Panic Stations

Well it appears our friends in the government are planning to wipe out a large swathe of the UK kit car industry by changing the rules for emissions testing. As it stands, your engine is assessed for emissions based on its original data of manufacture. This allows us to use a period-relevant engine when building our cars, thus avoiding fuel injection and catalytic converters. The government proposal is to require all kit cars presented to IVA to be assessed to current emissions regulations. Now it might be possible to get a carburetor engine through the current Euro5 regulations, but only by adding catalytic converters at some additional cost. When Euro6 comes out - its a bridge too far for carburetors. It seems the government are 'consulting' on this proposal but it looks like a done deal from what I'm reading. Hopefully the kit car community, manufacturers and supply chain will rally round and lobby to prevent this from becoming law. In terms of emissions, I'd bet our carburetor motors are a fraction of 1% of the total and I recon my neighbors bonfire is a worse culprit than me!

Anyhow I guess I'm one of the lucky ones as I'm nearing completion and there's a good chance I can get to IVA under current rules  - as long as I get my finger out!

Rebuild after paint

Now for the part I've been looking forward to - refitting all the shiny bits for hopefully the last time!

I've started at the front with the overriders and lights and fitted the nose cone vents. I know these are individual taste but my missus thinks they are great!

Fitting the vents is quite straightforward using body filler and holding them in place until the filler goes off. Then apply more filler underneath to ensure they stay put.

One thing that other builders have said - and they are right - is the fear factor of working on the car after paint. No more leaving tools on the wings!

Dashboard

Fitting the dials, switches and lamps took a surprising amount of time but the good news was I could do this in the dining room rather than in a cold garage!

Some of the holes in the fibreglass came up too small to tuck the leather through with the switches but this was fixed by carefully opening up the holes with the Dremmel. Its not too scary to do as the padding separates the leather from the fibreglass.

Here's my first attempt at wiring everything up. Not as neat as some I've seen and even though its going to be hidden its on my list for rework.

Paint

It’s back, and a great job done by Option 1 Sportscars.

We are very pleased with choice of colour, Aston Martin Diavolo Red which has some depth to it and works well with the curves. This is a change from our original thinking of a candy colour but we were persuaded to avoid the three stage complex colours as you could be looking at a total respray if a repair needed. Based on the result this looks like good advice.

Door alignment

I'd previously fitted the door catches as per the manual which requires the doors to be aligned with the body then fitting the door catches to the door with spacers to simulate the thickness of the door card. The recommendation is the thickness of the untrimmed door card plus 5mm. This assumes you are fixing the trimmed door card behind the catch and not cutting the trim around the catch.

To work out where to fit the striker and striker plate I clipped the striker into the door catch, then with the door aligned, marked he striker location and striker plate. Its then a case of cutting some wooden blocks to support the striker plate - then using lots of P38 filler to hold it all in place. Then leave it all to set for a good 24 hours.

Striker, striker plate and tube spacer. Note the striker plate is
proud of the door flange.

I also used some 1/2" steel tube as a spacer between the striker head and the striker plate to improve the rigidity.

So I followed this to the letter and ended up with a great door fit and nice action between the catch and striker.

Striker plate filed down flush.

Next thing was to fit the internal door frame finisher and this is where I found a difference on each side of the car. On the drivers side - no problems. On the passenger side, the striker plate ended up proud of the body lip - which meant I had to file it down to get it anywhere near flush. I used a power file for this  - a lot safer than a grinder.   What this meant was where I could fit the full fibreglass finisher on the drivers side - I had to trim the passenger side so that it finished below the striker plate - else when carpeted it would be sticking out too far.

Passenger side internal finisher - trimmed at top

Next up was to fit the fully trimmed door cards - and this is where the problems started. Basically the thickness of the door card combined with the AK supplied seal meant that the door would not shut correctly and bowed out at the bottom.

The problem was that I'd made the door cards too deep (top to bottom) so the only route forward was to trim the bottom of the cards so that the door seal presses more on the door rather than the card. Now this is easier than it sounds once the card has been trimmed. The leather covering  - which is glued down - has to be carefully peeled back which then allows the bottom edge of the card to be sanded down. Then followed multiple test fits, more sanding , more test fits until I reached a point where the door would fit flush. I used the  power file to ease the operation and beveled the card edge  to try and get some sort of seal between the card and the seal. I then  used leather adhesive to re-fix the leather trim. Lots of hours went into this but its so important to get this right.
In hindsight its better that I had made the cards too big than the other way round!.

Showing the passenger side latch and cut-down inner finisher.

Finished door card

Door seal fitting

The next issue I had concerned the drivers side door latch. The lever is simply an interference fit onto the short shaft that acts as the fulcrum. As the door lock was a bit stiff - and the lever will tend to twist when force is applied -  I managed to dislodge the lever from the fulcrum. I'm thinking this needs to be pretty robust in real life and was toying with returning it to S&J Motors for a replacement.  In the end and to avoid delays I fitted a flat head bolt a couple of thin washers and a nylock to hold it all in place. This meant drilling a clearance hole into the door card and the door skin itself (you don't need these with the standard lock as the rear face is flat.).

In my opinion the result is a lot more robust and I plan to modify the passenger side to match.

Standard latch assembly with pressed-on lever

Modified lever assembly with location bolt.

Off to the body shop

This post is out of sync with the work I've been doing to get the car ready for painting but today's the day its away to the body shop for final preparation and paint.

We've chosen to go with Option1 Sportscars in Bromsgrove. This follows a fair bit of research and weighing up the pro's and cons of the various companies.

In the end we got down to a choice between Option1 and AK's next door neighbours who, granted, do a great job on AK's demo and customer cars.

Andy Menzies picked Option1 for his car and was kind enough to show us round his stunning motor. This was enough to convince me that these guys were a good choice and know what they are doing with composite bodywork. The clincher was they are only 30 minutes away. Frank, the owner, came round one Sunday morning to look over the car and confirm the telephone quote previously given and explained the process they go through to prepare and paint.

So off it goes and I can look to tidy the garage ready for the return!

All undressed ready for the paint shop

Interior

Interior has arrived and a great job done by AK's in-house trimmer Dougie.
The colour is Anthracite grey, perforated leather with red stitching.
The tunnel cover is also leather covered which we think will be more practical than carpet.