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Halfway there, George's energy was restored with gin and daydreams

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The situation at 9 March 2008

Chassis back from the welders

Mow the lawns or hoist the engine in place, mow the lawns or hoist the engine, mow, hoist, mow ...

Hoist engine in place, and arrange a few other items

Seats appear to have a nearby kidney warmer. Just the thing for winter motoring.

Now for a quiet hour sitting in the seat, drinking gin, listening to cricket, feeling bloody clever

And pretending that the next steps don't exist

Such as wiring hell.

Ahhh... that's enough reverie.

The situation at 14 July 2008

The devil is in the details

How to fit a large wide radiator into a narrow tall hole while at the same time building a truss that's strong enough to support the nose, yet collapsible in a collision. The upshot is a radiator fitting that is a Chinese puzzle. To install:

• Hold the radiator above the body, flat and oriented north south.
• Lower it through the body. Rotate it east west while sliding it over the chassis into a vertical position.
• Ouch, remember to wipe up the blood later.
• Assemble the seven mounting brackets. The knee bone's attached to the ankle bone... no err um.
• To remove, reverse the procedure. Do this 50 times until it all fits.

Still some ductwork and inner arches required. Inwards airflow may need an extra vent in the 'chin' of the nose. Outwards airflow should be great - maybe with a vent just behind the wheels.

Note that the battery is mounted on the floor just behind the radiator.

Woops. The starter motor didn't fit the chassis. So it's goodbye symmetry and purity, hello Mr Bodge.

The engine mount is a work of art but that exhaust manifold looks perilously close to the lower chassis rail. Shall I prepare the guest room for Mr Bodge?

But there is now a shark lurking in George's workshop. Da dum dah dumm dah dumm da da da da...

October 2008

Body removed, the car is moved from my workshop to the garage for assembly. The chassis makes the Citroen ZX look huge. It’ll be bloody frightening with 220bhp. By the way, don’t tell my wife, she thinks I’m hanging out the washing.

April 2009 Update

As you can tell from the pikkies, I've made good progress... prowling the garage.

Inner panel work - pretty it ain't, but I want it to have an edgy look. Electrical systems will go under the rear rusty coloured plate. Damn battery won't fit where I wanted it (behind the radiator) so I'll use one of those very nice Odyssey P608s which are only 80mm wide, although at nearly NZ$500 it will cost more than my current engine. (2012 update - too damn expensive. I've used a small automotive battery in a new location. See if you can find it).

Note the radiator pipes, nice and toasty on the hands. The steering column is an Audi ProConTen - I will lose the steering wheel tho'.

Audi steering doesn't quite reach the VW steering box and needed a third universal. While it looks Micky Mouse, all of the parts are automotive and splined, fasters are 8.8 or better and will eventually be pinned with castleated nuts, that manky spacer will go as will the bent coach bolt steering stop.

With the sparky systems on the driver's side, the passenger side has the lower radiator pipe, fuel and brake pipes.

The body is suspended from the rafters waiting for all those annoying details to be finished.

Slopped some silver paint on the inside of the body even though this will be almost impossible to see from the outside.

For an educated laugh I suggest you read "Ode to a Castleated Nut" by Gregg G Guydish.

June 2009 Update

Escape from the garage. Two midgets in the frame just for scale. I expect it will be ready when the youngest gets her driver's license.

The body shell is now fixed to the chassis with Carbond adhesive-sealant. Aluminium sheet has been glued to the inside of the body-shell to give an all-alloy appearance. The shell has a few nasty holes and pop rivets, put in to hold everything in place while the glue sets. A tidal wave of body filler will be needed to get this thing straight.

However, good news of a sort. I discovered that the crap shut lines I moaned about in July 2008 were caused by setting the rear engine cover hinge 50mm too low ( a whole 50mm!!! I must stop sniffing the solvents). This good news was quickly replaced by a fresh round of moaning when I investigated the hinge access.

October 2009 Update

Constructors' Car Club show off outside of Te Papa. Yikes nasty shut line on the engine cover.

"What'll she do Mister?"

October 2010 Update

Engine in - tight - it'll never get out of there in one piece.

Intercooler - optimistic that it will actually find a breeze. The 718's 'aircooled' airflow will help and maybe a scoop in the sills.

Steering wheel is now a Nardi Classico - much nicer.

Electrickery - club members adopt a puzzled stance. Wires labelled and taped to the body.

So much wire - so little space.

Good news, the ECU winks codes at me. Bad news, it says 'knock sensor knackered knock sensor knackered'. Is there a Subaru over 10 years old that has a knock sensor that works? Engine start inches closer.

Instruments are Speedhut from the USA. Good service, customisable and good range, and easy to install.

