Rear Light fitting

Next up was fit the rear lights, i have gone for the carbon light upgrade as they look much better than the standard 'sherpa' rear lights.

now these were very interesting to fit, i started with the passenger side light, now the light position is set by the pattern on the mug guard, so it was just a case of lining up the carbon effect housing to line up nicely with the ridges and corner of the body work, a little trimming of the housing was needed to get it to sit nice and flush all the way round the body work, once happy i had found a position i set about drilling off the holes, to do this i used a little bit of guess work and some rough measuring, to obtain a datum i marked out the 2 large holes where the light units fit, and found the center of the these 2 circles, i then worked out the hole positions for fixing relative to these. i then started off by drilling the holes with a 3 mm drill, this then enabled me to see if the hole centers were in the correct position, if they were not i still had the ability to drag the hole into its correct position. the light unit was then fitted with m6 bolts and large washers, i then drilled off the large holes to allow the light units to pass through the body work, to do this was the easy bit, with a 46mm hole saw it was a case of using the light unit as a guide and drilling through the mud guard and body work,

now this light went out very easy and lined up very well, it was then when i set about fitting the drivers side unit did things sort of take a turn for the worse, first of all the light unit did not sit very nice in relation to rear body work, the gap was very large and sat 7-8 mm away from the corner, so out comes the dremel and a lot of trimming started, now the unit also pointed upwards more than the opposite side, so i started trimming the bottom section of the light to get it to sit more level, to achieve this i cut away about 5 mm off the bottom of the light unit, this also let the into to sit a lot better against the body work, once i had done this i then got out the tape measure to ensure i had it level, when i notice that this side of the body work sits nearly 40mm higher than the opposite side, not this is down to the molds of the rear arch and the location of the part where the light units sit, now i have tried my best to move the unit down but i would never be able to get it low enough for both lights to sit level.

looked a few other peoples rear pictures and have noticed that it is deffinately a mold issue as they all seem to do it, well done westfield!!

Wiring loom - engine bay

next part of the job was to get the wiring loom into place, first job was to cut 2 holes in the scuttle for the wiring loom to pass through from inside the scuttle into the engine bay, now the manual states to drill 70mm diameter holes, but i would recommend going slightly smaller around 68mm would be a good size, as the 70mm holes are a little bit to big and the grommet wont sit quite tight enough in the hole, i may have to apply some glue in places to hold them in.

Once the loom was passed through it was a case of again making sure every thing is run within convoluted tubing and then the time consuming job of running all the wires to the locations needed within the engine bay and making sure that the loom is well secured to the chassis, now at this point i do kind of regret not fitting more of the cable tie anchors in certain positions before installing the engine and the body work. this was mainly the chassis rail that runs along the inlet side of the engine, as its too tight to be able to get a drill or a rivet gun between the intake and the chassis rail, so i have had to resort to getting cable ties where i can around chassis rails.

once you have secured all the wiring running down the chassis rails i then moved further back to securing the fuse box, now i have decided to mount my fuse box centrally on the scuttle, i fabricated an ally bracket, same style as the one used to secure the bottom of the header tank and fitted a couple of riv nuts into it, then bolted the bracket on with M5 stainless dome bolts,

wiper system

Now this proved to be quite a fiddly and time consuming job to get these to sit right along with the windscreen fillet (then again i should be use to this by now).

once the screen was in place, i opened up the indentations on the scuttle where the wiper arms have to pass through and did the same to the 2 raised parts on the windscreen fillet, to allow the bushes to pass through which then screw down onto the arm mounts to hold every thing in place.

once i had decided on my position for the wiper motor i drilled that off and affixed it to the scuttle with 2 m6 stainless dome bolts, and large washers each side to spread the load, once bolted up, and in placed i could then set about bending the pipe that carries the wiper wire that operates the arms, i did this by hand and roughly bent it into location to where i thought the first wiper arm would go, it was then a case of having to joggle every thing into position, i found that the center pipe that links the 2 wiper arms together was about 8 mm to long meaning that they wouldnt line up with the holes on the fillet, so this was cut down, the next problem i found was that westfield give you some angled cut bits of rubber that act as sandwich pieces between the fillet and scuttle were both to long and had been cut at the wrong angle, so with my trusty Stanley knife i set about trimming these into the right shape, and my goodness did they need a lot of cutting, the fillet wouldn't sit correct until i had nearly trimmed them all away.

my biggest tip is to just be patient with this bit, even more with the fillet, as it can be quite tricky bending it to fit between the pillars, now mine had to go in and out a few times, so a little of the gel coat got chipped off the sides, but luckily this is hidden.

