Thursday, 25 December 2008

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone! Thanks for reading the blog!

Steve & Adele

Sent from my iPhone

Sunday, 14 December 2008

At the paint shop!

So today with the aid of Spencer and his trailer we took the body shell and parts into Curbishley Automotive for Martin to work his magic! The past few days have been spent mocking things up and then stripping the car down! We can't wait to see the results.

While the body is away being painted its time for us to work on the floorpan and have it completely painted and rebuilt in time for the body to be reunited again!

Curbishley Automotive headquarters!

Out of the trailer...

And into the body shop and discussions on paint!! Work will begin in earnest on Monday for all of us!

Saturday, 13 December 2008

Ready for the paint shop!

Well this week I have been really busy getting the rest of the things mocked up as the body is off to Martin Curbishly's tomorrow for paint! The bonnet has been drilled to accept the bonnet handle and all the trim and the rear wings have been drilled in the correct position for the tail lights. The doors have both now been 'lightened' and the inner frame cut for a 1 one piece window. A few pics below..



So this was the inner frame that needed to be cut away to allow a single piece of lexan to fit.

And this is the end result, just a little bit of tidying up and its good to go! You can just make the holes in the door I have drilled to help lighten it. Once the door card is fitted the holes will not be seen!
I was also able to trial fit the Aeromotive fuel pump and filter after finally ordering the proper billet mount for it! I was originally planning on running the pump under the tank on the bulkhead but there wasn't enough room! Plus this way there is easy access if there is a problem!

Tomorrow Spencer will be round in the morning and it the body will be off for paint at last!

Sunday, 7 December 2008

It's home!

Yesterday Spencer delivered the car home to us and yet again we were blown away by the finishing work Chris has done on the car! A huge thanks to Spencer for his help in picking up and delivering the car :)

Today, with a day off work, I managed to spend the full day on the car getting parts mocked up and just generally checking out the car!! Check out the photo's below!



First picture as the car came off the trailer!



On the driveway about to pushed in the garage as I had to go to work!



This is how the rear T handle has been mounted, done so the handle hasn't been cut down and also it gives a resting point on the valance so when the dzus fasteners are removed the decklid doesn't come flying off!



Dzus mounting bracket for the decklid, also makes the decklid stand off.



Rear view of the valance, you can see the mounting points for the decklid and also the dzus fasteners for holding the valance on..



These are the dzus fastneres which act as support brackets for the rear valance. The set-up is really strong and there is no movement from the rear end.



The valance is bolted on the sides to the rear wings which allows the whole rear end to come off like this! This makes for really quick access to the engine if required! It does take 2 people to remove if your wondering.



Another one of Chris' ideas! Instead of welding tabs onto the body he made this strip which is bolted the body along with the wing beading and then of course the wings are dzus fastened onto this! The main reason for this was to not have to mess about with the wing beading everytime the wings came off.



To the front and the fibreglass bonnet has also been dzus fastened on..



Front end all on..







We mocked up a few things today..



Looking like a car again! Yes the front end needs narrowing and lowering some more!!



PowderPuff headquarters!

So now the plan is to get as much done as I can this week before I go to work at 10am and then next week we are hoping its off to paint!!

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

New gearbox!

I drove down to Middlesex today to vist Peter Englezos from Cogbox and pick up our new IRS gearbox. I'll post the full specs later but its basically a Type 1 IRS single side cover (SSC) case with spool and a whole host of goodies! While I was there I also picked up a pair of Sway Away race axles and a solid rear mount and a solid nose cone mount. The bug will be back in our own workshop next weekend and we have lots to do!!


Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Quick Update...

We seem to be finally getting somewhere with the car now, just waiting for the OK to pick it up from Chris's.

We realistically have 16 weeks or 112 days to get the car finished which would leave us with just over a week until the Volksworld show. I would like to think that it will be done, at the moment we pretty much have all the funds sorted to fully complete the build (touch wood!) thanks to some sponsorship for the paint also. It feels like we have come on more in the last 6 months that we have in the last 3 years!!

From This To This

There are just a few more things that we need to mock up before the car can go across to Martins for the paint in early december . Lets just hope that after all the hard work that my back can keep up with it :)

Friday, 7 November 2008

Narrowed A Arms

Well it was another mission today to get some work done on the car! After last sunday at Chris' we dropped the A Arms off to Wayne Allman to get narrowed and being the guy that he is, they were done and ready to go Wednesday night! My best friend Adie Harper kindly picked them up for us and we finally got them this morning! They have been narrowed a total of 1" per side and Wayne has done an absolutey cracking job as usual. I cannot recommend Wayne (and Chris) highly enough for their fabrication skills! Once we had picked up the A Arms at 6am this morning we drove down to Peter at Cogbox to pick up a gearbox casing which we could be used for mock up. Our gearbox wasn't quite ready so Pete had sorted out a bare case which was perfect for what we needed! From Pete's we then headed over to Chris' 'shop and got everything fitted up. Pics below!

As you can see the bearing carrier was cut out and repositioned the maximum of an inch further in giving us more clearence on the rear.

We arrived at Chris' to find our 4cm wider rear wings had arrived from CSP which we got a cracking deal through Micheal at Machine 7. You can tell here that they are wider but once everythings all button'd up and painted they will look a treat.

Chris also made a really cool bracket to house the staging brake right next to the shifter.

He had also fitted our custom Simpson Window net..

After that we got cracking, gearbox going in..

This was a really cool part, the engine going in!

We then got all the A Arms and brakes back on for a trial fit of everything, we are super chufted with the results!

Packing up and tucked in for the night!!

The car is due back from Chris' with all his work complete in less than 2 weeks! We can't wait!

Sunday, 2 November 2008

Photo Update

Well today we drove the 400 mile round trip down to Chris' in Wickford, Essex to pick up the A Arms and check out the car! Yet again Chris' work just amazes us! The man is a genius!!! The arms are being dropped off to another metal work genius Wayne Allman tomorrow ready to be narrowed an inch! Anyways the photos..!

To get the correct position for the funny car style (which is quite a bit further back in the car than stock seats) the shifter needed to be moved 5" backwards. See below pics!

The driving position feels great, no stretching for the shifter or being too close up front.


The removable steering wheel is complete now, the wheel is fitted with a Mark Williams quick release adapter. The quick release is one of the nicest kits we've seen and although its got small splines there is a 'master' spline to ensure you are fitting the wheel in the correct position!

These are the mounts for the 5 point harness, the bottom mount is for the crotch strap, the other mounting points are on the cage and a threaded plate welded into the tunnel. You can also make out in the bottom picture a support mount off the tunnel for the seats.

Some more detail shots of the seats, very comfy they are too!

Another one of my ideas was to fit a vertical bar to the door exactly in place of where the stock quarter light would be, the idea being once the bar was chromed it would from the outside resemble a stock quarter light...

I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, they should look cool once they are chromed!

And finally the all important chassis builders tag. Incredibly proud of this!!