TheSite

It feels like its been forever since I did something to the car. So I had to go out an play last night. I was going to test fit the diff but I didnt have anyone to help flip the frame upside down. I did look over how its going to be put in place. The “double plate” mounting is just that, there are 2 plates stacked on top and bottom of the tubes to hold the arms of the diff in place. The nose is secured by a basically a 3/16″ piece of sheetmetal folded into an L. You can see it in the 19 Sept gallery. I think I want to beef that up.  Or redesign it.

I also started to see about fully attaching the control arms I do have. Well thats not going to happen. I cant get a nut on the left lower rear control arm’s front bracket.  The bracket was put too low relative to tube B1. I tried to grind down a nut to see if I could get it to fit. I would basically have to remove about 1/3 of the nut. Thats something I’m not comfortable with. Add that to the fact that I cant get bolts on the into the front bracket on the upper control arm.  I think its time to redesign the rear suspension…. Its obvious I cant get there from here.

Doesn’t it always seem to work out this way. You just start a fun project and life decides you need more to do than you can do. Going to be slow going for quite a while. At least that gives me plenty of time to get some of my questions answered.

I went and retrieved most all the 99’s parts from the guy that bought the donor’s chassis. Most of the parts are in good shape and dont need much, if any, TLC. Hopefully by the end of the week, the upper front control arms and a proper lower right rear will ship. Various bits and pieces that I need to provide are showing up or on order. Hopefully I can have a sort of roller soon.

Seriously… I had a 74 Triumph Spitfire 1500. Every time I worked on it I found something else wrong. This little British inspired kit is living up to the Spit’s legacy nicely. Pictures will be up shortly in the gallery. I think I’ll start adding sub-galleries for that days work/pictures.

Got the POR15 touch up of the frame done. Only left 2 fingerprints and some shirt fuzz as permanent additions to the chassis.

Moved onto checking out the six control arms I do have. The upper rears seem fine. But I haven’t yet figured out the wizardry required to get the bolt in the front bracket for the upper rear. The lower rears are where the Spitfire’s legacy lives on. At a glance it looks like I got a left and a right. Upon closer inspection it turns out I have 2 lefts but 1 has the shock bracket mounted where it should be for the right. Upon even closer inspection they are very very similar but not. I need to trace them out but it looks like the angles on the tubes are different. Want to guess which one fit better on the left mounts? The rear left shock is also not as vertical as I think it should be. The lower mount is forward of the top mount.

Then I started work on the lower front arms. The passenger side went on with ease (well they look identical so thats just the side I started on). The ghost of my Spitfire stuck again. The heim joints wouldnt fully thread into the second control arms tubes. One side, the spiral of the threads changes part way down. The other side looks fine as best as I could see. I’m going to bring it to work tomorrow and see what the guys there think. Probably going to end up helicoiling this one.

Sigh. I thought this was supposed to be fun. At least there haven’t been any “what in the world was that guy thinking” moments like there were on that Spitfire. Ever seen speaker wire to power an electric fuel pump in the trunk? Or follow a wire thru 5 vampire taps and end up on the same wire you started on? Yeah good times with that Spitfire. I’ll keep the electrical gremlins at bay on this one…. the mechanical ones are a whole different matter. Its looking more and more attractive to just hack the back of this frame off and use the miata rear subframe. At least then the suspension geometry would be a known.

Well I’ve taken the crate apart, inventoried and taken pictures of what I received.

Last night I sanded, cleaned and prep’d the chassis for POR15. The frame came coated but some places needed a touch up or seemed kind of thin.
I attempted to figure out how the panels fit while I waited for the chassis to dry. The side panels around the cockpit area do not seem right. They look too short. Placing the notch in top part of the sheet metal were it needs to be and the panel comes up short in the rear. Its like this on both side. Am I wrong and this panel is not supposed to attach from M1/M2 to the front H tube?

I cant figure out what a few panels are for.

http://www.mcfandango.org/pictures/main.php?g2_itemId=16

The front 2 panels on the floor are the interior transmission tunnel panels. They need alot of massaging to get into place. Especially the driver side. It is not obvious what the notch cut into them is for. Perhaps It will be obvious once more things are in place. The ones I cant figure out are the farthest right 2 in this photo.

http://www.mcfandango.org/pictures/main.php?g2_itemId=71

They do not fit anywhere that makes sense. They are roughly the same shape as the interior transmission panels but very wrong if you try to put them in place. Looking at Coveland’s body panel kit on ebay, I seem to be missing the firewall and pedalbox and have an extra of the transmission tunnel panels.

Hopefully Jim will get back to me soon. I’m missing several things I don’t think I should be. And I’ll see if I cant make the build diary easier to read. I’m not really liking this WordPress setup.

Ok. I think I have wordpress back online. Too tired to mess with anything else. The gallery for at least the locost has been rebuilt. I’ll post what I’ve done and tried later. Allergies and sleep force me to fold for the night.

I have no idea exactly how I did it. Apparently I deleted the wrong thing and opps! There went everything.