I’ve had some time off work so decided to exhume the chassis and get going again.
Having removed al the cr*p that was covering it I wheeled it out into the sunlight for a quick photo shoot. I span it round and wheeled it back in.
I’ve also bought the new Haynes book “build your own sports car on a budget” as it is more geared for using a sierra.
From the book I have used the plans to make my own seats, from cardboard first.
I’ve also started to strip the steering rack. I have the ball joints off and a good idea of how the shortening will work.
Spent 3 hours on the “the Car yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it.
So, I’m making plans for the next steps.
Floor pan has been 95% fully welded in, just a couple of short seams to finish, but the welded had to cool down so I went in.
I have the back end to complete and get the rear suspension made so that will be my next goal…
Well as you can probably guess, there has not been much to report recently
New additions to the family have quite rightly taken priority.
However things appear to be settling in to some sort of routine now, as a result I have managed to get outside
The chassis has not changed, but the donor has lost a good few pounds.
Pics will follow soon
Progress, not a lot, but progress.
The sheet of steel that is to be the floor pan is now 5 smaller pieces. Two of which perfectly fir the appropriate holds in the chassis. Two more to go, then weld ‘em in!
Once the floor pan is done, I’ll complete the rear end..
Photos to come…
So what have I done?
Not a lot actually, I successfully managed to side track myself with my new hobby, air rifle shooting, and have been busy in the garage designing and making various air rifle targets that are now for sale here.
So the car.. what’s happened..?
I have primed the front wish bones
Assembled the hubs and attached the front wheels!
I have also welded a plate of steel to front of the chassis to between chassis rails LD and E
Suspension mount at the front has been fully welded and “mock” springs made to substitute the lack of real ones
Next goal is to weld in the floor pan.
I’m getting into the garage much more at the mo, so with luck and dedication there should be some progress (oh and my eldest daughter Mia will be driving next year, a bet was made that it would not be ready for her to learn in - I don’t want a pile of bits - if I should fail it should be a close thing )
Front suspension… Done. All bar a lick of paint.
Bracket on, welds cleaned up and primer sprayed
I’ll let the primer harden for a bit then pop in the bushes.
Then I have the top coil over bracket to locate and weld onto the chassis.
Well, I failed my target! However I have made some good (for me!) progress.
All wishbones are welded up, the bottom ones have the plate fully welded in place.
All that needs doing is the brackets welding in place, a little cleaning up with the grinder
and a splash of paint.
Then it is onto the rear… or may be the engine.. or the floor pan!!!!!..
Well I’ve done it again… Huge gap.
So what’s happened? Well, Dad has cleaned up the rear hub carriers on his lathe, they look lovely now.
I’ll be reusing the hub carriers from the sierra, they have been cut off from the funny swing\trailing arm thingy that Ford
supply. I’ll be making my own contraption to connect up to the de-dion and trailing arms.
So thanks Dad! they are great.
Picked up some tubing for the de dion bar. It is 2.5mm x 50mm square section tubing.
Not the best solution but should be more than man enough, it’ll be welded in the middle
in a way similar to the GTS tube.
In the photo gallery you can see the progress with the front wish bones, I’m pleased with them.
I have to remake the bottom bones as I messed the first set up.
Still the benefit is I will be using the larger CDS tube (25mm) to prevent the bending
some Locost users have experienced.
**TARGET** - for me!
Get the front end rolling by the end of Nov!!!
Not a huge task but… I am playing with making my own resetting air rifle targets and designing and
making a new stock for my air rifle… so plenty of distractions available!
Spent a fair bit of time experimenting with the foundry and burner
nothing really to show, prototype waste oil burner was cool!
Stripped nearly everything off the engine, jet washed it and managed to rest the chassis over it.
See the photo gallery for this month for more.
Ordered more bits, 2 x Landrover engine mounts at £3 odd each and a Westfield type 9
gear box mount at £12ish see costs page for more detail.
….hmmm..big gap.
6 full months of nothing. I guess I have suffered ‘motivation block’. I’d go into
the garage and be totally unable to ‘get into it’ - the enjoyment had gone…
So I would go back into the house.
I can’t believe its been 6 months though!
Anyway, I’m back!!!.
Had a rustle round the garage and started the jig for the bottom wishbones and…
….enjoyment!! again!!! So motivation is back up - hence the update..
