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Go Back   Madabout Kitcars Forum > Mad Build Area > Vintage and Classic Roadster Kit Car Builds

Vintage and Classic Roadster Kit Car Builds For Vintage and Classic era kit cars. Post your build reports, problems and progress here

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  #21  
Old 31st October 2015, 16:45
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Default Exhaust (cont’d)

The next problem I incurred was a clash with the sub-frame cross member









so rather than spacing it out I dealt with that by making a new one and again called on the services of my welder









I also had a small issue with the clutch slave fouling the new cross member so I dealt with that as well while I was at it





Finally got the rear exhaust bracket to fit..





And I have a small issue with the lamder sensor clashing with the sub-frame and will need to deal with that before long





That’s nothing for a cutting disc
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  #22  
Old 31st October 2015, 17:43
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Default Exhaust (cont’d)

I had to manufacture some exhaust hangers for the back box and fit them with the back box into position





The next on the menu was to make a template between the exhaust manifold and the back box so I came up with a cunning plan and used these



A length of 15mm copper tube and 5 nylon rings



By bending the copper pipe into an approximate shape require for the centre pipe, then placing two of the rings at one end and then inserting them into the manifold parted to get alignment I could see where to adjust the copper pipe for best fit







By placing the fifth ring (the one with the blue marker on)which was a slip fit over the pipe and the outside diameter of the exhaust I could then place the template back into the exhaust at both end and run the fifth ring along the copper pipe to see there was enough clearance along its length and adjust the copper pipe where required







Once satisfied I could then use the template to manufacture the centre pipe



Marking as I went along I cut the pipe at the bend positions taken from the template and shut each in turn to form the shape









Once all done my welder tacked each bend and off I went to check it against the car just in case I had to make slight alterations









Once satisfied my welder completely welded each cut



OK that’s the exhaust system complete, next item ….
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  #23  
Old 31st October 2015, 18:25
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Right next instalments tomorrow, I hope you are liking it so far, if anyone has any questions or can shed light on better ways I may have done things please comment, thanks...
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  #24  
Old 1st November 2015, 12:11
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Default The Gear Shift

The gear linkage from the Honda was longer than that of the mini and had to be shortened



To go about shortening the linkage I cut the ends of and fitted the to the car and then reshaped the link tubes in turn to fit between the ends









When each of the link tube had been bent into their new shape I trial fitted each in turn, setting the gear stick to a mid position and checking clearances under the car.





To hold them in place I cut some flexible split cable conduit and used that to hold the ends, I rotated each to their best fit and then marked them.



The areas to be welded were cleaned and the services of my welder were again called upon. I had them tacked first then checked them in the car and then once satisfied they were positioned correctly I had them fully welded.





I then cleaned back all the old paint and then re painted.







All I would need to do then was re-glass the original cut out for the mini gearshift.
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  #25  
Old 1st November 2015, 13:57
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Default Fitting the Alternator

As the original position for the alternator on this engine was at the rear I had to come up with a mod to front fit it, so first I made an aluminium interface plate that would pick up on the lower engine block holes...... Note on the plate’s top right hole, this picks up with a tapped hole in the block and when the bracket is fitted the top right hole of the bracket set itself up perfectly for the belt alignment.



I acquired an alternator bracket from a Honda Prulude which was front mounted, the holes on the interface plate were drilled to suit the holes of the bracket so it could be mounted it the correct position.



Because the alternator I had was smaller in size I wanted to for that rather than a Prelude one so I offered up the alternator to check what mods were required.



The pivot on the alternator was a perfect fit and the belt aligned with the crank pulley just as planned.



The lower hole on the alternator was out of position and didn’t follow the path on the bracket , this I had to slot.



I space out with washers the miss match on the adjuster and later made correct size spacers to replace the washers





All worked fine so I then cleaned the bracket and gave it a coat of paint.



The next thing to do was change the connector on the harness as the harness was for an OBD1 ecu and the alternator was from an OBD2 ecu.
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  #26  
Old 1st November 2015, 15:17
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Default Steering

I decided to fit the Honda steering column rather than the mini one so I could use the Honda loom and all the niceties of a later column, this gave a few problems at the rack end because the splines were different.



I gave it a thought and then stripped down a old mini rack I had and removed the pinion, I took it into work, made a heat sink and with the inner bearing race still attached I had my welder build up the end over the existing spline.







Then jumped onto the lathe and turned it down to a size I had experimented with earlier, before this I had done test pieces to get things right before I attempted the pinion





Then I set a medium straight cut knurling tool and put on a new spline



Once completed it was tried into the Honda steering knuckle and hey ho a finished pinion. The reason I left the inner race on was because the new spline was to be larger than original and wouldn’t slip over.





