G46 No.3 Build record
 

At last I have got to point where it is worth letting others know what I am up to. I have had my engine running after wiring up its ecu and many other things and completed the overhaul of the rear axle which was all that was left to do on the chassis. The body has now been taken down from its resting place

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psb0fca946.jpg

and placed on two wooden goalposts which are clamped to the main chassis rails. This allows the body to be slid forwards, backwards and sideways and the height and twist can be altered by raising or lowering each of the four goalpost legs and reclamping them.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps33fc93ef.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps45e2ff6e.jpg

The doors are held in place temporarily to pull the body apertures into approximately the same shape as the doors. I am goig to be cutting the body sides to move the doors back, approx 5" and the doors will stay clamped in place when this is done.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psfcf7ef46.jpg

Here is the body with the bonnet sitting on the spare wheel in its scimitar storage position with a little bit of clearance packing

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps3e344ae7.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psfd94cfd4.jpg

My approach to building this car is to try and maximise space within the body for luggage. The scimitar grp floorpan has various humps and bumps which rise above the chassis to retain the rear seats and raise the front ones. Also space is wasted at the sides behind the trim panels. I am going to start with a flat floor (might put dropped footwells in later) followed by the rear wheelarches cut from the scimitar and add bulkheads, tunnel and bellhousing cover next. Once all that lot is bonded in I will give it a skin of resin and fibreglass matting and remove the body to do the same underneath. Then the body will go back on and I will move the sides back. After that will be making up the frames to give strong point for the steering column, dashboard, door hinges and locks, seatbelts, windscreen and hood frame.

Here are some more pics to show where I am up to.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psdb88af66.jpg
Main floor (right hand side)

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps0178a682.jpg
Left side in place

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps3d0085ef.jpg
Both sides

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps6f453dd7.jpg
Right rear arch in approx position.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...pseca9548c.jpg
bonding paste applied along side of floor. Grp roughened first with angle grinder/twisted wire brush first.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps94822f00.jpg
rear support removed after paste set

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psf1b23f23.jpg
replacement struts to allow access to fit rear boot floor. These struts have a 5/8th hole in their lower end which fits over the upper tie rod bolt end with a ply square spreading the load at their upper end

Last bit for a couple of days.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps961c531f.jpg
Rear boot floor cut to match wiggly shape inside body.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps3677243c.jpg
heelboard (or it was in the scimitar)

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psdd02dca8.jpgwith a smaller opening to clear the front of the diff. This will be enlarged when I have measured the ammount of vertical movement available to the axle. I suspect the tunnel doesn't need to be as high as it is in the scimitar

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psedbd533d.jpg
boot floor in position. Once these last two bits are bonded in (must remember to tape up the chassis tops to prevent sticking) I can fit the rear arches and extend them to meet the body sides with grp.

Top working! Great to see another G46 on the go. Keep the pictures coming.

Fascinating stuff, looking forward to more details as it progresses...

Are you planning on keeping the spare up front and are you...dare I say it... retaining the ahem, 'non-round' wheel arches?

Andrew - Nice work. :cool:

I'm just thinking about plywood panels myself and it is nice to see what others are doing.

Do you know how you are going to treat them yet?

Also...

I know the G46 is a rare breed, but I still think there would be interest in what you have done before reaching this stage. (condition of your donor, how you got the chassis in such great shape, any issues with the switch of engine, etc.).

Just a thought, Paul. :)

Chop Shop
 

Andrew great to see your progress your route is very much on the lines of our build.

We know what you mean about humps in the floor and your solution would have suited us better to put flat ply floors in as it is we still have to cut out the hump because we moved our bulk head back 8" there is not enough room below the back of your lower legs to operate the pedals.

We are also going to drop our seat into the rear foot well recess, unfortunately its quite small and oddly shaped but feel we need to as you would be sitting to high on the flat floor above the chassis rails.

Talking of Humps! I see no humps!!!!!!!!!! no head fairing?

We are taking exactly the same approach as you once we have the shell bonded to our new bulk heads we will hoist the body up and then attend to the underside of the wheel arches etc etc, have just installed a Universal beam down the centre of the garage 3.50m above the garage slab and 4.50m long with a 1 tonne chain hoist on a push trolley. Such a good mod I took out and replaced a V8 engine and box in our chassis single handed and with one hand, just to fabricate gear box mountings.

