Completing the front Engine Bay

So after the body fit and bodywork, I wanted to complete the front engine bay properly so that I could leave the shell on, the jobs were;

* Fit battery tray
* Lower clutch reservoir due to fowling on bodywork
* Fit L brackets for wiring so can reach direct to headlights without joiners (will be under 300mm for IVA)
* Cover over final cables with conduit
* Put conduit on brake hose which before was cable tied directly.

So firstly the battery tray was easy enough, 3 holes drilled to fit it and then drilled two holes so that the battery can be clamped down on to the tray like it would be in any normal car. The battery can be fitted without the need for removing other parts which is good because I did think it would be close.

Next I fitted the L brackets for the headlight wiring and again this was easy enough. Then I lowered the clutch reservoir, I simply made a plastic template with 4 holes to move it lower. Once it was lowered I actually ignored it until I saw a lot of fluid leaking, I nipped up the clamp a little but made no difference...eventually it all leaked out, when I took the reservoir off it had a hole torn in it, maybe it was on too tight and when I moved it I disturbed it enough to cause it to break. Luckily I had a spare so fitted that to solve the problem.

The brake hose between the master cylinder and reservoir previously was just cable tied directly to stop it moving, I then realised this would fail IVA as it could chaff and cause a hole, so I placed some conduit around it and refitted it. At the same time I moved the two master cylinder hose connectors in opposite directions to give a larger gap between them. This is for the windscreen wiper to allow to have enough room and not foul on the pipes.

The only thing not completed in the front area and centre console area for that matter is the aircon system. Simply put its been near on impossible to find a mobile aircon expert to make the pipes I require. So this will be completed once I can drive the car to a place after the test and I'm on the road, it could be a hot summer for a while!

The picture below is the completed front engine bay with the relevant parts labelled.

The majority of the work recently had been on fitting trim seals so the bodywork to chassis was an airtight / good fit. However it went horribly wrong and the shell just would not fit. The issue is i'm afraid to say is the panels on the car are just very poor and not symetrical or even straight edges compared to the fibreglass.

When I look at the metal side panels where the fibreglass shell is placed on it one area has an air gap with light coming through, another is so tight with no light / gap and hence when fitting the rubber the shell could not attach to the chassis properly and drop low enough.

The advantage of the trim seal was it pinned my carpet up so I will need to come up with a new solution for the carpet and to stop the air gaps. You cant see these airgaps normally without looking for them....but I know they are there.

Windscreen Wiper, Bodywork, part protection

So I've continued with bodywork prep whilst the shell has been on the chassis as it gives me a nice platform to work on, so I'm filling and sanding a lot including the other arch. Its still far from perfect but much better then it was and a professional will do the final bits closer to the spray time, however I should of saved a fair few hours work.Whilst doing the bodywork I lined up the front bumper just to get an idea of fitting. By having this big area at the front removable should make the car quite serviceable on part if something broke or needed replacing.

You can see the difference in colour alone between the worked on body compared to the front bumper.

The door hinges and mounting plates are made of steel and the weather is getting to them so again parts have gone off for zinc coating to protect them. Below are pics of some of the rusted parts and then a pic of a coated part.

These parts can all be seen so they will now look like OEM car bits and of good quality.I also cut the door seal trim to size for fitting and went for a side seal as it should seal the door better and keep more water out, around the top of the door as this is the key area. The seals on the DDR Demo car were straight seals which can be seen in their pics. If its not quite right then they can easily be changed.

I next had to install a wiper solution, I found out the wiper on the DDR car doesn't actually fully work. so I had to complete a design to get the mechanism in, so that's the motor, linkage and the actual pivot point, as well as this of course I had to ensure the sweep of the blade cleared the vital areas of the windscreen.

I had a bracket made and the motor was mounted just to the left of the front bonnet allowing for easy disconnect of the linkage (which will be needed)

Following on from this I had to decide on where to mount the single wiper, some mount single wipers in the centre of the Windscreen but if I did this it wouldn't clean enough of the windscreen as the area is large, so the mount is quite far over to give me a longer wiper arm, however I had to find a position that meant it didn't fowl on any other parts when running. You can see I had to extend the linkage in the middle. this solution doesn't foul and hit the reservoirs or hoses.

Rather than increase the angle range of the wiper to around 140 Degrees, I've kept the wiper at a standard 90 degree sweep angle. (like a normal 2 wiper system works) so the wiper will sweep up and vertical on the drivers side giving a good clean for forward vision. to help further I've taken an MR2 wiper arm and it will be extended slightly to allow for a blade around 28" in size, by having a large blade it should be able to clean a larger area as well.

The IVA has rules to meet on sweep cycles, the MR2 system meets these requirements so I wont need to make any altering.

I test fitted the passenger door and it doesn't shut properly (just does the first click on the latch) I found the door bodywork had been sanded to get it to even click on to that latch in some areas. So there could be a lot of work to do on the doors....but that will be for another day (or probably week of work) and be almost near the end of the projects when the doors are worked on.