Well that went well so I stripped down a new mini steering rack hoping to fit the modified pinion but all was not well, the pinion was of a diffent pattern than the old one I had done the mod on so back to work to do it all over again with the new pinion



Once done at last the rack was rebuilt and fitted into the car.

Now for the column, as the car was made with a ply-wood shelf which supported the mini column I had to make up various brackets to allow the Honda column to fit, first I fitted the knuckle to the rack but on doing so it fouled the fibreglass around the hole so that was ground back down to allow full rotation



Then the column was fitted to the knuckle and a bracket was made to fix the top of the column to the ply shelf



As the column is adjustable I then made a support for the mid section of the column



Then the ply shelf was drilled and all bolted into place

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  #27  
Old 1st November 2015, 15:35
Althecate1 Althecate1 is offline
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I'm liking this resto/conversion.
Alec
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  #28  
Old 1st November 2015, 16:09
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Thanks Alec more coming....
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  #29  
Old 1st November 2015, 16:10
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Default Throttle

The throttle peddle was the next to be sorted as I was using a Honda cable and due to where the engine sub-frame covered the original cable hole for the mini I had to re-position the hole to miss the sub-frame



As the Fibre glass was thicker than the steel firewall from the Honda I manufactured a carbon-fibre interface plate





The the peddle needed to be altered to suit the new cable position



The peddle then was warmed and bent upwards to achieve enough travel but not so the it sat above the brake peddle



The engine was refitted into the car and the cable run in



The throttle body was the fitted and the throttle was tested for full travel



All good there
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  #30  
Old 1st November 2015, 17:40
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Your exhaust routing idea and cut section weld techniques for the bends are as inspired as your steering spline mod.
The McCoy I saw was in Brighouse west Yorkshire travelling with a hard top quantum and a mustard coloured allegro towards hebden bridge so they probably came off the M62 so could of been from anywhere. It was odd because when the quantum came out I recall drooling over it particularly the use of Sierra sapphire back lights but yet now it looked very dated and the rear lights looked massive whereas the McCoy looked more like a traditional yet very small sports car lotus élan esque.Ed.

Last edited by a big scary monster; 1st November 2015 at 17:43..
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  #31  
Old 1st November 2015, 18:01
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Default The Throttle body

I now discovered a major problem, the throttle body inlet was looking straight at the clutch master cylinder, now that’s not good, I had a few options here, I could either buy a set of individual throttle bodies or go the hard way and modify the one I had..





Well a challenge it was then, there seems to be a theme going on here, if I can go the hard way then that’s the way to go, my thoughts on these things are, anyone with enough money can go and buy all the nice new goodies and bolt them on but I wanted to make this mine so the modification was the way to go.

So here goes (Caution: this part of the build took some time and I want to thank both my welder colleagues for all the work they put in for me here)





First things first, I need to cut and shut the ports to allow the throttle body and chamber to lift up and forward away from the clutch master cylinder, I decided where to cut and then machined both the cut faces flat and square.







After I checked the measurements and angles of the machined part, incase I needed to make further changes after a trial fit.







After checking there became a mismatch of the ports, this was expected and I was going to put in spacers later to compensate for the errors



A trial fit was done and the spacer thickness was determined





Once knowing the thickness the angle for each spacer was measured



Then I manufactured them







Once made all was cleaned and this is where my welders made it all come together, after lots of cursing of course








One side done….now for the other half
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  #32  
Old 1st November 2015, 18:17
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Default The Throttle body (cont’d)

This is where the cursing came in





As you can imagine it was very difficult for him to get to some of the weld areas but he kept at it and produced this..





Now to machine the distortion from the flange face





With that done the bores were ground flush to remove any welding and rough edges then it was back to the car to see how it looked





That done the trick, well that was the first saga over with..

On assembling the air temp sensor fouled the injector rail so that had to be dealt with, I ground away the rail but that wasn’t enough, if I went much deeper then I would have broken through into the fuel gallery so other thoughts had to be made.



What I needed to do was machine the boss at an angle to allow clearance, make a new boss so back to the milling machine and then speak nicely to my welder again..

















All done now to fit it all together..







Just right….

Last edited by pompeyal; 1st November 2015 at 18:35.. Reason: .
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  #33  
Old 1st November 2015, 18:33
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Default The Throttle body (cont’d)

After fettling a bit more from the fuel rail to allow for the throttle movement the was on last thing to do..


The brake vacuum take of pipe was facing in the wrong direction



So after gently heating the casting around the pipe I managed to rotate it to the required direction





Now it was completely assembled and ready to fir to the engine..