November 2010

With the big stuff done my time is being spent on small things that take time and fixing errors made all at the start of the build all those years ago.

Cock-ups abound of course. I spent Sunday afternoon inserting more torsion leaves into my VW beam axle front end. I thought I could get by with just the main torsion leaves in each beam, but with the engine in I had a ride height of just 70mm.

Curses, this meant I had to use full set of torsion leaves including the six half leaves. VW experts will know how grim this task is. Pull off the ball joints – but watch out as the trailing arm snaps around like a bear trap. Remove the arm and old leaves and, as Haynes would say, ‘repair and reassemble in reverse order’.

Frustratingly, the leaves have to be driven through an eye in the middle of the beam. After a two hour game of ‘thread the heavy greasy bendy multi-pronged needle’, I found the way to go was to assemble the leaves outside of the beam using a spare torsion eye – we all have one of these lying around. Tack weld the end of the springs together taking care not to cook the springs - the tack only has to last until the springs are fitted. Then play ‘thread the heavy greasy not-bendy single-pronged needle’. With the touch of a safe cracker feel for the eye. Got it? Snot the springs in with a big hammer.

Ride height has gone up to 90mm. If I put the full set of top leaves in as well I might get 110mm.

February 2011

Another chance to show off. Constructors' Car Club 'Skite Night'.

Another club member's car. Pete's a genius. There's a mid engine subaru turbo'd Mazda MX5 underneath that classy bodywork.

October 2011

Current update: the car is mobile and can be driven highly illegally up and down the suburban street outside my house.

I drove it out of the garage and into the rain on its first drive. I was soaked but it was a huge thrill. I gave it about 3000 rpm and let the clutch off quickly. Instantly the two rear tyres spun up on the wet pavement with no forward movement. This with 215 road tyres designed for the wet. Oh dear, I thought, this car is going to be a handful when I give it the wellie. I have a button that turns the turbo down to 7lb from 12lb when needed. I suspect it will always be turned down!!!

The engine fluffed a bit and wouldn't idle evenly - that's what you get for $500 I suppose.

Now a funny thing happened. The car ran rougher and rougher. It wouldn’t idle and made all sorts of pops, bangs and farts. Then it stopped in the middle of the road and I suffered the ignominy of being pushed back into the garage by my neighbours. Air leak? Sensor buggered? Air idle valve? Pump? No, no, no, and no. Perhaps a very low voltage? I hooked up the instruments to check. The fuel gauge didn’t register, bugger, wired wrong? Lost its settings? Then it dawned on me. Any gas? I peered in the tank. None. Disbelieving my own eyes, I dipped the tank. None! Over the year 10 litres of fuel had … well… evaporated. Jeez. I’ll replace the fuel cap neck fibre gasket with a neoprene gasket because I could actually see the fumes condensing on the around the neck.

On my next fill I added Wynn’s Fuel injection cleaner. Then while the engine ran I fired carb cleaner into the intake to clean the idle air valve. The engine spluttered like a five year old on a spoonful of castor oil. I’ve never really believed in magic-in-a-bottle solutions, but it worked. The engine purrs like a kitten.

Next sunny weekend I was taking passengers and my wife was called on to film the happy event.

It actually works. Video proof is attached below

All smiles today

February 2012

Now to straighten the body. See the story. Flatout The black dry guide coat shows where the effort is needed. Instruments of torture are displayed. (The longboard is sure to produce a flat surface and a rotator cuff injury). Note that the shutlines are now ok, and I've adopted a more conventional radiused rear wheel arch.

May 2012

I've abandoned the air to air intercooler. I didn't believe that it would get enough ambient air. I added fans and a water spray before I realised I was chasing my own tail. Furthermore, the intake pipe runs were getting long and I suspected I'd comprised my objective of a responsive turbo engine.

Instead I used the standard Subaru water to air intercooler and radiator plus a Ford Cobra pump.

I may even flip the intake manifold to shorten the intake run further and swap out the radiator for a motorcycle radiator with a greater core area, but that fits better.

Gill vents have been cut. These are larger than those on the original. My research shows that in the original the air flow was in through the bum and out through the gills, thanks to air that swirled over the cockpit and into the bum as well as a very large Porsche fan. I plan (hope??) the right-hand side vent is a cool air feed to the intake with the air then passing back over the exhaust. The left hand side cools the intercooler radiator. The key will be low pressure over the bum vents. I am prepared to add scoops to the side of the car and two little spoilers at the rear.

The vents are set in flaps that open to access water and oil fill points. This required more anxiety-inducing cutting of the clamshell. I've used Dzus fasteners and stainless hinges

The bum vents are now the correct shape. The grill is a chromed sponge cake cooling tray. I've had a stainless steel trim laser cut to tidy the edge.