Interior progression, Windscreen test fit and bodyshell

First of all I continued on with the interior, starting with making a cardboard templete of what the centre console will be like, I've made this out of cardboard to get a feel for the design as I decided where things will go.

Following this I installed the rear sound deadening and carpet, as well as sealing the carpet along the roof lining with some rubber door trim as this then sealed nicely to the body to help work towards an air tight interior to keep noise out. Seat belt anchorages were welded with triangulation plates and threaded bushes to meet IVA requirements and the seat belt hook eyes were fitted as well were the seats. Everything went in without an issue and the seats are on runners for adjustable seating to allow shorter people to drive it as well, being 6ft 1 I still have to bring the seat quite far forward although headroom is tight.

Once this was done I needed to test fit the body ready for a windscreen test fit. (the Windscreen is an E marked screen I've had made). The body went on very easily and sat neatly in position, not forced at all and everything lined up. It was actually very easy and the fibreglass being so strong due to its thickness didn't to appear to of suffered from any large amount of sagging over the 6 months its been sat around.

So on saturday morning the windscreen arrived and we gave it its test fit, apart from deciding we potentially should add some supports to the fibreglass on the sides to help keep it more rigid it was a good fit.

Again the shell showed just how strong it was during this test fit and it really is very well made, the only issues with the shell are some pitting on the edges from a lot of release wax or in some cases missing gel coat (probably from the other extreme!) However its only body work and with hours of working it can get you to the point you want it.

So I then spent the day working on the body work, 6hours and I have one wheel arch and half a side to show for my efforts but if I get it up to even a 90% finish it will save a lot of time in the body shop, below is one front wheel arch and you can see the bottom edge of the skirt is much straighter.

Before:

After:

Whilst the shell is on its allowed me to look into the windscreen wiper solution which will be worked on over the next few weeks and also noticed that the clutch cap fowls on the front bonnet (you'll notice its not shut in the pics) so this will need to be lowered slightly.

The rear clam shell closed on to this main body work with clips at the top and 2 locating spikes per side on the rear, these appear to be made of steel and not lasting well, so those have been replaced with some stainless steel ones.

The shell will stay on the chassis for a week allowing me to do work I need to do to it, however it will then be back off allowing me to work on other bits of the car again. The main bits at the front I need to do are the battery tray and the clutch reservoir. I also will order and then apply the relevant door trim for sealing in the cabin when I next fit the body, but overall a very good weekend.

Other things I found out;

* Wiring will reach directly from chassis to lights meeting IVA spacing - no more connectors needed
* Getting out with any sort of dignity will be asking alot
* Its going to be quite low! May be road restricted or in the future in car height adjustable suspension might be needed!
* Headlights will  need replacing with RHD ones

Bodywork and Interior

So continuing on from previous prep work, I moved on to the rear. The panels had what look to be gel coat patches. I'm not actually sure what they are called so I had to remove them with some wet and dry sandpaper as well.

Before

After

You can see clearly the difference; next in terms of the bodywork will be to use the gel coat repair that I've ordered to fill and smooth holes and missing bits just to give an overall clean finish. That way I hope the car will be good enough to wrap, if not a lot more work will be needed.

The wrapping wont take place till after the IVA test and the car is cleared to be on the road in case of any bodywork that needs to be changed to pass the test.

Following this I've continued work on the dashboard. Although covered I unfortunately did get wrinkles when fitting. This was never going to be my strong point and it was more about getting a good fit and base so it didn't look out of place. following the test and the fitting of additional bits ill then get it professionally upholstered to a nice finish. However as Dashs go in a kit car I'm pretty happy with it.

The colours is actually Grey but the lights in the garage make it look brown, hopefully some outside pics soon will shown that. The next stage is for the rear seat belt anchorages to be welded and once that's done the rear sound proofing can be fitted followed by the carpet on the rear firewall. Then the seats can be put in both sides and the top cover piece for the dashboard can be made to fit the final instruments too.

As well as the above i have started to go around all the suspension and axles tightening everything up and replacing nuts with Nyloc's. I hadn't done this to date simply to make taking bits on and off easier.

Carpet fitting and bodywork preping

After fitting the sound deadening, I got some carpet from Coverdale. The quality is actually pretty good and easy to work with.

I started with the passanger side fitting, this was the harder side with the relays and wiring.

I then moved on to the drivers side and fitted the centre console as this pinned the carpet in place. In the photo below it shows the back side plate, this will be indented to give more foot space.

I'll now cover the final foot plate and fit the interior parts when I get the dashboard back. You'll notice I haven't covered the front firewall and this is on purpose to not risk the carpet coming loose and getting stuck on the pedals.

With the weather good I decided to start the prep on the bodywork, the first was to paint all the inside of the fibreglass black. I used a tough black spray paint. This should have good wear as well.

Following this I started work on the outside of the fibreglass shell. The shell had been outside over the winter although covered, so needed a clean however the gel coat Is far from perfect so some scratches and additional resin and lumps needed removing, the photos below show the work so far and the black inside.

