ianashdown Posted October 18 Author Posted October 18 Over a year since my last post! It goes by so quickly!! The chassis needed so much work and it was impossible to find anyone who would take this on in California, or even the US. Shipping it to Arch for repair and reskin was just unbelievably expensive, so a while ago I made the tough decision to have Arch build me a new S2 chassis. I know it will never be original again with a replacement chassis, but it already doesn’t have the A-Series engine it was born with in 1961, but I think it will be a better, safer vehicle in the end and probably will get finished much sooner. Shipping has become super expensive; and then I got shafted for 25% tariff. It made the whole replacement exercise really expensive. I can’t bring myself to add up all the costs yet, but I think the crate, shipping, customs, duty, tariffs and extra storage fees ( while I bitched about the tariffs and tried (failed) to point out that the should be 2.5% not 25%, was more than the cost of the new chassis! The new chassis just arrived and I’m more than thrilled! It looks great and I feel so much more enthusiastic now I can actually start to hang things on the chassis; actually build the car. The engine, 1500cc pre-crossflow, is at Mountune and should be finished soon, the gearbox needs one new part and a seal a gasket kit and it can go back together. Both will then be installed, not permanently, in the chassis, likely followed by the wiring harness, once I decide if I’m repairing the original one, building one myself or buying a reproduction one. I think the latter, but I’ve not decided yet. Building one might be interesting, but anything that moves the project forward is being favored right now; I have to finish this car before I can move on to my Elan, Reynard, Elva FJ, or any motorcycle projects! Being an over-organizer type engineer I’m trying to write a project planning/management spreadsheet to plan out what has to be done, what each task is dependent on etc. I hope it’ll help . . . Ian 6 1
IamScotticus Posted October 19 Posted October 19 (edited) is there an instrument panel? How is Arch covering the red inside panels? Paint? Powder coat? Edited October 19 by IamScotticus
ianashdown Posted October 19 Author Posted October 19 There is a dash panel. You can almost see it in the LH cockpit area in bubble wrap. Arch reproduce the Lamiplate with a really nice looking powder coat. I’ll post some pics ASAP Ian
Joe Petty Posted October 20 Posted October 20 Good decision, a little painful but the right thing to do! Nice to start with a clean straight chassis and not have to muck with all the misalignment and ill fitting that creep in over the years. I just got my dash and interior panels back from the powder coater last week (Wrinkle red) and am very pleased. When I put my 7 together 10 years ago I went with red wrinkle paint and it held up pretty well for 5-6 years, but powder is the way to go. Good Luck - Joe
ianashdown Posted October 20 Author Posted October 20 I think the Powdercoat wrinkle from Arch is really good, way better than I was expecting! Should be tough too! Ian
ianashdown Posted October 22 Author Posted October 22 I’m working on trying to get the piping. It seems the Woolies only sell interior, not suitable for the front and rear fenders; I’m also the side panel piping and the fender piping are different size. what I want to avoid, if possible, is three different color piping; seats, side panels and fenders. I really want cream or off white as the car will be painted in an ivory or old English white. I think bright white would not be ideal. I’m also told that Redline has the correct material, but Chris isn’t answering email right now. I’ll keep bugging him!🙂 Ian
IamScotticus Posted October 22 Posted October 22 consider upholstery materials used for outdoor furniture, boat seats and canvas, and other period cars. I will try to find something. for a white car, I'm thinking black piping is good.
ianashdown Posted Tuesday at 05:15 AM Author Posted Tuesday at 05:15 AM I’m ordering an aerosol of an off-white paint spray tomorrow so I can check the color against various vinyl’s, red for the seats and Ivory, I think, for the piping. I picked a Mercedes off-white to try as it is a complex color, with different hues in it, but no metallic or flake. We’ll see what it looks like! With Redline being non-communicative it looks like I’m going to try making the piping and building the seats myself. Should be fun! Does anyone have an off-cut of the two piping sizes used? Ian
Joe Petty Posted Tuesday at 10:33 PM Posted Tuesday at 10:33 PM Ian - The back panel and one seat in black came with my car, so I set about doing the full interior in red. Not sure when or why, but my upholstery was black, red lamiplate side panels were painted black and the dash red lamiplate was covered with black upholstery material! Anyway... Tony Ingram had the red seat and back upholstery (red with white/creampiping) and also fender and side panel piping. I got foam from "Foam Rubber Products" in Wisconsin and after several trials ended up using their XL-48 weight foam. Seat and back boards are just 1/8" plywood. The real challenge was cutting the foam. I tried various blades and knives (bread, electric...) but was unable to get a smooth 16" cut across the foam. Any ripples or edges showed through the upholstery. My solution was to build a 16" wide wooden frame and use my existing foam pieces to cut wooden forms for the sides: two forms for the front cushion and two forms for the rear cushion. With my side pieces screwed to the frame, I cut a foam block to fit in the frame and then drug a "hot wire" cutter across the frame sides to trim/shape the foam side to side.. I did the larger front pieces first, figured if I messed up I could maybe salvage enough for the rear piece! Fellow on the Internet had a nice "how-to" for building the cutter using PVC for the bow, 24g NiChrome wire and a small transformer. Good Luck - Joe
IamScotticus Posted Tuesday at 11:10 PM Posted Tuesday at 11:10 PM (edited) 38 minutes ago, Joe Petty said: 1/8" plywood too thin for anything. Will warp. 3/8" back, 1/2" seats Edited Tuesday at 11:13 PM by IamScotticus
ianashdown Posted Wednesday at 03:58 AM Author Posted Wednesday at 03:58 AM I’m lucky that I have both seat bases and the seat back, although they have been reupholstered in a very non-original style. I have some good examples in friends cars to follow, lots of photos and dimensions. With all the trouble that this is going to be, I don’t want to make such a basic error as getting the size of the piping wrong. Same applies to the interior side panels; I want to be correct before I rivet them on. Redline has responded and has the piping, but no seat kits. This is a big help as I believe the piping will be the correct size, color TBD. Ive ordered spray paint samples for the body, and grey color matched to the frame for various bits and pieces. I still have to order vinyl samples in white, off-white, Ivory a couple of red shades, but it’ll be fun putting all this together! Fun story of the day . . . My local Mercedes dealership wanted to charge me $110 for 1 can of aerosol spray paint!
Joe Petty Posted Wednesday at 06:30 PM Posted Wednesday at 06:30 PM Doh! My seat backing boards are 1/4" plywood, not 1/8"! All I have left of the original interior is the back of the seat and it has 1/4" board and 1" foam. The seat cushions seem to work fine since the floor is flat, but originally I could feel the chassis cross tubes through the back cushion. I cut some 1" Styrofoam triangles to bring the voids between the cross tubes up even with the tubes so the back rests against a flat surface. Good Luck - Joe
IamScotticus Posted Wednesday at 11:06 PM Posted Wednesday at 11:06 PM (edited) don't let the seat give anyone the idea a 7 is a car they will find comfortable. A 7 is a wild thing; you pay for the ride Edited Wednesday at 11:13 PM by IamScotticus
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