Today's pictures

Click the image for a larger view

 

 

10 Mar 2012 - Chassis rolling!

Today was a glorious day and during the week I had got the new universal joints fitted and the rear axles built up. I also had a play with the handbrake pivot assembly as on the Vitesse (Heralds too) there is a bracket on the underside of the rear tub that the pivot mounts to, and since I have got rid of the body parts, I need to fabricate a new mounting for it. This simply consists of of a piece of 5mm flat steel bar that has a hole drilled, and a nut which will be welded to it and then the steel plate will be welded to the frame in the Spyder.

The sun was shining and I was breaking all the rules of being 40+ and wearing my vest outside! I had the music blaring out and it reminded me of my teenage years outside my mum and dad's house customising my VW Beetle.

One thing I would recommend, is using a couple of cheap tressles to raise the chassi so you can work on it without breaking your back. As you can see from the pictures, as soon as it was stripped it went on the tressles and it has been up there for the stripping, painting and now re-assembly. Mine are just plastic ones from B&Q with a 170KG loading for each, so more than enough for the build!

The front suspension went on very quickly, since everything was either new, pre-assembled, or cleaned and painted. The back was the same, although it was a bit of struggle to lift the differential up, hold it steady and then put the bolts and nuts on. I must enlist some help in situations like those! Never mind, a slight bit of cursing and a cup of coffee later, I got it all bolted in.

When the front and rear suspension was in, I made up some new brake pipes using new copper tube and recycling the old fittings which I had saved and cleaned up on the wire wheel. It is very satisfying putting it all back together, and seeing the shiny new bits on the chassis, and so I started ot have a think about where the petrol tank would sit. I have decided to put it at the rear, behind the spring, which is different to a lot of other builders, who mount it behind the seats and in front of the spring.

The main reason for the shift backwards, is to free up the space for a luggage compartment behind the seats, so I have some storage if ever I want to take the car touring abroad. The same goes for adding in door pockets, which will require a modifcation to the frame, which I will get on to tomorrow. For now, I put the 13" wire wheels form the Vitesse on the chassis and added the frame to see what it was like.

A good days work and I am looking forward to making up the floor pans next!