DanM

Thank You! So close, yet so far! lol

With the grill now assembled the last remaining task on the nose cone was levelling the pods. To do this I wanted to attach the cone to a level(ish) surface so I could get a sense of how far out they were. First, I bolted the nose to a sheet of chipboard...... ...and then I clamped it to a table. From there I could find a level and then move each pod up or down to get the position right. Access to the bolts was a bit of a pain with the clamps and chipboard so thankfully it didn't take too long to find the level and get the nose on the car. It's still looks slightly out in the picture, but it is pretty close...I promise! 😇

Next up is fitting the grill. As always I read through a number of threads and asked questions be fore deciding how I was going to tackle it. My approach is to use, JB Weld, Picture frame hangers and zip ties. My plan is to bend each hanger to match the shape of the nose cone mold and JB Weld them in place. Once dry I would zip tie the grill to the hangers. Here are some of the hangers bent ready to attach. Test fit stuck in place (apologies for the terrible photo, I had JB Weld all over my fingers. Final fit of the grill. ...and the front.

With the boot box secured and the roll bar and stays reinstalled, my next task was the rear arches. Having read a number of threads I decided to go the plastic screw and nut route to secure them to the tub. I wasn't sure how much to tighten them in case they broke, so I went as far as I was comfortable. I'll have to check on them regularly to start with to see if the vibration works them loose. The arches seemed to line up nicely with minimal effort. With the arches in place I decided to drill the holes for my harness loops. The ones supplied with my schroth harness were too short so I ordered some longer ones. To install I had to drill through the boot box. I taped up the areas that needed drilling and starting with a small diameter drill bit, slowly made the hole big enough to screw in a harness bolt. Once in position I marked around the edge with a sharpie and carefully dremelled out the rest of the material. Loops now in position ready for the harness. Lastly, with the dremel still out, I trimmed the nose cone to provide some clearance around the upper wish bones. First I offered up the cone and marked the area to trim on some painters tape. Then I gently took away the material until I achieved the required clearance.

Before installing the bar, I put the boot tub in place drilled through to mark the tube and installed the rivnuts to secure it in place. Then I reinstalled the bar and stays......s**t!! Can anyone advise on the best way to fix this?

I did. I JB Welded a zip tie holder to the side. I'll find some photos.

Next up was to cover the area behind the seat back where the 12v socket will go. For this I decided to repurpose the seat belt cover. I wanted a gap between the differential housing and cover, so I trimmed the edges to make it less bulky. It also needed to be shaped, so used a gas torch to heat up the plastic and bend it slightly so it would wrap around the top frame rail. To secure it I tapped a small screw at the top and velcro'ed the sides to the vertical frame rails. It fits nice. With the inside of boot area complete, I moved on to re-installing the boot box and the roll bar stays. As you may remember I wasn't entirely happy with the quality of the top coat I gave the roll bar and stays. In this picture you can see how the top layer had scratched off. In fact it was coming off easily with my finger nails. There was no way that I was going to leave it in that condition, so I once again removed the bar, stripped it (and the says) down and gave it all a respray. Now I'm ready to reassemble...

I've been back at it over the last couple of weeks so thought I'd post a few photos over the coming days to bring you up to speed on the latest. I'm coming to towards the end of the build so my strategy going forward is to button up the back of the car, then the front and finally finish the inside. First up was to protect the underside of the detachable wheel arches before install. For this I used some spray on bed liner from the local automotive store. Step 1. protect the arches from over spray, Step 2.scuff the surface and cleaned with acetone. Step 3. Spray on (without making too much mess! lol) While that was drying I fitted the side panel blanks. For the LHS I took the time to make up a cardboard cut out and use it to trace and cut the metal before trying to fit. For the RHS I just bent the panel in the vise and trimmed it as I went. In this instance, doing it by eye worked much better for me. Bending it in the vise. Once happy, I sealed and riveted the panel in place. Then gave the area a quick once over with the bed liner.

