Odds & Sods

With my brother visiting I thought it would be a good opportunity to make so decent progress and also finish off some 2 person jobs.

Whilst I finalised the driver side front tunnel panel Jordan set to work on removing the driveshafts from the old Sierra subframe. These are now ready to be cleaned and painted before fitting in a couple of weeks. I had a few moments spare so clamped in the remaining footwell panels. This photo was taken later in the day.



The next task was to rebuild the suspension wishbones as the supplied bolts were too big. These look great rebuilt with nice fresh looking bolts. The feeling of another completed job was good and spurred us onto the next task of the day; the upper steering column. We stuck the stalks on for effect!



Final job of the day was to look at laying down the rear brake lines. I could only start this task as without my master cylinder I couldn't finalise the task. Front to rear line is screwed in until such time that rivets are required.




The back end is fitted but only finger tight.




All seems to be going ok on the build - so far!

Panels & Pedals

My aim this weekend was to fit the tunnel panel on the driver's side and make a start on the pedals. All went well ahead of the weekend, I managed to find the time to do a trial fit and drill the tunnel panel so all I needed to do on Saturday was lay down some adhesive and start riveting. I tell you, I'm glad I only went with 4" gaps otherwise I would have seriously started considering the need for a automatic rivet gun! All went well, the panel was cut nicely by GBS so it literally popped straight in.



My next job was to assemble the pedal bracket, the joy of more bushes. After studying a few blogs I think I've got it right!







Looks like I will need the shorten the metal insert for the bush but I thought I'd leave this for another day. You will notice that currently I only have the clutch & brake medals in, this is how it's meant to look. I believe the accelerator sits on a different bolt, I'll give it a go and see!

All in all a good weekend and more progress made. I'm keeping up with my schedule and things are taking shape, steadily.

Differential, Rear panel & Wishbones

My weekend started with a Friday trip up to Hereford to visit the Raw factory with Mike. He's after his next build, a Raw Striker (http://rawstrikerbuild.blogspot.com/). It was a good day and I actually picked up a few ideas for the Zero build. Looks like my build will include black ETB instruments and possibly Fox gunmetal alloys as currently fitted to the Striker demo car.

Saturday came about and I was eager to continue on my build and put in a serious amount of time. The first job was to finish fitting the differential, apart from a dose of Loctite 243 this is now fitted & complete. It was a bit of a struggle, 2 of the bolts didn't line up and after a bit of a fight with the car I got it bolted in. Not sure if my troubles were linked to the powder coated chassis or just that the holes were slightly out of line with my diff.

Following on from the differential I wanted to have a go at the rear wishbones. I thought these would look good installed and show some real tangible progress. Greedy really! So I got stuck in trying to fit the wishbone bushes. Copper Ease made my life so much easier and after a couple of hours I had the all of the bushes complete. Then it was time to build the wishbones and fit the Gaz shocks.

The driver's side hasn't gone in perfectly but I will try refitting this during the coming week or so. The passenger side has fitted perfectly, my only build issue is that the supplied bolts seem a little long! These will be replaced before I attempt to tighten up for good. Trial fitting took the rest of Saturday and a couple of hours on Sunday. It was then time to finished up and settle down for the Monza GP.

That wasn't it for the weekend, I just couldn't wait to fit the rear back panel. So I put the panel in for a test fit, perfect fit (thank you GBS!), so it was time to mark up for riveting. This done I then enlisted Lydia's help to lay down some adhesive and refit the panel without ending up with Sikaflex 221 all over the chassis! End result, the panel is clamped in ready to be riveted during the week.

Day one of many.............

Day one, thought it was best that I cleared the parts away and make the garage a little more accessible. Boring task but it was good to work out all the parts and start thinking about the build.

Also managed to make a start on the actual build, got the differential 2/3 fitted. I think with a little more time I should have the 2 remaining bolt secured. Thank you to Lydia for helping push the bolts in as I was supporting the diff, had forgotten quite how heavy that it was!

Only trouble I have now is working out what I need to do next....................

Collection Day!

Collection day has finally arrived and to say I was a little bit excited was an understatement! The day started early, 6am for a trip up to Stafford to drop off my brother new house bits then across to Newark. On arrival I had a quick look round the workshop, nice to see so many cars in progress but one caught my eye.

If mine looks at tidy as this then I'll be very happy. After the quick workshop tour we had a check that all the parts were there and then got round to loading.  Hadn't realised there were quite so many parts and we filled the van.

Wasn't too sure how to fit it all in the garage, the first attempt was a mess! Anyway it was too late in the day and to be fair I just wanted it all out the van!

Thank you to Jordan for all the help with collecting the kit, you might have earned a ride in the car once its finished!

First job of the build, tidy the garage.