Project Review - Part 4:
April 2014 to April 2015
Even though I was keeping the original Cordite rear frame work, it needed to be modified in order to work with the Spitfire bulkhead.
Running in parallel to this, I also had to sort out the rear wheel arches section in order to join these two big pieces together.
For the frame, I removed an old "wonky" cross rail on the passenger side & welded in a new one "square" to the rest of the frame.
Added two lengths of box section to "close" the original door openings.
Made a bracket to support the boot floor, where the exhaust tail pipes needed to be mounted.
Welded the lower floor pans to the frame.
Plus welded 4 home made brackets to the frame so it could be bolted to the bulkhead.
Given what was to come, it is hard to believe that May 2014 was my first attempt at working with fibreglass for some small repair work.
Thankfully, after more welding, fibreglass & filler work, the rear arches were done.
Then they could be temporarily matched up with the rear frame work & floors
I cut off and re-welded back on the feet at the rear of the framework, adding crush tubes underneath.
( The frame had to be adjusted to take into account fitting the Spitfire arches on top of the chassis. )
Then the two big pieces could be permanently welded together on both wheel arches.
And along both sides of the hand brake panel.
I started building an additional support bracket to make it easier getting in & out of the car in August 2014.
Although by getting side tracked with body work, I only fully finished off the welding of the edges in March 2015!
Which was part of my recent "finishing off" work that saw me spending ages sealing the gaps between the framework and the arches.
This included building my "egg" hollows for better access to the bottom nut on this bracket.
So you can see why I was so happy when all of these big jigsaw pieces were finally bolted onto the chassis.
End of Part 4...