Side and Front indicators. I measured and cut the holes for the side indicators a few months ago when I was working on the body. Now was the time to stick them on and wire them up. Knowing I only had one chance to stick them I test fitted them first and marked the centre-line on the painters tape. I then used these as a guide when the time came to peel off the sticky back and gently lower them into position. Once they were wired up I tidied up to loom and bolted it to the footbox panel. Next came the side pods. When I tested them in the summer, one of the bulbs wasn't lighting up so I took the unit apart to see if it was the bulb or a dodgy connection. It turned out to be the connection so once I had bent the metal contact back into position it all worked well. Measuring the location of pods took a bit of time. First, I used painters tape to mark the edge of the lower "styling line". This took multiple attempts to get it right (or as good as I could), looking at it from multiple angles and running my fingers across the profile ensuring the tape was as close to the transition as possible. Once I was happy with my datum I started measuring the location as per the instructions. Test fitting once drilled. The end result isn't as good as I'd hoped at first glance. I took some photos from different angles but because the wishbones and headlights lights etc. are not bolted down and the reference angles look weird. The dolly's don't help either. I will revisit once these items have been secured and make any final adjustments I need at that point. Quick question....How have other builder secured the pod wires to the the inside of the cone? I don't want to use rivets and the fiberglass surface doesn't seem flat enough to stick cable tie fasteners to it?

Windscreen wipers and spray nozzle To be honest I found positioning and fitting the wiper motor and mechanicals a little tricky at first. Partly because I had already secured the scuttle so access was tight with poor visibility, and partly because being a left hand drive the motor needed to be installed back to front so positioning was limited to make the angles work. To make everything fit I has to cut out some of the scuttle air ducting and shorten the cable tubing to the first wheel box. Thankfully I still had my brake flare tool so was able to create a new flared end for the first wheel box. Once I had settled on the location of the washer jet install was easy as pie. I secured the hose with a zip tie and ran it through the large mazda electrical grommet.

Back to work this week after a couple of weeks off for the holidays. With all the festivities and entertaining, I didn't get into the garage as much as I'd have liked, but I did manage to get a few little tasks done. I plan to upload some photos over the coming days. Coolant reservoir return line One of the tasks I had been meaning to do for a while as I completely forgot the first time around was the coolant reservoir return line. This also gave me the opportunity to fix a gasket leak in the water pump input and add an extra bolt in the reservoir bracket. Draining the coolant. I bought a 1 1/4 coupler and 1/8 NPT - 5/16 barb adapter Found a nice spot on the coolant reroute hose just after the thermostat and sensor. Spliced it in and connected it all together with 5/16 coolant hose. For the bracket, I added a second rivnut to the scuttle and carefully drilled out a slot in the bracket so that I had a bit more tolerance when bolting it on.

I fixed it up with the recommended sealant, but havent started it yet. I want to figure out how to get the idle down before attempting again. That'll be one of my holiday projects. Also, the cold weather is here now so want to keep the garage doors closed as much a possible.

Thank You, I'm really glad I took the time and effort to do it. It came out much better than I could have imagined!!

After another week of powder coat stripping and metal sanding I finally got the pillars and screen surround to stage where I am happy to put it on the car. The screen frame took longer than the pillars. I think it was because I had used a different paint and also I didn't have a container big enough to soak it. I got there eventually, but it wasn't a very enjoyable task. Ready for sanding Once stripped I started sanding with a couple of really fine sanding cloths. I did consider using a dremel, but for some reason I wanted to feel and gauge the pressure I was using, so did it by hand. Finally, I used some Mothers aluminium polish and microfiber towels to buff all the parts up to a shine. Pillars Frame - Now its on the car I will buff it up a bit more. Not too shabby!

@toldfieldAwesome, thank you for the tips! I'll definitely try the dish soap in water.

Thought I'd give a quick updated on my windscreen pillars. I decided to strip them back to bare aluminium and see if I can get a nice polished finish on them. first, I soaked each pillars in hardware store paint stripper over night to get through the layers of paint that I had applied and the original powder coat that came with the pillars. It was a very mucky process, but after 24 hours of soaking they went back to bare metal. Once cleaned with soap and water, I started to wet sand the surface with 1000 grit sandpaper, followed by 2000 grit. This is where I am so far, I think I will go finer before I apply the aluminium polish.

So, where to start...... As I thought, the top layers of pain on my pillars were not stable and when I removed the masking I used to protect the pillar when fitting the windscreen fillet, a few layers came off with it! The fillet itself was also a challenge to fit and required a lot of fettling on the sanding belt to get it to sit in place. Eventually, I got there (sort of). Next up are the wipers.

Today I started fitting some of the painted parts. Before installing the roll bar, I attached the third brake light that I ordered from Hella. I pulled the wire through the bar using the "fish" that I had threaded before paining. Finally I bolted it into position. Next were the pillars and screen. Question: Has anyone tried taking the side mirrors apart and adjusted them. Mine are horizontal when when they are in the furthest down position.