Love the coil over shocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they will be a little harsh! We are just getting around to ordering coil overs for ours talking to a man from Damper Tech we are going to set the car about 50mm lower on the springs approx 25mm lower ground clearance but using 15" wire wheels and having adjustable platforms to do the final setting. It's just the spring rating we are toying with at the moment which can only be a estimated judgement I think we are going to use 250llb rated springs and then change them to softer or heavier latter as they are only £22 per corner, have you thought that far ahead yet.

We have just fitted up the engine bay with rads water and oil plus ancillaries batter boxes, servo alternator etc to get them located before the front wings are fixed forever, I will get Charlie to post some pictures soon.

Good luck with the bulkheads.

Yep,

keeping spare wheel up front to maximise luggage space elsewhere. Haven't decided on arch profile yet, need to see where the scimitar arches met the inside of the body. I am planning to use the front ones as well, bonding them to the bonnet (very like a herald bonnet) so that they rest on the suspension towers and front outriggers when the bonnet is closed.

I plan to weatherproof all of the ply surfaces with one layer of chopped strand mat and polyester resin. I will use a couple of extra layers for strength along where the ply meets the grp body.

Chassis was very good when I got it (in 1996!). I only had to weld on new front outriggers and side rails and a couple of small patches near the back before getting it hot dip galvanised. The engine swap came about because I wanted better fuel economy, similar performance and lighter weight than the original ford setup. The sr20 nissan engine has an alloy block and head and the type 9 gearbox is lighter than the overdrive box it is replacing. I had assumed that a serena or sx200 reardrive gearbox would fit my primera engine but the blocks are different, hence the homemade adapter plate and ford t9 box. The bellhousing is the frontwheel drive one unbolted from the frontwheel drive gearbox with the bit that housed the diff carefully removed (with an anglegrinder). Centering the bellhousing up with gearbox was easy using the outer race of one of the gearbox ball bearings as a spigot.

The engine is longer than the ford v6 and it has the distributor at the back of the head where it would interfere with the scimitar bulkhead. However the engine /gearbox combination puts the gearstick approx 5" further back moving the driver/steering wheel/ pedals /bulkhead further back as well. Exactly where I am going to put the front bulkhead is yet to be decided.

I haven't seen the G46 'in person' so not sure about inner arches - but will probably be needed. I'm just going from photographs.

Silly question probably... but is there room for the battery under your bonnet...on my SE5 the battery sat in a depression on the fwd n/side inner wing section, which no longer exists..

Yes the space between the centre outrigger and the rear tubular one is too narrow to fit the scimitar seat bases down into. I have sat on the standard scimitar front seat on my 1/2" ply floor and the body in front of me seems quite high. It is 24" above the floor at the front of the cockpit, 23" at the rear.

Yes, we have no humps! This is because I hope to make an MG midget screen, side windows, hood frame and hood somehow fit the g46!

The solid suspension means that the car stays at the intended ride height as the build progresses. It has made it easy to keep the chassis level so that I could check the body for level even when I was climbing in and out.

As regards spring rates, see this link (which I think has appeared before on this forum)
http://www.racingaspirations.com/?p=292

I am hoping the front of the passenger footwell will be approx 6" back from the front edge of the floor panel which is sitting on the front outrigger. This should leave a shelf to put the battery on.

Thank you. I thought space might be an issue. I had an idea to put the batt elsewhere (tbc).

The battery in mine is behind the passenger seat where the original rear seat was. The plan is to have access through a flap in the panel behind the new seats. There is loads of room in front of the engine if you want to build a battery tray there.

I am planning a windscreen, side screens and some form or roof and I have two humps, could be challenging.

Challenging is the word....

G46 Battery position
 

looking at our bulk head from the engine bay, left hand side (drivers) will be taken up Break & clutch master cylinders at high level, servo in the middle and exhausts on top of chassis rails.The right hand (Passenger) side only has exhausts so that is probably the favoured position for the battery, however there is room to put it with the bulkhead centre section above the rockers covers or even in front of the top pulley, between it and the rad.

Spoilt for choice really?

