#locost7

Since the brake and fuel lines were in place the last bit left was the tunnel cover. I bought carbon vinyl wrap as this is the finish I wanted over the center of the tunnel. The wooden pieces were wrapped and then I used some leather to create a pouch under the handbrake lever. This is to prevent anything falling into the tunnel.

The fuel tank arrived a couple days ago. I ordered it from Locost in Johannesburg, and at the price I paid I expected better craftsmanship.

I had to drill some material out of the fuel outlet tubes due to over penetration of the welds. I then gave it a once over with a scotchbrite pad to remove dirt and scratches. Below you can see it before the clean up and then after the scuffing with the pad.

I am now busy with a method to mount the tank. Since I can’t weld aluminium at home I need to find another way of securing it. So far I have modelled up the tank, lower tubes it will mount on, and the fuel pump. I have started with a preliminary bracket to hold both the tank and the pump as seen below.

I have been driving around in the Seven lately and absolutely loving it!! The power is instantaneous and the motor just revs and revs, 8500rpm is a long way in such a small car. The suspension in the rear is a bit sticky. I never felt comfortable with the angle of the shocks and sent in some 4mm steel plate for laser cutting.

The other morning I noticed there was a dark stain under the rear diff. After careful inspection and checking, it wasn’t the diff at all.... Turns out the diff hit the fuel tank at some point and created a hairline crack, enough for fuel to leak. This was a big problem. So out came the fuel tank after much cursing. Below you can see the new shock mount plates on the tank.

After draining all the fuel I welded in the new shock mounts. This was helleva tedious as welding properly in such a confined space is not easy, Below you can see the old shock angle on the right and the new position mocked up on the left.

After most of the day,

The new mounts are solidly in place, using part of the old shock mounts as the second pickup. In the process of all of this I managed to arc on the brake line in the rear, this means I need to replace that hydraulic line and re-bleed the system.

The laser cutting arrived from a work colleague who has a laser cutting machine at his house. He managed to cut it out of 6mm supawood. The 123D make program sliced up the CAD model and assembly was as easy as the program had made it out to be. After assembling and gluing the pieces to each other, automotive body filler was used to fill the gaps and start creating a smooth surface. There were 59 pieces in total.  

This process of applying filler and sanding was done 4 or five times with varying sandpaper coarseness. Once the surface was smooth to the touch 3 coats of MS primer were applied to build up the surface for a thorough sanding.

The plug was primed and sanded 4 times to achieve the required smoothness and prevent much finishing work being done to the mold itself. The devil is in the prep that is done. Taking time here will save you time in the long run.

Once the final sanding was done with 800 grit water paper, the plug was waxed with cobra floor polish and buffed to a shine. This was repeated 6 times. PVA mold release was then painted on very thinly as to avoid a water droplet effect on the gel coat. This dried in the sun and then a thick layer of gelcoat was applied so that there was enough to be sanded if need be.

The lay up of fibreglass consisted of 3 layers of CSM and a core mat section to give it some additional strength.

Once the louvers had been completed the bonnet needed to be prepped for spraying. A specific primer called etch primer should be used on aluminium. This is due to aluminium having a hard oxide layer which prevents anything from sticking to it. I gave the bonnet a once over with 600 grit water paper and then laid down a decent coat of etch primer.

I left that for a week to make sure it had cured correctly and because the weekend was up haha.

This past weekend I gave the primer coat a once over with a 600 grit sandpaper, just getting any unevenness out. It was then rinsed off and made ready for paint.

Now because the paint has been standing for quite some time, it has become a bit thick. I tried to rectify this by thinning it out with thinners, which seemed to do the trick. I then laid the colour coat on.

In the pics you can see what they call tiger striping. Now this could be due to a few things, heat, speed, flow rate, spraying motion etc. Personally I think it looks cool. It is only this pronounced in direct sunlight.

I then secured the bonnet clips back on. I had done the alignment and positioning of them prior to the painting of the bonnet.

Once the bonnet had been cut and bent, see previous post, it was time to put the louvers in. The main reason for this is due to the heat the engine generates. The walls of the driver and passenger compartment are thin and thus the least amount of heat should be trapped in the engine compartment. It also helps aid in engine temperature management when sitting in traffic etc. 

I went over to John’s place for him to show me how his louver tool worked and to try it out on a test piece of aluminum myself. Below is the result. I took this while positioning the louvers for the best look. 

Once the position was decided upon, the cut lines needed to be measured and marked. 

The distance between each louver is dependant on the tool. Once I had each one marked out, a thin blade angle grinding disc was used to cut the edge that would be formed. 

The tool works in a similar way to a pair of scissors. You split it and then place the material in between in the correct position. One then takes a hammer and gives it 3 good wallops and then repeats for each one. 

Here it is complete, 

Now because the louvers landed up quite close to the end of the bonnet, some deformation of the sheet occurred. Better seen below. 

I dont have a sheet metal shrinker so this will just have to stay. Hopefully the paint job will hide it a bit. All in all a good outcome. 

So this blog has been quiet for some time, especially after the progress I was making at the beginning of the year.  The reason for this is my new job! I have been employed as a Design Engineer for a company manufacturing Military Vehicles and it is awesome!!

I just haven't had much time to myself with getting life in order and hence no time for the build either. The following post is a catch up post of all the odds and ends I have done here and there.

Between everything I also suffered a major laptop crash and lost a lot of pics and files, thus I will try show you as best I can in the following posts to come how I did things. 

First up I added a few extra mounting points to the nosecone to give it a more rigid fix to the chassis. It is now secured with four M6 bolts, into riv-nuts and with body washers to help distribute the load better into the fiberglass. 

A big issue I found was the fuel line. The guy who sold me the fuel line actually sold me water hose, hence it perished and leaked fuel everywhere. This I managed to fix but due to the laptop debacle have no pics. Basically I got a bigger section of hose and sleeved the inlet pipe onto the fuel pump inlet pipe.

I managed to get the indicators working through the use of this little guy and a crash course in flasher unit wiring haha. 

I also found that the spring I used to keep the brake pedal in place had popped out. I half expected it to happen as it was a temporary installation. I have now made a proper mounting and it works like a charm. 

Now there have been issues with the motor mis firing and back firing. I spent a few weeks eliminating problems and landed up finding the coil is faulty. I approached toyota for a new one and the cost was R1600.00 which is bonkers! I then went to our local spares shop and got one for R200.00. The only hitch was that I needed to make an adapter for my plug lead. This I did by turning up some copper bar and bridging the gap.