Its been about 6 weeks since my last update. After a really productive end of summer, the kids went back to school and I started a new job. Since then I have not had much time to spare and my build has pretty much ground to a halt. What little work I have done has been nothing but frustration and headache. After successfully cutting the boot box I turned my attention to painting the roll bar, windscreen pillars and windscreen frame. For the roll bar and stays I just needed a touch up after the scratches they received during the mock up. For those I used the tried and tested Rustoleum all in one matt black. For the pillars and frame it wasn't so easy...I wanted to try and get a similar effect to the chrome kit look (that I had ordered, but not received), but finding 2 paints that would complement each other took a bit of trial and error. Eventually, I settled on Rustoleum metallic finish and Dupli-color perfect match Ultra Silver metallic. Masking up Garden spray jig - I used garden shears wrapped plastic bags to hold the frame upright First coat Finished product The spray paints Before each coat I gave the surface a bit of a key, and once finished I gave everything a few of coats of clear gloss. At the time it felt good but unfortunately the clear coat seemed to dull the finish and for some reason just doesn't feel right even after a week of curing. I feel like it will just scratch off. I guess we'll find out once I start assembling it to the car.

Hey @Anaximander, Extremely busy!!! My kids are now back at school and I just started a new a job, so the project has all but ground to a halt over the last couple of weeks. Hoping to get some garage time this weekend. 🤞

This update is very heavy on the photos. I wanted to visually capture the steps and techniques I used (right or wrong) to trim my bootbox for the RAC roll bar.. First I installed the main bar and offered up the front edge of the bootbox to get a sense of how much to trim just to get around the bar. With this measured I masked up the corners and drew a section to cut out. Then I inserted the bootbox to measure how much more needed to be trimmed. Slowly and carefully I removed small slivers of fiberglass until the box slide into position around the mounting brackets. In the picture you can also see where I marked out the approximate location of the stays as they pass through the bootbox. Next, the stays. With the approximate location of the stays marked I cut a slither through the bootbox edge (see dotted lines above, wide enough to pass a piece of string through. I then attached the string to each of the mounting bolts to form a straight(ish) line between mounts. As the bootbox was curved inside, I found it difficult to make a line with a ruler. So, I used a piece of painters tape to mark the general direction of the string. With this in place I drilled some very small pilot holes and then cut the first line with the dremmel cutter. This was then widened until it was wide enough to fit a piece of wood (in my case some 1in skirtingboard/baseboard trim) that I positioned between the mounting brackets. This made sure that I had something solid the measure from. With a good reference point in place I taped the front side and drew a straight line parallel to the white edge 0.25 inch away, then drilled and cut. I then used a compass to draw a parallel line on the other side. Then cut. Once it was wide enough to fit the stay, I started to work on the top curve. I roughly positioned the stay (slope angle only, it was no where near the bracket), marked around it and started to trim the curve. Remove stay, small trim top, install stay, mark bottom, remove stay, small trim bottom...repeat, repeat, repeat. Eventually, the stay would slot in to place. I plan to get some rubber trim so there is still some edge sanding and smoothing to do, but as a first try I think it is ok. Unfortunately there are some gel coat scratches so I welcome any tips on how to correct them. The powder coat on both the rollbar and stays is shockingly thin so once everything has been cut I will repair and spray all of it with a fresh coat of paint. Total time so far, probably 3-4 hours. Now for the other side.

Took the bar off again today, this time to drill the holes for the 3rd brake light. First I checked the location of the the screw holes that I measured last week, and the holes to thread the wiring. Then I drilled all the holes and tapped for the 2 screws. Next I threaded a line inside the bar for when I am ready to run the wires. Finally I made sure that the wire hole lined up with the one I had made in the chassis mount. All lines up nicely.

Thanks @Anaximander, fingers crossed.

I wasn't in the mood to do the oil pump seal today, so I continued working on the roll bar. My new heim joints (Rod ends) arrived on Friday and I was eager to get them on. First, I needed to re-tap the thread on the end of the bar as it would only receive about 1/2 inch of the rod end. Then, using the technique described here on an old Westfield website, I marked the position of the supports through the tub and trimmed them out with my dremel cutter. Fitting the bottom of the support bar was a real PITA. Access was tight and clearance from the fuel tank was minimal. To help me get in there better, I removed the detachable wheel arches which opened things right up for me. Now I know that it all fits, I can start thinking about how to tackle the boot.

Yes, they did. Boundary Engineering have suggested that I use some anaerobic sealant around the oil seal. I will give it a go shortly and report back...