there is a bit of time until I have to commit to a colour scheme.
The return journey was as uneventful as the outbound - although I winced with every slight pothole in the road and at every corner. Once home, unloading with just Steve and myself was slightly hairy as well - one mistake would have been catastrophic. But with a bit of a struggle, the kit was installed within the garage ready for the next stage.
There's actually still a fair amount of the preparation to do before I wade into the kit proper; the engine is not even half-disassembled and cleaned, a couple of the wheel uprights still need reconditioning, as does the steering rack, the wiring loom needs modifying, the wheel curbing repaired ... and then there is that cursed differential.
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