MadaboutKitcars

I finally got my chassis ordered!

It'll be ready by the 2nd of December. Not a bad xmas present, eh?

I'd better tidy up the garage....

I've decided to have the first stage delivered, so Terry put me in touch with a nice bloke called Trevor who's going to freight it up for me. Incredibly, a one way delivery service over 220+ miles works out cheaper than a weekend van hire + diesel. Go figure.

When I told hiim it had to come to Northampton, he asked me if Marlins where popular around here - as he's delivered several to the town... TBH, I haven't seen any around. In fact the only kit cars I've seen are a couple of Westies and a GTM.

Maybe they're not running yet, and in a couple of months we'll see an explosion of Sportsters!

Anyhow, it's arriving Tuesday 5th Dec. And no, I'm not counting the days. Honest.

But not so much fun :-)

Nah - I've had enough 'fun' hiring vans for this year - especially after last weeks effort at moving my mother to her new place.

LWB Luton Van + Motorway speeds + Vague Steering (do they make the columns out of rubber?) + Bow wake from Artic = mucho-oshitoshitwe'redriftingintothenextlaneandthere'snowheretogo-fun...

now the real fun begins!

Build trolley

GOO.
looks like we'll all have fun watching you build up your kit!

I have my 'home made' dexion trolley wheels sitting doing nothing if you would like them. (see picture attached, hopefully)
I found it quite handy having the chassis on this to move it around before getting to the rolling cassis stage. I only paid £5 for them at a car boot sale, but your welcome to them if you want to collect. I'm near Uxbridge, Middx.

Peter

That's very generous of you, Peter - that'll be very handy. I've sent you a Private Message with my email address on so we can arrange some time for me to pop down and pick them up.

Well did Santa Terry bring you your presents, yet??

She did indeed! (athough she forgot to send the build stands up!)




The two guys in the pics are my mates Iain and Nathan - they came to help off load and piss about help.




Don't think I need any other bits. It'll be OK like this....

Once we had got the chassis inside and on some stands, we wiped it down (it had come up the motor way without a cover) to get rid of the road dirt.

We then got down to getting the first thing bolted in:




That was the first attempt... As you can see, we made the mistake of bolting in the diff with the top web still in place.

It wasn't really apparent from the build pics on the disc that came with the manual - It wasn't until we looked at Martin's site that we saw the 'things to remember' page. So off it came, out came mister angle grinder.

A bit of paint and voila - first thing bolted on.

We aslo managed to get the bushes set into the lower front wishbones (sorry, no pics yet), but by then we where all getting very hungry (and thirsty) - so we called it a day and decamped to the pub.

I'm very chuffed so far - bolting the first thing into the chassis was a huge milestone.

BTW - what's the Hugh [sic] Washer for? I haven't used it on the Diff mount, as it's too big to go on the outside of the diff mount, and it'd just rattle around on the inside.

Looking good

Don't think I remember a "huge washer" (mind you it was two years ago when I started my build...) Do you have a picture of it?

BR

Robin

Ah, this brings back memories! I remember the
'sit on the floor of the car, holding the steering wheel making 'brum brum' noises!'

And what's that "a build manual", wow! I wonder if it has been updated since the Ford one that I got.

I don't remember any 'large washers' apart from the spring seats, maybe??

I did have the same problem of the diff mounting hanging bracket being too wide. I packed it out with half a dozen washers. I guess its designed fora variety of diffrent diffs?

Happy building................

Peter

I think I know what the washer is for now - I was going through the build manual again (No, it's not been updated - it's still the Ford one), along with the pic CD. There's an image on the disc of a different style of BMW mount, which I assume is for the M powered cars.

This has the huge washer on it as the mount doesn't have the two vertical metal hangers like ours - the washer is effectively the forward plate of the mount, so I don't think I have to worry about it.

As for packing the large mount out, I'll leave it for now. I'm guessing the idea is that the mount bolted onto the nose of the diff will take care of any fore / aft movement, and the rear mount is too sort out any twisting movement.

I had a look last night at my rear suspension arms, as I know you guys had issues with spring seats and bump stop alignment. I offered one of them up and found my second mistake - It looks as if I've got the inboard bush in the wrong way round! That'll teach me to follow the Bently manual to the letter...

Once I've sorted that out, they should align OK with the adjustable seats and the stops.

I found that my rear suspension arms didn't fit the chassis when first tried but I then realised that the bushes just need pushing in or out a little. Then they fit.

reagrds

Peter

Good news and Bad news.

Good news is that I got the stands from Marlin - Terry DHL'd them up to me and they arrived yesterday. After some jiggery pokery with the engine crane and some swearing on my part, the chassis is now sat on them.

I also managed to re-arrange the bushes on the trailing arms so they now fit the car, and they're temporaraly hanging from the original BMW long bolts (I haven't bolted them in)

The bad news is that the powder coat on the chassis doesn't seem to be particualrly robust.

I've noticed that on the driver's side door sill, on the edge where the top of the rail meets the outer face of it, there's some chips in it, and rust - which must have happened at the factory, as I haven't done it, and the delivery driver didn't do it (The chassis was strapped down fore and aft, not across).

I've also managed in the process of getting it up on the stand to scratch the chassis in some places - I've got a ding on the rollover hoop from accidentally clouting it with the crane, a scratch on one of the rear rails from the stand not locating correctly first time and some on one of the wish bones when it decided to commit suicide by falling of my bench. Not Happy.

Any way - what I need to know is how the hell to cover these scratches up - the most obvious ones are on the sill and the hoop. I can always get the wishbone re-powdercoated I guess, but getting the chassis done will be a real pain in the butt.

Has any of you had any 'issues' you needed to recitfy? Can you paint over powder coat? I'm guessing if you can, It'll look awful...

Bah. Going to sulk now.

I got some metal ready and black POR15 for this, then spray over with satin black to match the powder coat.

Our friend at Marlin managed to ding the roll over bar with one of the floors when we picked the chassis up. There's a tone of scratches on the bottom too.

I'm not too impressed with the powder coat. To be honest I though it was just spray paint!

Thanks for the advice Patrick. The satin black is a good match then? What did you use? Something like the Eastwood chassis black in the Frost's catalogue?

This is the stuff I am using: http://www.nfauto.co.uk/epoxy_chassis_paint.htm

I've been using the spray by itself in some place, where there is a bigger area I have used the POR15 - which is glossy so doesn't match then sprayed over.

- its worth going underneath things like the engine mounts as the powder coat didnt fully cover in all the nooks on mine.

Thanks again!

I found Matt Hammerite Smooth is not a bad match. Marlin said you could paint over the powder coat. I had a bare patch at the rear end of the propshaft tunnel that wasn't coated. Worth checking out.

Peter

spray paint

I have to agree that the hamerite smooth spray is a very good match and very easy and forgiving to apply.

I agree hamerite smooth works. Marlin also used it after sorting my spring seats.

Thanks guys