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.

Just a little picture.....

...to show how far out the engine mouting bracket was on the passenger side, and shows where i had to re-position the mount.

Cooling system

Next up, Rad and fan fitting, plus pipe work.

Again this part of the build went fairly easy, first jon was fit the upper rad mounts, these needed to be drilled and rivited, first job was to shorten some dome head stainless steel bolts to fit into the radiator mounts, approx 2 at 12mm and 2 at 16mm, the rad was then fitted up to the 2 lower brackets which are part of the chassis, this then gave me a natural sitting position for the rad meaning i could then place on the top monts and get them rivited into position. once i was happy with its position, i could then fit the fan, the lower fixings needed 2 M6 rivnuts fitted into the chassis, and i then made up some 14mm nylon spacers to place behind them, the top fan mount could then drilled and rivited in the same way as the radiator mounts. now i offered the raditor back up and found that the fan cowling was in contact with the rad, to get round this i used a sharp stanley knife blade to cut away the pastic from the front of the cowling, taking away about 12 mm of plastic meaning that i now had plenty of room but still having the fan close enough to the rad.

Next was to connect up the pipe work, the rubber hoses bends for this are cut out of 1 pipe supplied by westfield, for the top hose connection you have one 45 degree for the connection to the radiator, and a 90 degree bend forom the outlet of the engine, now on trial fitting up these, i found a slight problem, the outlet on an 1800cc engine faces the other way to a 1600cc meaning that the 90 degree bend was not tight enough, as the angle is more like 135 degrees, this meant that as i connected every thing up, the bend just kinked in half and squashed, so to get round this a 135 degree bend in red was ordered from SFS silicone hoses, with a bit of trimming fitted perfectly, now i also had to shorten the ally pipe that connects these 2 hoses and re-swage the end.

the bottom outlet on the rad is in a great position which puts it pratically in line with the lower part of the chassis, now westfield supply a S bend silicone hose, but no matter what you do this will still come into contact with the chassis, to get round this problem i have got my hands on some sticky backed rubber to attach to the chassis rail and hopefully this shouldnt wear through the lower pipe.

Hand brake system

Sorry for the poor picture quality.

With the diff and hubs all fitted the handbrake was next on the agenda, once i had sorted out the mouting bracket issue for the cables ( see previous post under 'issues to date' ) the rest of the job was fairly easy, the cables were fitted through the bracket and clipped in and then run to the brake calipers, a bit of spare coolant pipe was cable tide around the cables to provide protection where they come into contact with the lower wishbone.

The lever was then bolted up onto the mount at the rear which is pre-fitted to the chassis and the front holes were lined up with the brace in the chassis which i needed to drill through to bolt the lever up, to get the hole positions to be able to drill through from the passenger side of the car i took a few measurements and with the aid of a plumb line some pilot holes were drilled which were pretty close to where they needed to be, once happy i then opened up the holes to 8.5mm, now the manual says to drill these holes to 6mm but i prefered to use the bigger bolts, now to get a flush finish within the passenger side of the trans tunnel i then counter sunk the holes to allow the bolts to sit nice and flush, that way i get no horrible lumps in the carpets. then the spacers were fitted and every thing was bolted and connected up nice and tight.

Now reading a few others blogs, it appears that in some cases the cable that connects the 2 cable ends to the lever has been to long, meaning that when the hand brake was applied the cable was not able to fully apply the hand brake tightly, meaning that they have had to shorten this cable, luckily it seems that i dont have this issuse and still have plenty of adjustment left to tighten the cable if needed.

Issues to date.

Thought i would just add a little section to cover a few problems that i have so far found with the build:-

Brake light switch mounting plate missing - this was not welded to the chassis during production (maybe the welder miss placed this, or had decided to use it to prop up a wobbly bench, who knows?!) To over come this a Rivnut was fitted to bolt the swtich, brass T piece too. fairly easy to over come.

Hand brake plate in the center of the chassis with the 2 holes in for the cables is the wrong gauge - The angle thickness according to westfield should be 10swg (3.2mm) but a bit of 4swg (5.8mm) angle had found its way onto my chassis, (the welder was having a bad day so it seems?) so by the time you added the paint thickness it came up at 6mm, this causes a problem as the mounts on the cables do not pass through far enough to allow them to be clipped in. to over come this i had to get hold of a 26mm drill bit, and drill out the holes in the bracket about halfway through the material to create a recess for the cables to sit in, and pass through enough to fit the clips.

