clubstylus

Fitted the passenger side bottom shut ledge. All clamped up so will fit the drivers side Monday ---- off to Rushmoor Dimanche Sprint tomorrow to spectate
Been wading through loads of Dzus , Camloc and other quick release mechanisms , in various brochures and online sources but not made up my mind yet I like the idea of the Camloc ' press fit ' but not sure they will hold and not vibrate loose
The flip will be held in place by two bonnet pin catches , one each side of the gutter by the screen as before so the side catches would be there just to stop the wind flapping the sides around.
Any thoughts

my cousin has the orange pheonix here with a flip, it has ali ledges with dzus fasteners but they kept coming off with vibration and flex. Not sure what the cam lock ones are. As said, i chose the big fat rubber hooks as i couldnt find anything that i could trust but i know they are not the prettiest.

Dzus do another type of slide fastener that i have used for my hood rail which i think are meant for bonnets, they have pin with a grove in it and on the outside panel you rivet a very small sliding mechanism which slides and locks in place. My rx7 used them as bonnet pins and they worked fine. like these

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0316646150



The orange car here:





has fasteners like this.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DZUS-fastener-sel ... 240%3A1318

H'mm , still thinking Tony , Matt had those R888's yesterday -- sorry

Both bottom side shut ledges cut/glued now. Drilled some scrap bits/glued to test out fitting some quick release fasteners that I've aquired before fitting for real on the car. Need to pack out/experiment so's they fit first attempt
I'll take the clamps off tomorrow to try fitting them , or one of them anyway Fibre glass will wear I think so might need to reinforce the outside of the panel , even if it shows -- we'll see

Final arch gap cut and drilled ready to widen the arches and both sides old air vents glassed over with P40. I'll fill with P38 and rub them down tomorrow-- bit more progress

Rubbed down , filled with P38 and rubbed again . While that was setting , I fitted the alloy tabs with rivnuts ready for the light covers . There's not going to be any lights but the front looks naff without the covers. When they're really gone off hard , I'll be able to adjust/bend them exactly parallel to the ' cover ' under surface. If they aren't just right then the ' cover ' is under stress when bolted tight with the flush fit countersunk bolts (3mm).
The tabs were glued to hold them still then fixed with P40 . After that I put one layer of 100mm square matting/resin over each one.

That's it for today . Fitted one ' cover ' Don't be fooled by the ' light ' on the clean cover --- the tab's are behind it but they do look as though they're on top

Once it's painted , I'll do the F/Glass behind the covers in black as before.Makes the covers appear darker & you can't see the lack of lighting

I've gone about as far as I can go with the shutting edges . Drivers side is very close and the passenger side too apart from the lower horizontal shut. That's about 3mm but once the paint's on it'll look fine
Both headlight covers are on now but they'll come off for painting

looks good rob, what did you use to cut the small slots that the head light cover brackets slide through? i need to fit mine soon.

also, what are you going to do with the arch where you have drilled the holes?

Antnicuk wrote:looks good rob, what did you use to cut the small slots that the head light cover brackets slide through? i need to fit mine soon.

also, what are you going to do with the arch where you have drilled the holes?

The slots are just 6 holes with a 3mm drill and filed out . The holes around the arches are so that when I mould up my extensions , some of the matt/resin plus P40 to curve it , gets into those holes giving it a ' footing ' . Then when I've finished the extensions I'll glass behind those holes about 25mm wide all the way round to join up with whatever has gone through Finally I'll finish the curve with P38 and rub down which is exactly what I did on the original body when I built it or not long after

The first time I did this I used alluminium and sikaflexed it to the arch after cutting off the amount and shape f/glass I needed then moulded over the alloy with glass and P38. That got ripped out at NORTH WEALD so I then lowered the car again necessitating more cut out. This time I only used the alluminium as a former to mould the extension on. Hard rollbar foam cut into 100mm bits jammed between the tyre and the former then just remove it the next day --- file and finish , job done

Painted the curved shutting ledges on Saturday ' Red ' then today stuck some varying thicknesses of neoprene self adhesive foam along the edges . The ledge does vary in depth due to the piece not being exactly the shape of my old body mould so neoprene helps bring the panels together. This wouldn't happen on a new body converted to a flip front , it's just my ' very ' thin one making it tricky
Had another sand paper session at the arches too , bringing the tyre to arch gap to an even 22mm's. I had some ' glue ' left so decided to glue kevlar 1mm thick extensions just under them , then fill in the curve once they're set tomorrow & it'll become part of the arch rather than use alloy as a former for glassing ,
When that's done I'll cut a gradual curve from in front of the wheel , out to 30mm then back to behind the wheel .

See the ''alloy former'' method , I used last time it needed doing (after another lowering session )

I'm getting there slowly

All drilled up (the glue ) and two layers of glass so ready to P38 once it's nicely off

Busy with P38 today --- lots of rubbing down , more P38 etc etc -- very boring

Finished the arches so they're ready to paint , also opened up the grill by cutting away another almost 15mm's from the top and 5mm's off the bottom edge , sides to suit. Helps get more air in.
Can't mount the filter facing forwards as before to get ' ram ' effect because hinging the bonnet and designing a different ' A ' frame means there's not enough space between radiator/frame crossbar and the grill. That being the case , it has to lay across the grill on the drivers side as low as possible so air can flow to the top of the radiator
That means the sides of the filter are in fact more in contact with the airflow BUT the centre isn't. So I've robbed my old burnt out carbon fibre silencer to make up a scoop to turn the air into the centre of the filter
It's tie wrapped through holes I drilled into the steel end then sealed with Sikaflex. I held the curve in place with a tie wrap until the Sikaflex set . The scoop is about 50mm's at the back and 70mm's at the front entry.
Drilled and fitted rivnuts/washers to the underside of the grill top for mounting the timing strut . Problem is ------------ the flip cannot be tilted totally open with the strut fitted and scrutineering expect it to be in place There's stacks of space but it's the transition from half tilt to open and the ' arc ' that the bottom of the strut describes before becoming clear. Wheels on planks - flip open - planks removed --- plenty of space , bloody annoying

The photo doesn't show the grill cut back . The top was about 45mm's deep so is now 30mm's ish and about 20mm's at the bottom.

I've been putting off getting on with the bottom shutting fasteners this week due to complications of slightly differing ' old ' body thicknesses. These little fasteners are quite specific in the panel depth they are for although I have got more than one length of allen cap screws now --- cheers Andy
What I didn't realise is that although they are called ''quarter turn to lock'' fasteners , you can keep turning untill they clamp which has helped
I'll need to have the allen '' T '' key kept in the door pocket though in case of the need for FAST flip removal by the marshals that is