One advantage of a 4 cylinder engine, exhaust down one side only!

Oh yes, exactly the same as a straight six, but with less cylinders... :tape:

An idea for seating. Having a flat ply floor means that I could use the scimitar rear seat pan area and rear seats for driver and passenger. I haven't cut away the rear deck yet to suit the hood position so the pan and seats are too far forward in relation to the gearstick but you can see the overall idea.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psdc330210.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps431efa69.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psf071d61f.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psa0c3efce.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...pscdecc4ad.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psdc34f512.jpg

They fit very well, I don't think it matters that they stick up a fraction?

It's as if they were made for it. It is so satisfying when you spot a solution like that. And, it is so nice to use more of the donor than you anticipated.

I have always liked the look of the Scimitar rear seats and it seems that they are made to fit, great find. You could always cut the floor away a little to allow them to drop down a few inches and the fact that they fold flat is a bonus. I may very well steal this idea when I build another G46!

Fixed seats would need adjustable pedals. I have seen somewhere a moving pedal box arrangement that uses the sliding frame from a front seat. It makes sense that such a frame can withstand brake pedal push whether under the seat or in the footwell. Or I could set the pedals for me (5'6") and not let anyone else drive!!

Nice looking seats, very similar to the look I've asked my trimmer to achieve. If you can either drop them a few inches or shorten the backrests to get them level with the edge of the cockpit they'll be perfect. As you're not exactly tall you might get away with a decent driving position with them mounted as they are in the pictures, but having the seats sticking out of the top would bug me I'm afraid.

I think you may just have solved my seating issue.

The height of the backs is fine as I have twin humps and my floor still has the foot well so will be slightly lower.

Are yours just fixed position? I might be able to wangle something with the runners from the Land Rover seats I was given.

[EDIT] - I am now awaiting delivery of a pair of tan vinyl rear seats from the wonderful world of eBay. £43 for the pair delivered. [/EDIT]

Great solution Andrew keep the photos coming.
I am following in your footsteps.

Have you been reprofiling the rear a little to even it up?

Nice centre line down the body very useful for setting the body up square to the chasis.
How about the horizontal datum line. Have you used the bottom of the doors
or top of the wheel arches to set the body height relative to the chasis?

HM

How about the horizontal datum line

You might want to check the distance between the wheel arch and the bottom of the door shut measured horizontally. On mine, if I continue the line level with the bottom of the door shut, backwards until it hits the rear arch there appears to be 2cm difference.

I spent an afternoon trying to line up the body after I fitted metal plates behind the door slam panel that are to be tack welded onto the end of the flat angle on the frame. The drivers side rested perfectly leaving just enough overlap to weld the plate and the frame together. On the passenger side the plate was about 1cm behind the frame.

After much measuring of the frame, the body inner, pushing, shoving, swearing I finally measured the out shell and discovered the difference.

This was just before I went on holiday and i haven't looked since so there is a chance i was just having a bad day when I discovered thgis. I will be checking again at the weekend.

Hm & Wca
 

What can I say, now you know why we cut ours about so much.

We used a centre line on the body and took the horizontal lines of the garage floor tiles to plumb down to and measure offsets and then measure up from the floor to the underside of the chassis for the the datum.

Rear end took ages getting the wheel arches correct in all dims and we still have to make slight adjustments.

Making sure the floor plan is in the correct position on the chassis and fixed helps we also took some key dimension triangulated from the front suspension pillars like back to bulkhead, forward to front end and each side to wheel arch

To get the front end correct has been difficult, but I think I have caused most of those problems by making the front end fixed /bonnet rather than clam shell and our bulkhead was not quite square on the chassis, in the end I have to slice the bonnet in half so ended up with two wings which we cut a slot out off to re-aline all looking good now, but now have to get the wheel areas looking the same.

It would be easy to end with a car looking different from both sides!!!
Will update with photos at the weekend.

But I will say that this part of making the job a job I know we all agree that it is this element of the build we enjoy! and as you proceed you add in your personal touches, look at Mr Toweds air scoops brilliant.

