Mister Towed: - I did like your idea of a single driver's door and that is still an option.
If my attempts to fit the passenger side door are a disaster, then I will simply seal it shut & make good.
Then I will still have another chance to make a door work on the driver's side.
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Just a few odds & ends to cover today....
Battery Box:
I am going to use the wooden box I made as the mould for a fibre glass one, so I need to work in "reverse".
I want to "lift" the battery off the bottom, where there will be water drainage channels & a drain pipe.
When making a box out of wood, this was easy to do, just put three thin ply rectangles in the middle.
( The drainage channels were effectively created by the space around these blocks. )
However, when it comes to making a mould, I need to build the drainage channels, not the raised sections.
So I bought a length of pine "beading" & cut it to fit together at the bottom of the box to form these channels.
( Which allows the spaces in between these strips to become the raised sections at the bottom of the box. )
Similarly, the drainage pipe must be the highest point of the mould, to become the lowest point of the box.
Once again I found myself drawn to a Blue Peter solution involving plasticine & an old Bic pen tube…
Or I could replace the Bic pen tube with some "normal" plastic tube instead.
The next thing I need to do is make sure the mould is effectively "tapered" bottom to top like a sand castle.
( This should allow the fibre glass battery box to be pushed off the wooden mould below when it has set. )
But I'll have to sort that out another day.
Door Gaps:
My next job will be to trim the outer skin to fit inside the door cut out section of the body work.
Mikmiglia's Speedster's doors have a 5 mm gap all round & my Mondeo's doors have a similar gap.
So I will aim for a 4 mm gap, as making the gap bigger later would be easier than making it smaller!
I was about to start making 4 mm cardboard spacers from an old cereal box, when I remembered "washers".
My donor came with lots of bits & pieces including a large stash of washers & 2 together are approx. 4 mm.
So by the time I've taped them into position along the inside edge of the door cut out, I will have my target gap.
Circus Tent:
Saw an ad on Ebay for an ex-display Gazebo, collection only & it turned out to be a couple of miles away.
I took that to be a sign that I should forget about a beach wind break and get a Circus tent to weld in.
( Now the MIG welder is going so well, it would be a shame for the wind to spoil my fun. )
So I now have a big bag that looks like this...
Which will become a 3m x 4.5m one of these...
This will be fine in the back garden for welding the frame work.
I might be able to set it up on the drive for the odd job, not a permanent feature.
Until next time, take care, Paul.
