Went out again tonight to crack on... but, brrrrrr too cold for me! Nipped back indoors and made a cardboard box 53mm x 132mm to check the rear seatbelt mount. With the box sitting in the chair and a straight line from the upper belt mount there needs to be a 450mm distance from the front of the box. This is required by SVA and is designed so you don't get pulled down in the seat in the event of a frontal shunt. With my seats on 1" blocks I have around 490~500mm so plenty there.
As you can see in the picture's above the bottom seat harness mounts are very tight in the corner of the chassis. Just enough room to get them in and tighten them up.




Top mounts are clip on as well which I'm not to happy about, tightening them up they don't all face forward. Nothing to worry about, just looks a little crap!














The copper pipe you see there is the fuel pipe. Thats coming out and being rerouted as I'm not too happy with how close it is to the handbrake mechanism.

I've took the plunge and secured the back trim with Tiger seal. Thats it, it's not coming off!! again.

Too much beer over the weekend so with a rest day Monday I've cracked on a bit.
Seats arrived Friday afternoon so after taking loads of junk, thats been clogging the garage up, off to the tip, then over to the scrappy. Search round for suitable seat runners and came across some nice almost brand new ones off a very sorry Citreon C3, there was a C2 next to it with the same runners but they were a bit rusting and the drivers side was twisted. Picked up some connectors as well for the Astra speed unit and some for Toyota switch gear I have.






Today I've modified the runners, basically cutting off threaded studs and welding a lug to the front for screwing onto my new seats. A hole drilled at the back to suit the fiberglass seats, oh, and not forgetting making them a bit narrower as well. That little lot took all of 4/5 hours!










I've cut the bonnet to suit the exhaust and made a chassis mount for the silencer at the back. Drilled all the holes for the harness eyes in the floor and screwed them in. These are all the little, easy things that seem to take ages to do. Before I realised it I've spent 9 hours in the garage today!

I've spent the last few days tidying up the wiring under the scuttle. The Acewell is all wired in now apart from the speedo pickup that I'm still deciding where to put it. I've bundled all the wiring together with spiro and convoluted tubes, soldering and shrink covers over the joins.

With the scuttle in place there is a gap between it and the alloy shelf in front so I've attached a piece of ali angle to fill the gap and give the bottom of the scuttle some support. It lost a bit of rigidity when I cut the channel for the steering column.

With the scuttle in place the new alloy header tank was mounted. I sat it up as high on scuttle side as the bonnet would allow, checking carefully to make sure.
I used a piece of tubing I picked up off a Corsa in the scrapyard. It was long enough and had enough bends in it to get all the bottom hose sections out it. The OEM pipe clips are a nice touch as well. That is without going to the expense of a blinging silicone install!
A piece of 16mm pipe from B&Q will complete the connection to the bottom hose at the front of the car.







I couldn't resist a tidy up and sitting in it again. I'm impressed at the height of the scuttle which gives a nice closed in feeling. It feels like your well down behind the shaped top unlike some other 7 type cars I've been in. With the wind deflector on top this should give a good level of protection from the elements.




Picked a spare 1.8 zetec engine up on Sunday from a fellow Locostbuilder. Slowly collecting parts for the turbo conversion.....

I've been working hard on it with little to show for my efforts lately, out in the garage till 10.30 and the like! Basically I'm wiring the Acewell in and generally trying to get all the under scuttle bits and bobs finished off, wrapped up nice and tidy. This is so I can get the scuttle on, drill the holes for the side repeaters, and mount the alloy header tank so I can get some water in the system.

Wired the alternator up tonite and started her up and the voltage on the Acewell went from 9.4V (redtop getting a little flat with no charging) up to 14.4v Result.

Also had a little stab at the the connections up to the header tank. I've used a bit of 6mm microbore copper for the breather and I will paint it black once its all configured correctly.

Pushing on now, I have much enthusiasm for it at the moment. The months are flashing by and I do want it finished soon!!

Got the final brackets cut out drilled and fitted for the Rover handbrake setup tonight. I've trimmed the tunnel cover back a little more as well and the action is a lot smoother.
I was going to spray the brackets but in the greenhouse outside it said -4 so I'll leave that until it warms up about 10 or so....












Trial fit of the exhaust as well tonight, runs real close to the body, hope its not going to get too hot and mark the body! I'll be able to mark the position of the manifold exiting the body and cut out the bonnet to suit.

Ive ordered a set of triton fibreglass seats this week along with some black 4 point harnesses that I will be grafting in as soon as they arrive. Once the alloy header tank arrives I'll be getting the engine 'wet' for the first time and a prolonged run up.

