Excellent Photography.
Excellent workmanship.
Excellent Photography.
Excellent workmanship.
Thanks for your comments
Cheers
So, just tidying the rest of the front end up before I attach the front footwell and mudguard, plus I need to fit the FWD inner clevis and the yellow bits are yet to be removed;
The cardboard box is under there pushed out of the way (not supporting it! )
A tad more lightening which also gets rid of a bit of a rust trap
Cheers
Cracking along
Cheers Gary,
It still feels like it is taking an age
But to be fair, I do take an age...
Cheers
Been modifying the passenger footwell to fit around the strengthening tubes, it always seems to take much longer than planned:
The garage is a mess after we have had some work done, the Midget is having to store a load of rubbish until I get it sorted
Not welded yet as I haven't finished the toeboard panel yet
Cheers
Looking good
http://escort.accelerator.org
1968 MK1 Escort 1300GT
1969 'Big Wing' MK1 Escort
1972 MK3 Cortina 1600XL
1984 Sierra XR4i
And other junk I don't like to talk about!
Yes I saw the white Lenham race car,
I also saw front wing exits / vents (which I hadn't seen before) on the burgundy car with flared arches which is very similar to how I would plan to do them if needed, I have seen the same kind of thing on different race cars over the years
I'm not sure about the totally smooth footwell sides, unless it was well documented with photos of how it was done, i.e. all metal and folded from one piece and not just a load of filler to hide the seams, it's a bit like losing the 'A' post to sill or rear wing to sill seams - I always assume the worst - full of filler
Cheers
Great stuff so far....
I may have missed this in the thread but....what did you do with the bumpers and brackets?
I need some....
Russ.
It was single sheet, bent to match the shape of the original panel, with a couple of L sections to keep it rigid as per standard - spot welded in, then smoothed off with method of choice. Last ones i smoothed, i shaped a panel to fit the redundant pedal box hole and seamed it into place, then lead loaded and ground back to smooth, removed all the captive nuts, reloacted everything we wanted to relocate and tacked in the new nuts in place.
As for the vents, those were on William Smallridges midget, i had spent quite some time in one of the BBS threads trying to describe how beautifully done they were (that car was built 2 miles from me) and I will definitely be using the same on my own car.
Yes I have already plug welded all of the holes I don't plan to use, mainly because I hate having grommets everywhere just because they are holes used for, say a LHD variant etc.
This is the start of it so far:
Welded and linished flat:
And about as far as I am now, all unwanted holes gone:
Cheers
Crap photo i know, but the only one i have of my last one finished
Ill try and find the WIP shot
Yes crap photo
might work this time
PM sent re the bumpers...
Russ.
Thanks for the photo, looks very tidy, unfortunately I couldn't see much of the footwell tops, but if you find a WIP I would be interested to see.
Some more pics of before the footwell and the toeboard going in:
Wherever possible I have tied as much of the strengthening tubes to the sheet work to combine their strength
The internal surfaces have been etched, primed and whatever rattle can colours I have at the time
Cheers
Nice to see heritage panels being used
ill see what i can do about digging that photo out, brb
Yes all of the panels have been heritage except for the 'toeboards' which were Ashley Hinton and they were a much thicker gauge than the std items.
I have no experience of non heritage panels so no idea if the cheaper panels are any good as regards fit and quality, but I have used heritage panels on plenty of other projects and not been disappointed, not perfect but just glad they do what they do.
Got my dampers from Bilstein, the rebound is about 5 - 10% lower than I wanted for but they are near perfectly matched as a pair, so more than happy, just need a car ready to bolt them to
They provide force vs velocity and force vs displacement graphs for each damper so you are not left guessing what you have got, as I have seen so many dampers supplied which are hopelessly matched
Cheers
Got a bit bored with the front end, so decided to look at the rear wing as I need to cut some of it away to fit the outer sill
Where the wing meets the sill there is some evidence of rust damage and a pretty bodged repair which saw a lot of the lower part knocked in.
All in all it looks pretty good
The wheelarch lip is sound
Will cut the lower part away tomorrow to start fitting the outer sill
cheers
You'll be able to sell that arch lip on once you've cut it out to fit the bubble arch ...
Gary,
There really is no hope for you
There must be a name for the disorder you are afflicted with
Can't you tell I am a purist and frown on any non standard modifications
Cheers
It's called Bubble syndrom or more commonly known as bubblitis
67 TVR VIXEN V8
Still working on the LH side, need to finish the inner sill before I can fit the outer sill, which is the next thing I want to get out of the way:
Again I could have replaced the whole inner sill but the centre section is fine and totally removing the inner sill has too much potential to put things out of line, repair section used is from a full inner sill.