The next two photos are of completed side and front end.

Car Interior, seat plates, Further sound deadening

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Back to the more interesting stuff, so following on from the covering of the rear cubby hole, I covered the centre console and the side panels and test fitted them with the dash.

They fitted well so I could move on, next was to find a solution to my additional dial issue, they couldn't go on the side of the big dials like designed as there wasn't the space, so I made a bracket of plastic to hold them in the centre and the same for the air con controls. I'm very happy with the look of where they will be and a nice finished plate will sit over the top, also mounted on this will be the 4 buttons I need

* Hazard
* Horn
* Brake test
* Fog Light

Once the dash was up to this stage I was happy for it to go to be covered. Although I've done the other pieces myself and I'm not using a professional yet. My mum will be able to do a bit of sewing to get a better fit then just sticking the fabric on. Although I don't mind it a bit rough, my attempt would of been really bad.

Following this I then fitted the weight spreader plates to the bottom of the chairs and the 9mm spacers, previously I was running 2x 9mm spacers so I've managed to drop the seats a good 5mm from their previous height which is good for head room.

I decided I was at the point of putting the velcro (for attaching the carpet) and sound deadening in. Normally you would probably complete as far as possible before doing all this, like getting all the messy jobs out the way, like test fitting the body and sanding any bits. I couldn't do this, I simply don't have the space! the body did come fitted so it will go back on again...somehow!

Before starting I had to empty of tools (space again) and clean the car of all dust to get the pieces to get a good stick to the surface. I even used acetone to remove any greases etc... The prep will make the biggest difference.

First I attached the velcro (hook side) to the floor and then placed the velcro piece on top still with the backing on...should lower the number of bits that get in it. I think fitted the floor 6mm closed cell sound deadening to the floor. Got to say I was impressed with it, it stuck really well but you still had a few seconds to pull it off and try again!

You can see the plates and the lower bits for the chair runners in the photo above. Once the floor was done, it was on to the front wheel arches and firewall. These pieces had 15mm open cell foam to go on to absorb the noise. I started on the passenger side where the fusebox etc... was. I was advised to cover as much of the areas as possible, but with the velcro that wasn't totally possible and of course because of the dashboard ECU.

More sound deadening was added above the loom after the picture was taken.

I continued this on including the door side walls, it took me a total of 8 hours to do all you see below and I still have the main rear firewall to do.

Biggest lesson learnt...the floor foam is good enough to have the velcro stuck to the top giving you better coverage, its too late for me but hopefully the next person can do that instead and stop more noise.

Dashboard, centre console and interior

So following on from the last update on the dashboard, I took the centre console from the MR2 and looked to adapt it to fit, so first of all the gear surround hole had to be made much larger as the shifter is further back from the dash.

Once id done this I could see the top cover isnt really quite wide enough to cover the centre and 2x 9mm MDF, so one side has MDF and the other side has plastic, the reason for this is on the drivers side I have put the handbrake down by the side of the seat so by doing it like this its easier to use the handbrake as well.

I then started to make up the side panels for the MDF piece on the tunnel.

By doing it the way I mentioned you can see I have managed to incorporate the storage boxes at the back as well so this will give somewhere to put little bits, as the dash itself wont have many cubby holes.

When fitting the dash I had to tilt it a bit down to get the centre console and the dash to meet well and even then I had to add some body filler as shown in the picture above to make the meeting area a bit nicer. When doing this it was important to confirm that the dials would still fit.

Once I was happy with that it was time to take it all off and finish the wiring for good, my last piece to get done was the brake light switch, so with help from family a bracket was fabricated and a simple switch placed so when the brake pedal is pushed the circuit is broken. what's good is if the switch fails at any point its very easy to change.

With that done I went around securing all wiring and checking my gaps (maximum 300mm securing points) so all the front wiring is now secured, all cabin and the rear up until the ECU / Engine loom as that will need some specific brackets made. I secured the loom by using Self tapping screws and tie plates with zip ties. All the wiring will sit under the carpet and not be seen.

It is important the fuseboard is protected so I created a vanity footwell which will shield the fusebox, although I have no photos of this yet it will give a slightly smaller footwell but there's plenty of space anyway. Now the wiring was secure and placement decided I started to work on the venting for the dashboard, I learnt at this point an inch lower on the aircon would of made 10x easier! But ill work with what I've got and route the pipes.

I bought some air vents and cloth to cover the dash and centre console. I have weighed up getting it done professionally and in the end decided it wasn't worth it at this stage. From looking at most kit cars the dashs get modified further before people are happy, so ill do it myself and then once on the road and happy with how it looks ill get the console, dash and storage boxes done professionally. I managed to cover the storage box so far and I don't think it looks too bad although not perfect!

The next stage is fitting velcro around the edge of the floor to fit the carpet, I'm using Velcro so I can easily take it up when needed. Once I've put the velcro down I will then put the additional layer of sound proofing in as well around the velcro so the carpet fits snug and tight.