First bash at the new handbrake setup. Not happy with the Sierra cut and clamp setup I decided to look for an alternative.
With my daily drive being a Rover I looked at the setup in the car and in the manual for the drum set up. The Rover has a twin cable setup that I thought would fit. Off to the scrappy for a Rover 200 lever and the clamp that holds the cables and down to the motor factor for a new cable. £35 a side for Rover 200 cables! Gulp. No way, off to ebay. One rover 200 cable in the post as a taster and the bloody thing was about 7 foot long with 4 huge P type clamps. No good, too long.
Back on ebay to look at the pictures of other cables I thought the Freelander one looked the same (ends) but looked a lot shorter. Ordered one right cable for another trial fit.
The spring on the drum end of the cable was about 2/3 longer than the Sierra one so out with the snips and it was soon the length required. The connection through the back plate is OK but I had to remove the spring clip to ge it in. Cable tension will hold it in place. So success on one side and another cable ordered off the bay I have all the makings of an unmolested (slightly) OEM setup.

Because I had a lot of inner cable slack with cutting the spring down I had to move the cable clamp at the lever end back to compensate. This meant the clamp ended up over the diff, so there is one bolt through the existing chassis bracket and the back bolt goes down just in front of the diff casting. To this I have a small 1" plate with a nut welded on thats sits under the diff casting and pulls the new bracket down onto it.

The Rover 200 handle has a neat over the top mechanism which suits this type of car much better I think. The mountings are shorter than the Sierra ones and also on the wrong side. I need to make a plate to bridge the two bars welded to the chassis and bolt the handle to that.
No dramas so far, the handle comes up through the tunnel cover in the same place and I may enlarge the hole a bit more as the Rover handle has a nice rubber gaiter that rises with the handle filling the gap. I just need to move that fuel pipe thats in the way, re-route the wiring a bit and flatten out the cable angle a bit and jobs a gudden!


Got my new Acewell as well this week and have it temporarily wired up. No dramas so far apart from the brake warning light is on all the time. A session with the multimeter should have that sorted. Its a lot bigger than i thought it would be and does everything I need. Not sure whether to mount it onto the face of the dashboard or mount it on top of the steering column.

Its just I hate drilling holes in the nice shiny virgin fibreglass!

And the hardest bit tonight? Getting the pictures up on here!!!

Quick update... the alternator is now mounted on the engine and working ok. I'm now working on the handbrake system. I have a handle off a 220 Rover and cables off a Freelander. The cables needed a little fettling to fit but provide a OEM system that Mr. SVA will be happy with.
it is time to be getting on with the dash and my new Acewell dashboard. Stay tuned!!!!

I've abandoned the airbox for the minute.I picked up a nice brand new Brise alternator off ebay and with it being quite small I thought it would be ideal.
Well, much head scratching with the alternator bracket I made earlier I nearly threw the thing in the bin! :-(









After searching the net and Locostbuilders I came to the conclusion an under hung bracket would do it.. and, it works perfectly, even with the belt I couldn't get tight enough before.

I've made a bracket out of 30x30x3mm angle from B&Q that pivots the alternator at the bottom. The adjuster arm at the top lets it swing out into plenty of space under the water pump outlet. It bolts onto 3 of the M10 holes in the block, the back being shared with the engine mount. The Mondeo pulley I had lying around fitted on perfectly and with a coat of paint thats one more headache out of the way!

I'm looking at alternative handbrake set ups now as I didn't feel the Sierra cable cut and attached with rope clamps was SVA friendly and it didn't look very good either. I'm looking to use a Rover handle that has a very compact mechanism and the cable attaches with big nipples. One cable per side means no cutting. However the cable I got off a Rover 200 is about 2 yards too long so I'm looking to use a Freelander jobbie that has the same ends but is much shorter.

Whether the other end fits the Sierra drums is another matter. Time will tell!

The new air box is coming along quite canny now, although the amount of time its took is staggering! I started what seems like two weeks ago and it's still not finished! I have redesigned it slightly and remade some sections to be fair.

It fits under the bonnet OK and just needs a cover and a means of fastening it to the carbs. The cover will be permanantly attached with 5 fixings through the box. I've purchased some 8mm tube from B&Q and I'm going to extend the mountings through the box and out the top of the cover with some 6mm thread bar to hold it all together. Then I'll be making a scoop to go under the top of the nose cone apparture, again out of said old washing machine and I should have a system that uses the carbs as they were installed on the original motorcycle.

Well, new year and new aspirations! So they say anyway.

I picked up some nice shiny new wheels in the Halfords boxing day sale and am mighty proud of them despite saying I was happy with the Ford ones for now! I have also spent a fair wedge at Car Builder Solutions who provide a cracking service with quick next day delivery. I went through their catalogue and wrote down everything I thought I needed to progress.

I've also swapped the pulleys between the two Ford alternators I've got to get over the slack drive belt problem I was having due to not being able to find the correct length belt. The Mondeo unit had a bigger pulley so that took up the slack on the belt I had.

I've trial fitted the bodywork again and fitted the bonnet catches so I can see how much clearance there is for an airbox without cutting holes in the body. I'm going to build an airbox and supply it with cold air from the front of the nose via a remote filter. There's not to much room in front of the carbs so I'm making a mock up out of cardboard before I start cutting metal.

I now have new found enthusiasm after a visit from the Dangerous Brothers who both have MNR's on the road. I do now intend to have it 'finished' by the end of this month!