Welded and tidied up a bit
Also the footwell side needs to be in place before the outer sill can be attached, just getting the basic shape correct:
The footwell side joggled and ready to go in:
Finish seam and plug welded, just needs linishing
Cheers
Last edited by Aubrey_Boy; 25-06-2011 at 20:21.
I wish I had your skills. You make it seem so easy
67 TVR VIXEN V8
Sonus,
Thanks for the kind comments, the really helpful part of rebuilding a Midget is the fact that almost all of the inner 'chassis' panels are perfectly flat which means making up repair panels and generally lining everything up is just much more straight forward which really helps progress.
Cheers
Finished preparing the inner sill, which has been primed and painted:
Outer sill trial fit, door fitted to check alignments:
Outer sill finish welded and plug welds linished
Not sure what to tackle next, but should get at least another day on it this weekend
Cheers
The finicky detail things seem to take longer than fitting things like sills, these few jobs did take longer than the outer sill
I don't want to use filler an areas like the door shuts, the B pillar to sill area required some improvisation to get at to linish it, using a die grinder amongst others
Tying the dash lateral tube to the A pillar as this connects the upper tubes to the sills
Just need to weld a similar piece to the underside of the tube when the shell is turned over
Next will be filling the gap between the outer sill and the footwell
Cheers
Awesome spencer
Loving the progress, and as always more inspiration for me to get cracking with the 67 shell.
Keep up the good work, did you ever get the wiring sorted???
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your kind comments
Sorry as far as the wiring goes, I haven't done any more since the last time you asked
Cheers
Steady progress but still getting through the job list, LH outer sill is essentially finished
I'm still working through the items which need to get done before I can attach the LH 'mudguard' assembly, the chassis side of the engine mounts are now completed, mocked up in position, using the engine mount to get the spacing correct:
Welded and linished, it feels like I have passed a bit of a milestone now, Inner and outer sills, new footwells, engine mounts all completed
The sills being finished allows me to move the shell and use a rotisserie without fear of it twisting the chassis
An excuse to trial fit the engine again with the engine mounts all done, still playing with engine height and lateral position
The exhaust manifold is a nightmare, it's just too tight to the chassis to get it over the studs, once its on its OK, I just don't fancy having to remove the engine to take the manifold off. My crappy attempt at cylinder No. 3 primary will need to be redone as it is this which causes all of the problems, I'm tempted to just use this manifold as a pattern and get BTB or Tony Law to make one up as I am really not happy with it, all the primaries are different lengths and the non mandrel bends are just fugly
The starter motor is a tight fit, easy enough to fit to the engine first, but will be tricky to do anything with it in-situ, might consider a similar thing to Retro-Ed and have a removable panel for access
The chassis side of the engine mounts wasn't my greatest moment in terms of being easy to work with as you have to lift the engine and its mounts over them and then down which should make trying to install everything in a painted shell interesting. I might be able to fit the engine mounts once the engine is hanging in position but access is tight to get the allen bolts in to the block with the chassis mounts in the way
This photo makes me question what I am doing with the Mini each time I look at it, the front face of the block is approx 150mm behind the front axle centreline, whereas in the Mini the front axle centreline is in the middle of the block - not the best weight distribution for RWD!
Not sure I will get a heater in it's original position, again all abit tight, you can also see that almost all of the gearbox casing is inside the cockpit, it only protrudes into the engine bay by about 10mm
LH telescopic damper top mount and LH fwd inner chassis pick up for the wishbone should be next but I am sure I will find something else to do
And a randomn photo that currently helps keep me motivated
Cheers
Nice to see milestones being reached
http://escort.accelerator.org
1968 MK1 Escort 1300GT
1969 'Big Wing' MK1 Escort
1972 MK3 Cortina 1600XL
1984 Sierra XR4i
And other junk I don't like to talk about!
As always I'm very impressed
67 TVR VIXEN V8
Also fantastic to see the pic of Dave's 6GRX on the pipe. Fantastic to see a Midget cocking a leg.
Will's car at the MGCC Linc's Autosolo "cocking a leg"
cracking fabrication mate. keep it coming.
Thanks again for all the comments,
Progress will stall for a bit as I am at Spa this week and at the end of the month as well, so at best will only get two weekends this month to work on it
Well that should save me some money on tissues then
Have fun at Spa dude, hope the weather stays as good as todays
Pete,
You know what Spa's like, sunny on the old pit lane (down the hill) and torrential by the 'bus top'
But it's been 7 - 8 years since I was last there, so maybe it's changed - NOT!
Cheers
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