This pix shows the front cover, fuel cell and other furniture.

August 2012

Race car engineer, Ron, is working on details of an MNZ homologated roll hoop. It’s more complicated than usual because it has removable backstays - so that the clamshell can swing open. The rear attachment point also carries the coil-over. Ron reinforced it to met MNZ rules. In a fit of enthusiasm I had assumed it would fit outside of the cabin on the back of the rear firewall and cut holes in the clamshell to suit. Ron says, “Wouldn’t it be easier to fit it inside the cabin?” He’s right of course, so more holes in the fibreglass to patch.

September 2012

Oh boy, I just haven't got the skills or time for all that sanding and body prep. I put on a layer of filler, I sand off a layer of filler, add a layer, sand a layer... but it it's still bumpy.

And I'm not confident that Epiglass Perfection paint will give me the finish I need using just a brush, despite what it says on the tin... No silver in their colour range either.

So it's off to the professionals.

October 2012

Return from the painters. Now that's what it is supposed to look like.

I showed this photo to some fool and they said "yes, their father built model cars too!" All subsequent photos will have a background that shows the scale.

Video Update February 2013

May 2013

Long time away from the hobby touring the South Island.

George's long suffering partner gets a look in...

Latte at Mt John Observatory, Tekapo. Kiwis can produce a good coffee anywhere.

Recent effort has gone into the instruments and dash. I'm not trying to replicate the RSK here - just a 1960s look. Previous stalks have been discarded in favour of more prototypical dash switches. Goodbye self cancelling indicators. Dip switch on the floor just like my old Humber 80. Of course this meant rewiring everything...

The clock in the centre also houses an odo stripped from a VW speedometer.

Details. Cake cooling trays now have brightwork. Rear lights are Lucas Beehive 594 replicas. Front indicators are Lucas 488 replicas.

Does my bum look big in this

Details abound in this photo - the last 20% takes 80% of the time eh? Windscreen is cold formed 2mm polycarbonate. It's fastened to A pillars which are really cut down drawer handles. Side screens are 3mm acrylic and hinge outwards. I'll write an article about the glassware later as I learned a few hard lessons.

Exterior mirrors are fixed to the side screen as I couldn't bear to drill the body.

Finally the completion list. Maybe only two years to go... ha ha.

June 2013

Safety warning!!!! This is a VW (clone) hydraulic brake switch that failed on first use following brake bleeding. My master cylinder has two. BOTH failed on first use and in the same way. Push the brake pedal with emergency stopping pressure. Bang, the switch blows out, and fluid and pressure is instantly lost. Brake fluid leaks around the switch seal and pressurises the plastic body of the switch. The spring then punches through the insulator followed by all of the brake fluid.

Proceed towards the scene of your accident. LETHAL.

I shall be advising Aircooled.net. Goodness knows how this product is received in the litigious USA. I had to rebleed the brakes twice at a cost of $20 of DOT4 and a lot of swearing, but I've still got my life.

Later, in sober reflection I realised this dodgy part was trying to tell me something. The brake pedal lever arm is 8.2:1 and the master is a small 19mm diameter. The floor mounted brake doesn't arc properly (if 0 degrees is vertical then the pedal should arc say -10 to +10 to give a straight push on the push rod. Instead at a guess it arcs -5 to +15 or worse. As a result the effective ratio is much higher at the end of the arc. With this much force I was massively over pressuring the brake lines – maybe over 3,500 psi . Web world says disc brake pressures require about 1,200 psi with 2,000 psi in a stomp. I know this depends on caliper size too. I read about cases where at higher pressures calipers begin to flex and blow seals, and other points will flex as well. This explains the two blown hydraulic brake light switches.

Most VW drum to disc conversions recommend a 20.6mm master (CSP) for 4 wheel discs, which was also a T3 squareback size. I'll shift the lever point to 6:1 first. However, I can see myself going down the 20.6 route.

Nevertheless I am now using a microswitch on the brake pedal to activate the brake lights. No more pressure switches for me.

On the same safety note, I replaced an 'imported' steering U-joint with a Flaming River product. The imported U-joint worked fine but......

July 2013

The car is off to a Constructors Car Club show and tell. I've treated it to a wash.

Period decals. These are from http://www.isaydingdong.co.uk/ (Nurse Bedpan ooh eeerr).

The task list is almost finished. Biggest job left is to replace a fabricated adapter on the Merc upright. It's migged but for certification it's supposed to be tigged. I'll take the opportunity to redesign it and get the components laser cut. One of my mates said, you'll build everything twice. So true, so true.

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