Happy with that…
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  #34  
Old 1st November 2015, 18:57
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Default The wiring harness

I acquired a complete Honda harness that I was going to modify to suit the McCoy, It was a harness from a civic so I would have quite a few bits to cut out, first I took the rear harness and rebuilt that, removing the electric window wiring and anything else I didn’t require



Then I started to fit the engine harness and the engine bay harness for the lights etc, this I would cut about removing unwanted bits later.





The parts of the harness I didn’t need were the ABS, Air con etc

I made drawings of the wiring and what was for what, labelled all the ends and then it was ready for stripping, I didn’t want to do that yet because I didn’t know what was required for the ecu, so I started the cabin wiring (Warning: If you have a nervous disposition look away now)

















Well if you can make any sense of that lot without getting a head ache please come and sort it out because it has done my head in, I won’t let it beat me but I will be doing it in stages, it had taken an age to get here, looking through wiring diagrams, sorting out what is needed, what may be needed, what isn’t needed or of it was effected by what had been or was going to be cut out…..Hmmmm, needless to say I have left this alone for a while now to get my sanity back
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  #35  
Old 1st November 2015, 19:07
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Default The Seats

As the seats in the car were so tatty I got some from seats from a Ford Fiesta Si, I have had a lot of Fords in the past and I know their seats are good for comfort and as these were from a sport model they lent good support



The problem with them were the framework underneath was too high so I made some new sub-frames, took the rails from the cars original subframe and fitted them onto the seats lowering them by about 50mm











Once done I test fitted into the car, they were much better for height and as I am over six feet I didn’t do too bad..
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  #36  
Old 1st November 2015, 20:00
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The next episode is covering the headlight choices and front wings....
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  #37  
Old 1st November 2015, 20:34
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Default Headlights and Front Wings

Well I have been pondering on and off about the headlight originally fitted to the McCoy, they do start to grow on you after looking at them for so long, but you here from people, clan owners as well that they preferred the rectangular head lights that were fitted to them, well yes I think I agree they do look better than the round ones, I also looked into having pop up headlight so I got some from a Mx-5 but when trying to fit them, I discovered with having the Honda engine in the bay they would not fit, so they are for sale, then I decided I wanted to change the front styling so got a new pair of motorcycle rectangular head lights that would nicely fit..

So I started and cut off one of the healight pods to see how they would look..







OK they would work so I started to put some shape into the wing using expanded foam…









Hmm that may work.. but I would have liked them lower in the wing so I reworked the foam and glassed in flush following the wing shape









No.. I had another thought, that’s trying to be too much like a clan, so the I thought about twin projectors, so I ripped out what I had done and had a re-think…

So out came the card..







That could work, it measures up and a pair should fit in there.. but first I had to build up the inner wing which had previously cut away to accommodate the sub-frame to cover the near side engine mount..



With that done I set off to reshape the wing, firstly getting some perforated aluminium, cutting it to shape, covering it in cling film and clamping it in place







Then fibre glassing in…



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  #38  
Old 1st November 2015, 20:53
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Default Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

Once set I could trim the glass back to follow the shape of the bonnet







Now to even up and put in some strength..





And now to build up the top of the wing..

















Well I at this stage finally decided what I wanted to do, I had seen the technique done years ago with the custom boys and what they did to there rear lights on the hotrods, so out again with the cardboard and a piece of ducting of the right diameter and come up with this..





So I took some measurements and made this template mould and covered it with lino..









Then I clad the whole thing in cling film and cut the glass to suit, mixed up the resin and…..



out popped this
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  #39  
Old 1st November 2015, 21:21
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Default Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

Next was to cut it to fit and glass it in..





Then to cut the inside to suit the light,









oh I forgot to say I had got some Hi-Lo Hid units from E-Bay..







Now to cut for final fit and glass it in..









Add a build of glass to bring up the height,,







And cover with gel coat, this is where it all went wrong, the gel coat didn’t harden for some reason, I applied heat, left it for a week but still it was a sticky mess..



So I ended up having to scrape it all back, cleaning up the mess and I applied filler instead..





Rubbed it all back and applied a few coat of high build filler primer

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  #40  
Old 1st November 2015, 21:43
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Default Headlights and Front Wings (cont’d)

In the mean time back at work I had to come up with a way to adjust the headlights so out came the cardboard again…



Well that was the idea for the brackets now for some adjusters, so I knocked the up..



Then some pivots and fix it all together and see what happens..







That all seemed to work so to make them in stainless

















Had the corners welded and then assembled them..









The base bracket is only a temporary one until I finish the wing and can come up with a plan to fit them under the wings.

A few more coats of filler primer and rub down







Yeah well pleased with that..
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