Lets see if I can get this thing rolling over the next few months?@%*&£???
More to come….
Started work on the rear but ran out of tubing so that slowed things down
Completed the bulk of the bending brake, will post some piccies soon…
also did some experimentation with a home made pipe bender, this will be used for the back curves
and possibly the wishbones.. not sure yet…
Made some investigations on home foundries for melting aluminium - this looks cool so temporarily got side tracked onto that..
More on that to come in it’s own little section…perhaps
Engine is out! Stripping final things off the bulkhead… brake cylinder, pedal box etc still needs to be done.
As a result of a thread in the locostbuilders forum I had a kind offer from a local builder
to ream my hubs out ready for maxi ball joints. Very pleased with that.
The big supprise was that he did not want anything for it!!!!!!!
Anyway, as his lovely Leugo is nearly ready to be SVA’d I’d decided a nice drop of Lanson would be in order
when it passes. So I dropped the bubbly off when I collected my hubs.
You know who you are, thanks VERY much!!!
I’ve not mentioned your name as I don’t want you swamped in requests for free-bees, you’ll have your car to enjoy very soon!!!
Discovered that the Transit Track Rod ends are M20 thread… and a dodgy taper…
Dad had a go at cutting the thread but the make shift die was not up to it
so I decided to buy the tubes made up…. £4.00 each from Lolocost while i was there id decided topick up some
lock nuts, Transit DRAG links M18 x 1.5 grand total £31.00.
Order turned up a couple of days after faxing the details over, unfortunately one of the ball joints was missing
So I called Robinhood and spoke to Sheena. Very helpful!!! She did some investigations and agreed to pop one in the post
It turned up a day or two later - Well done Lolocost! (a.k.a Robin Hood Sports Cars)
Now I have all the bits I can start considering the front wish bones…
I have noticed that the taper for the mushrooms is different to the Transit ball joints …
But a quick call to GTS and I was reassured that this was to allow “pre-loading” of the mushrooms?
Not entirely convinced of this, so if you know any different let me know, please
In the meantime, I have been fiddling with the diff and I am pleased with the result. I had to move the back most uprights of the tranny tunnel
to give better clearance and improved positioning of the diff, see July 2005 picture gallery…
I have also started working on a bending brake, this will be used for fashioning brackets, the rear de-dion hub carrier etc.
if it works well I’ll make a larger one to help with the fuel tank. Watch this space!!!
Things are moving on now. We have decided to move house so the car has to be rolling
before the move date (no date yet) so a renewed effort has been put in.
The donor cars has all but gone, just the engine and one wing left.
The rest has been taken to the dump.
Tubes G1 and G2 have been placed and fully welded, allowing an extra inch in the engine bay,
as advised by Mark Allanson on the Locost Builders site,
so that the starter motor will not occupy the same space. - Cheers Mark!
Made up a jig to sort out the alignment of the front suspension, I’m pleased with the way they have
gone on. Bottom brackets at the front are tacked on as is one of the top front brackets.
The jig will help me locate the correct position of the “FU” tubes.
This has been worrying me a little as I have strayed away from the book dimensions
a little and was not too sure of the impact this would have here.
Enlisted some help from my Dad to sort out the bush cases.
I have been unable to source some 21m ID tube so Dad suggested making our own on the lathe
from a 25m bar. We will also use this to make the top ball joint holders one I can locate
an M18 tap (or die - can never remember!)
I have also had problems sourcing the 4″ tube for the de dion hub carriers so I’m
currently considering square section carriers and de dion tube… the jury are out on this one..
Probably more research to do regarding this
Bought the Transit track rod ends from Camberley Auto factors - £6 a piece, they had to order
them specially and needed payment up front, which annoyed me as they could not take a credit card
over the phone, so it took two journeys to pick them up
Interestingly Camberley Autos could not get the Maxi ball joints until July 2005…!
So I dropped Darren at GTS an email enquiring on the current stock levels at GTS Tuning….
.. the response was “we have tons in stock, P&P £6.50″. So an order was duly placed on his site
for two Maxi ball joints at £16 each, 2 working days later they tuned up - Excellent service - again!
I can certainly recommend GTS!
Still slow progress.