Steering rack brackets out of alingment - a common issue it seems, where the bracket centers are to wide enough to allow the steering rack rubbers to fit within the mounts. to over come this, some of the rubber was cut away from from the passenger side mount.

Paint quality - This in general i have found to be pretty poor. i am currently on my second set of wishbones on the rear, second set of headlight brackets, the engine mounts to the chassis i ended up having re coated myself as i have been getting fed up with sending parts back to westfield. Now the bit that really concerns me, is that when the paint has flaked off the parts, none of these parts have actually seen the inside of a blast cabinet, let alone a single grain of shot blast media. as the paint flakes off it reveals unblasted rusty metal, which means the paint has nothing to key to. Now i only bring this up because if you looked in the brochure for the chassis kits, westfield actually charge you extra for 'grit blast and epxoy coating of chassis and wishbones' when clearly none of the parts have been blasted, so i feel this is little bit naughty if the grit blasting hasn't been done when they are charging you for it?? and obviously if the parts have been blasted the piant would stay on?! Just some thing to bear in mind!!

Modified steering column wrong length - this was sent back to westfield for them to modify FOC, when returned to me it turns out the the column is about 50mm too short, this means another part needs to be sent back, now after seeing that Graham during his build has asked for just a plain splined end so he could get his modified his self, i thought this would be easier for me as i could do it myself. After a chat with the guys at westfield, they refused to send me the splined section, and denied suppying Graham with just the spine. it would have just saved a lot of time and hassle if i could do it myself

Front wiring loom fun

Now that the engine has been installed it was time to start the front wiring loom, this was laid into rough positions, and then the tedious job of removing all the elctrical tape and covering from the loom, as the old stuff was removed i placed rings of electrical tape around the wires to keep them in position, once every thing had been removed i could then start the job of removing the wires that are no longer needed. the main ones for me to cut out were:
Air conditioning system
Head light lifter motors
Power steering system
Heating system
Audio system.

now this became the most time consuming part of the build to date, as the loom was removed from the MX5 i made sure every thing was labled up and i could decided what needed to stay and what had to go, i started by cutting off the connector for the no longer needed item and then tracing the wires back to the origin, either the switch or the fuse box, after about 6 hours of cutting i had removed the bulk of the wires, i have also done the changes to the loom such as wiper motor, adding additional wires for the new brake light switch and for the brake fluid warning light. once the wiring loom was all cut down, it was then covered back in elctrical tape.

now i came across the slight issue in that the lights front and rear come with looms that have water tight electrical connectors fitted to them, now currently with the modified mazda loom i just have bare wires and nothing to connect to them, now i did not want to have to solder the wires in, as this would cause problems with the front loom and the headlights, where you need to get the wires through the scuttle panel once that had been fitted, so i made a phone call to Ian at westfield and explained the problem to him, he then put a bag of connectors in the post, and were promptly fitted.

One of the IVA requierments is now that all of the loom needs to be covered in plastic convoluted tubing, well westfield only supply you about a meter of this which is no where near enough, so i made a visit to a local motorsport factors and picked up about 15 meters of tubing in verious diamaters, to cover all the loom and fuel lines. every thing was then covered and once i was happy with the location of every thing i removed the loom, to get it out of the way whilst i concentrate on other items.

Engine fitting

Now time for the big moment, getting the engine in, with the aid of a hoist borrowed from my mate Paul, me and dad set to work, the new engine mounts were bolted onto the engine before it was dropped in, and the rubber mounts were then attached to the mounts, now from reading a few other peoples build diarys, it appears that westfield have not yet managed to the passenger side mounting holes on the correct place, so i did not bolt the mount to the chassis on the passenger side as i would need to re-drill the holes. also when then engine had been settled in, the rear gearbox rubber mounts needs holes drilling into the chassis, so a layer of masking tape was applied to the bracket in the chassis to show me where the holes needed to be drilled.

the engine was then hoisted up and moved into pace over the chassis, with a bit of care it made it into position first time with no real issues, then still being supported by the hoist it was time to see how well things lined up. well i wasnt surprised to see that westfield were still not able to get the position of the passenger engine mount correct, so this would have to be re-drilled into a new position, the bracket was lined up with the rubbr mount and g-clamped into position, so that i could drill it when the engine is with-drawn to allow me the room to drill the gearbox mounts. the engine was then pulled back and all holes were drilled off. now a few other people have tried to position the engine over to one side to help clearance in the propshaft tunnel, but looking at it with mine, i decided to try and mount every thing fairly central, as the clearance on the gearbox to the chassis is a bit close on both sides. the engine was then dropped in and finally bolted into place.