Windscreen fitting

Once the body work had become fully fitted it was time to fit the windscreen into place,

First job was to cut down the wing mirror mounts so they fit inside the cast screen pillars as described in the manual, now these seem to be a very tight fit into the recess on the pillars, now at first i thought they didn't want to fit properly, but once i tightened up the mounting screws on these they seemed to fit lovely.

with that done, it was time to be let lose making holes into the scuttle to bolt up the pillars, now to assist in this task i made a pole up at the 1007mm dimension to give me the right angle on the windscreen. now in the manual they give you some dimensions for the positioning of the pillars, all i can say at this point is to ignore those and crack out a bit of ingenuity and some eyeball measurements, as the pillars will naturally want to fit in their own position on the radius of the scuttle, and from side to side the pillars seem to sit at slightly different angles. also at this point the pole i had made at work was far to long, and the windscreen and the pillars were all sitting to far forward and no where the radius on the side of the scuttle, so i shortened it by about 25mm in the end, and this seemed to make every thing sit a whole lot better.

once i was fairly happy that every thing was sitting roughly where i wanted it to be i set about drilling off the bottom holes only on the pillars on each side, this still meant that there was still some room for adjustment, and then when i was fully happy with the position then top holes were drilled off and every secured in place, now when fitting the grub screws to pillar to hold the windscreen in place i ensured that these were just nipped up, i have heard a few horror stories about over tightened grub screws and cracking windscreens.

and also......

the filler cap was fitted

This weekends antics - Body work

So this weekends task has been to make the body work a fully permenant attachment, i now hope that the body work doesnt have to go on and off as many times as it has done this weekend.

the main thing with the body work is patience, and making sure every thing lines up, and don't be afraid to cut slots into things like the nose and scuttle to ensure you get the best fit, this will give you the room for adjusment needed, and as you use repair washers to hold the body work making the hole bigger isn't going to cause problems.

the longest time spent was ensuring the bonnet and nose cone lined up pefectly where the pins go from the bonnet into the nose cone, a bit of trimming was needed here and there, and more around where the nose fits into the bonnet. once happy with how the nose and bonnet lined up the holes were drilled off into the nose cone and bolted into place, now with the use of the slots made with the dremmel some fine tuning was then needed to get the front shut lines correct.

once happy with the top the bottom was then secured along the chassis with 20 large headed rivets, now every thing starts to feel very secure and soild.

next stage was to then get the rear secured up onto its mounting blocks, now at this stage the car has been placed back on axle stands to allow room underneath to do the riveting and be able to take the wheels off to align up the rear arches. now the rear needs to come up a fair old amount but this is easily done, with the aid of an assistant and a trolly jack it tends to sit where it wants, and then you need to check measurement between the center of the rear hub to the arch front and rear, now the manual states that these should be within 10-20mm but with a bit of pulling and pushing i managed to get them to within 2-3mm. happy with that the rear was the drilled off and and riveted up with 6 large head rivets. there was a small amount of distorsion in the body underneath but this was not a problem.

now things are starting to take shape and it was time to start hacking some holes into the body work, first up was the exhaust system.
to do this 2 holes were needed, one large one at the front where the exhaust exits the body work and a smaller hole at the back where the mount goes through into a M10 boss on the chassis, now whilst the body work was off i made a masking tape template around the exhaust section, when the body work was placed over and the masking template was used to find the center so a hole can be hole sawed in.
The rear hole was first pilot drilled from the inside out, and then opened up to allow the bush to pass through the body, every thing else was then bolted up with out to much hassle. the exhaust needed to twisting to get it to sit right.

Current standings as of 24th nov

i have lots more still yet to add, but just an update of my current tasks in hand. the body work and arches have been fitted, next step is to get the exhaust cut out in the body work. i have now trimmed the scuttle to fit round the dash hoop, i ended up buying a dremel to do the task, and wish i had bought one sooner to be truful, also done the cut out for the steering column.
currently trying to source some smaller grommets to go through the scuttle with the wiring loom, as the mazda ones are a little on the large side, once i have sourced these i can get one with getting the loom into the engine bay,

other parts currently in the production process are a new intake system for the air filter as i am doing away with the standard air box, mounts to move the front indicators up next to the headlights, which will keep the IVA man happy to forfill the 45 degree viewing angle, these will only be fitted for the IVA then moved back once its passed.

Prop shaft will be shortened next month, and it seems that the measurement that westfield supply for this is correct.