Removed the front hub from donor and discovered someone on Locost Builders who was local and happy to ream out the hubs
Bought the metal from Metal Supermarkets for the suspension and a few other bits.
Did loads more pondering on the jig to get the front brackets right.
I think I’m happy with what I have.. (can I phone a friend or ask the audience?)
Still undecided on size of De Dion tube to use, or whether to use round or square.. Watch this space
Well it’s been a long time.
Not a huge amount of progress, the donor has lost a few more pounds
I’ve changed my mind on IRS. Hacked off some tubes and decided to go the de dion route instead
picked up loads of good info from Craig Chamberlains site
Replaced the hacked off tubes and spent ages mulling over the pros and cons of
how I should locate the front wish bones.
Bought the suspension bushes from Quiller Triumph
These arrived promptly.
Not a lot really for 4 months…..
Seems like there has been no update in ages.
Well things are progressing …..slowly
The Sierra is now just the engine bay, dash board, steering wheel and gear lever
everything else has been removed and stored or dumped.
The chassis is progressing well too. The main chassis section is pretty much fully welded
I’m going to have another look at the sub assembly at the front, being the first thing
I welded it is not quite up to scratch so I will whip it off and re-do it
I need to grind flat some of the welds and may give others another shot if they
don’t look good enough. Next will be to consider either the rear frame for the IRS or mount the front suspension brackets
Made some progress this month, but not a huge amount..
More of the chassis has been welded, I reckon I’m about two thirds of the way through
I decided to remove the 8x4 chipboard from the chassis and take it off my turntable
as it weighed loads and I was swinging it one way then the other and it was constantly in the way.
I half expected it to go “ping” and twist like a banana when I removed the clamps but it just simply sat there
That was a relief!
So the chassis is sat on the garage floor at the mo. I’ll probably mount it back in the turntable
but without the board, this will allow me to get inside it to complete the welding of all those hard to reach
areas. I also removed the back end of the Sierra, this was fun!
I spent ages with a jigsaw (and a VERY long hacksaw blade made to fit) and a disk grinder
trying to get through one of the chassis beams. Eventually I gave up and had go with
a hand held hacksaw…. It went through it like a hot knife through butter!!!! Couldn’t believe it
Still, the back end is off and ready to take a trip to the dump.
I’ll be making a start at getting the engine out soon
Ordered the cheep mushrooms for the sierra front suspension. These came through GTS Tuning
no problems with the order, the only comment I’ll pass is that it was a little peculiar in the buying process
I placed the order for the mushrooms £24.95 for the PAIR, then after payment confirmation for those
a separate email appeared with a paypal bill for £3.50 for the P & P.
the site advises that this will arrive separately, it was just strange placing the order
and not having any idea how much I would be stung for P&P, as it happens it was not too bad.
Mushrooms arrived a couple of days later… easy.
I’m pretty impressed with the quality of these. They come highly recommended … by me!
Not such a good month this month
Only had an hour or two in the garage as domestic chores were pressing..
Welded a little more of the chassis - there are more joints than I thought!!!
You spend a few hours welding and think, “yeah I must be nearly there now”,
you look down and still see just as many tubes needing welding as have been welded!!!
Still, I’m enjoying it! Found a good source of cheep mushrooms for the sierra front suspension, GTS Tuning
these will be ordered shortly…
Good month this month!
Completed the tubes for the transmission tunnel.
Added the triangulation tubes and now I have started the process
of fully welding all the joints.
This surprised me just how many there are!
I have been working with the chassis on a pivoting table (see gallery)
and welding four joints on one side the swinging the whole chassis over
and welding the matching joint on the other side
Currently I have only done the sides, this is to minimise the chance of heat distortion
Once all the side have been done I will repeat the process with the
chassis off the board and weld top then bottom.
I feel that if I did the sides then the top before starting the bottom I could end
up with a banana shaped chassis…. Better safe than sorry…
Broke up the rear suspension assembly too. Loads of pics in the gallery - sorry
but I wanted to mull over how I was going to do the hub carriers while
I was at work, so I took loads of picture and chucked them on the server…
Well I’m back from my 1 month holiday in the good ol’ US of A
Welding course finished at the end of Jan too - this means that I will be spending more time in the Garage
Apart from that, not a lot to report for the last 3 months.