Shock fitting

With the completion kit collected, it included the very import shock absorbers, as they need to be fitted next to give the wishbones some support, and also means i can get the car onto the floor and support itself under its own weight so the engine can be fitted, as i dont want to do a TOP GEAR effort when they built a *cough* Catherham *cough* and knock it off the axle stands if we have a bit of a misshap with the hoist.

Again these were a relatively easy job to do, again ensuring you remember the reduction bush sleeves into the rear shock mounts, and then just bolting them up, making sure lots of copper slip is applied to the bolts,

also dad couldnt resist the addition of the headlights and the indicator mounting pods, we have decided to not go with the westfield nose mounted units, and go caterham style under the headlights as they look much better, but we have a few hills to get over to get the car to pass the IVA with these on, as they are no visable when you look at the car from 45 degrees, so some fabrication trickery will be applied to these by myself to make them visable just to pass the test,

Cat exhaust and IVA

When i first ordered my kit, and having a bit of a discussion with the guys up at westfield, i was told that a CAT would not be need to be fitted to the car, Simon pointed out a loop hole in the regulations, that would mean if i was to get a letter from Mazda saying that the engine was manufactured before a ceretain date, i could pass the emissions test with no problems without a CAT. Well after a bit more digging into the IVA manual it turns out that you are no longer able to do this, and that all cars manufactured after 1992, if they were originally fitted with a CAT then it would need one regardless of the year of manufacture, this means that i have had to order a CAT exhaust from westfield.

Completion kit collection

so on the morning of the 9th october, it was back off to the Westfield Factory to pick up my completion kit. every thing that was collected fitted nicely into the back of the Golf with the back seats folded flat, which i was rather chuffed with. every thing that i needed for the kit was all present and correct, apart from having to order a Cat exhaust system.

Wishbone / uprights fitting

Next stage was to fit the wishbones to the chassis, the bushes were fitted with no reletive problems, just needed to remove the paint from the bores with the aid of some trusty air tools and flap wheels, once they were clean with the aid of a vice the bushes were pressed into place,

then fitting these up was easy, they fitted into the chassis mounts with no real issues, bolts were put in ensuring the correct orientation of the heads of the blots, and making sure lots of copper slip was applied to the bolts.

after the wishbones were loosely bolted up, it was time to put the uprights on. these have had a good lick of fresh paint, along with the brake calipers, the top ball joints were fitted to the front upper wishbones, and i had to buy replacement boots for my lower ball joints as these were splitting when they were slavaged from the MX5 along with the bolts the secured the lower ball joint to the wishbone.

the front hubs fitted with no problems what so ever, along with the rears, it was just rembering the reduction bushes that push into the lower mouting hole on the rear up rights, also whilst fitting the rear hubs, the drive shafts were connected back up to the diff.

diff fitting issues continued

so in the last post i was having some issues with the diff and the drive shaft boots not fitting correctly, the problem was that once every thing was bolted up, the boots were in contact with the chassis leg, and the prop shaft coupling was sitting far to close to the chassis rail, meaning that when the prop was fitted it would have been in contact with this rail, so to get round the first problem i had to make up some 4mm thick spacers that go between the diff bushes and the diff mounts, this will push the diff down slightly giving the needed clearance with the boots.

the second issue with the prop coupling being to close to the chassis rail is caused due to the distorsion when welding up the brackets, when i went to pick up my completion kit, i spoke to Ian to ask if i could have a look at another set to see if this distorsion was as bad, it turns out it was, so i came back with the same set, and have had to space out with washers when bolting up to the suspension mounts to try and pull the diff around, this seems to have done the trick.
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The story continues.......

over the past few weeks we have still been very busy carrying on with the build, but have not found time to get many updates onto here, the picture attched shows how thw car currently stands as of the end of the week, 13th november.

I have got to the stage where the body work has been placed onto the chassis, and today i started to trim in the scuttle panel to fit round the dash hoop and steering column,

Lots have pictures have been taken, so i will be getting some detailed information up to follow,