I spent some time trying to get wheel arches, rear wing tops, front bulkhead and door openings at the same level each side. There appear to be some asymmetry in the body so you have to chose the points you think will have the most impact on the car's finished appearance. I chose the rear wing tops and the outer curved sections of the front bulkhead approx 22" either side of the centreline (which was marked by plumbing up with a spirit level at various points along the body's length, finding the mid points and finding the best line through them all). The door tops ended up at approx the same height each side although the door bottoms differed by 1". The door lengths are also slightly different but these can be accommodated as I can move the sides back by different amounts. I need to have the front edge of the door openings directly opposite each other otherwise my screen will not end up at right angles to the centreline. The rear wheel arch tops will need some levelling up which would push me in the direction of forming new (round?) arches. I read somewhere that peoples faces that are considered to be beautiful always have some degree of asymmetry which suggests that the G46 is likely to be the world's most beautiful car!!! Can't ask for any more than that!

In the case of the Spyders neither the bodies or the donors ever seem to be symmetrical. Now I've put my bonnet on I can see that my front cross member is actually sitting at a bit of a jaunty angle to the direction of travel of the car, which has also put the radiator at the same angle because I've bolted it to the orignal radiator mounts on the cross member. This looks to be from a front-end shunt that the donor had at some stage in its life :( Luckily it doesn't seem to have affected the chassis any further back.

The trick is to fit the body with the wheels centred in the arches and with even gaps above them, and not to worry too much about side to side symmetry. How often are you going to be able to see both sides of the car at the same time?

More progress, fitting and bonding rear inner arches. These have been bonded to the ply floor panels but don't reach the inside face of the rear wings.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...erreararch.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...rreararch2.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...rreararch3.jpg

The gap is bridged by bonding strips of chopped strand mat to the inside of the wing and to the arch. I applied resin only to the edges of each piece sufficient to make them stay in place. Fully wetting out the pieces with resin just made them fall down! Once set they were fully coated and when that coat set another layer of mat and resin was added. Later I will fill in the curved gap behind where the mat meets the body with bonding paste to a radius and add a layer of mat on that side as well.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...chbonding1.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...chbonding2.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...chbonding3.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...chbonding4.jpg

Time to try out the mg midget screen. I have cut two small holes in the scuttle top to let the screen retaining lugs drop through. The offside door is further forward than the nearside one so the holes are cut to place the frame edge correctly on the offside and further forward on the nearside so the screen is set square across the car.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...uild/side2.jpg
side

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...uild/right.jpg
offside


http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...build/left.jpg
nearside

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...uild/front.jpg
front

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...build/rear.jpg
rear

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...oftemplate.jpg
Here is a template I made from lightweight display board to copy the shape of a friends mg midget with the roof up.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...entemplate.jpg
This allows me to set the screen at the correct rake

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...platefront.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...mplaterear.jpg

The next step is to cut away sufficient of the rear deck to allow the seat to be placed in a comfortable position in relation to the gearstick. More will need to be removed later to accommodate the greater width of the hood frame and to allow the hood to drop through the rear deck as on a midget.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ld/cutline.jpg
cutline

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1.../seatwheel.jpg
no turning back now!

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ild/offcut.jpg
spare grp

The next pic with me in it (had to happen sooner or later) shows my head further back than the highest point of the roof. To put this right the sides of the body need to be cut away a la charmantech to move the doors, screen and roof back. I think about 6" offside, 5" nearside should do it.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...uild/side1.jpg

Before cutting anything more I am going to make up a trial mini bulkhead with the (nissan) pedals on it that can be slid backwards and forwards to a comfortable position and so locate where the permanent bulkhead needs to be.

ok all for now

Fit the screen and a rear perspex cover...

Before
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...uild/side2.jpg

After
http://www.swaqvalley.com/Blueprints...aguar_XJ13.jpg

with a spare v12 in the back for added oomph!

looking at the jag pics reminds me of what I thought when I saw the first side on pics of Gary' first g46, i.e. with the standard scimitar seating position, it looked mid engined.

Did I misunderstand when you said you were moving the engine back a bit?

;-)

Excellent work, so is it a Midget soft top. I guess you can't change the distance it travels.

yes, the folding type not the earlier assemble and fit hoodstick arrangement. I also have a pair or midget doors which will provide the quarterlights and windup windows. I hope to try and fit them into the sammio doors. They wont be able to lower fully as the sammio doors are not as tall as the midget ones.