Scottie's Tribute A352 build

[Scottie22]

Well I have finally got the heater plumbed in to the dash by reworked pipes.
Do not have any pics yet but I do have a pic of the two ducts I made at great effort, but could not use.

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[Scottie22]

Well, I am reading all this stuff over on Paul's thread and Viatron's, about moving the steering column, which fills me with dismay!

I did not even realise there was a problem 'til I read this stuff!

Moving the column is obviously something that is done in the early stages of the build, and looking at Mac's thread, it looks as though it was relatively straightforward working on an open chassis.

At the stage of build I am at now, it is virtually impossible for me to do this mod.

It would have been awkward enough doing it at the "moon buggy" stage trying to work under the dash in the the confines of the open Spitfire footwell, but now I have the body on, and all the rear seat panels etc in place, I cannot physically fit into the tight confines left to actually do the work.

Even if I could, I would be welding upside down, with the weld inches from my face, which is not the best situation to be in.

So, for you Herr Scott, za vor is ovair!

I will just have to live with it, being consoled by the thought that in the past,
350,000 Spitfire owners lived with it too.

Of course earlier, I was outside and studied the situation (in my dressing gown) and thought "bloody hell! it is offset!"

Wished I'd have found out about it sooner...........

[Paul L]

Scottie - Just to be clear, my steering column remains a completely standard Triumph Spitfire set up.

As Mister Towed will tell you, the Triumph Herald steering is also slightly off set, but no one notices in the real world.

Both Mac & Swifty are building their bulkhead framework from scratch, so have to construct new steering column mounts.

It is only at this point that they can decide to straighten it out.
( Micky1Mo also did something similar. )

On the other hand, my original Cordite bulkhead framework was so poor, it actually fouled the steering column.

So this was one of the main driving forces behind my decision to re-use a Spitfire bulkhead.

I also had no idea it was off set until I read about the work others were doing.

But I have absolutely no intention of changing the standard set up.

As you say, if it was good enough for a production car, is is good enough for me.

Hope that helps, Paul.

[Scottie22]

Well Paul, if I had not noticed until it was bought to my attention,
most other people won't either!

I have owned lots of Spitfires and GT6's over the years, and never ever given it a thought.

As you say, if you are building a chassis from scratch, it may as well be done at the same time, but also as you say, if you aren't, then its not such a big deal.

I have to say that really, 'cos I'm NOT going to do mine!

[Mister Towed]

OMG, WTF, etc. I've been driving mine now for sixteen months and hadn't noticed the problem.

I've just driven it about 25 miles today and, now that you mention it, my steering wheel is offset to the right hand side of the car.

Luckily, so far I've always managed to compensate for this glaring flaw by sitting in the right hand seat, but god only knows how I'd have managed if I'd ever tried to drive it from the left hand side. Especially as I've now noticed that the pedals are in the right hand footwell too!

Actually, the Vitesse column does sit at a slight angle, but, as none of the rest of the car is symmetrical it'd look a bit odd if it was straight.

[oxford1360]

I did mine for fun, really. And, seeing as I had to get it much lower, there was always going to be work involved.

I've reworked evey other ****ing thing on the car, so I didn't want the column to feel left out.

[Scottie22]

Now that you mention it Mr T, I might have an easier time if I sit in the right seat too! It certainly does not look too bad sat in such a fashion.

Cannot imagine why I didn't try that before.

This forum is so useful at times!

[Scottie22]

I am getting close to being able to fabricate my dash front, so I have been trying to get all the little bit and bobs that will give it the authenticity it has to have.

I think the last thing as far as control knobs go was the choke, which is still with the engraver.

The last things I need are some dome headed rivets, which go on the dash front to hold certain thing on.

They will have to be Imperial rivets, as metric rivets are not "domed" enough, being more shallow headed.

Also in 1955, they most certainly would have been Imperial rivets on a Jaguar.

Metric things were only to be found in Europe in those days, where rich people went on holiday and came back with the shits.

After much trolling of the net, to my joy, I finally found what I was looking
for.

Quaint Imperial rivets with a measurement of 3/16 of an inch by 1 and 11/16 of an inch.

They came in packs of 10 so I ordered two packs, and they arrived today.

Of course I have no intention of riveting anything to my dash, that would have been far to crude for the Jaguar craftsman to even contemplate.

But I had a cunning plan, I would cut threads on the rivets then I could put nuts on, and attach my bits and pieces to the dash in a civilised fashion.

I found that I could cut a 5mm x 0.8 pitch thread and the 5mm nuts I had would be a good fit. So that's what I did.

Just another small step, but, in the right direction and of course, time consuming as ever.

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[Paul L]

Scottie - Those rivets are "Zen and the art of car building".

[WorldClassAccident]

Now that you mention it Mr T, I might have an easier time if I sit in the right seat too! It certainly does not look too bad sat in such a fashion.

I wish I had thought of that. I had to get my Merc modified so I could reach the wheel from the left seat!

[Scottie22]

I think Peepsy said recently "We go to bed thinking about our cars, and we wake up thinking about them too"

Well I can go one better than that now, early this morning, I actually woke up in the middle of a dream about XKSS dash boards!

This was probably due to me studying the dash layout on photo's on the pc for about two hours or so last night.

After so much study, (I was looking at the rivet layout on different cars)

I came to the horrifying conclusion that four of the rivets at the top and left on the dash panel, ARE SMALLER THAN THE OTHER eight!

Of course all my rivets are the same bloody size. If I had not noticed this it would not have mattered, but now that I knew, it did matter.

So I had to make the top four smaller. I did this by putting the rivets in a drill, and spinning it on to a revolving sanding disc.

It did not take long, and I got the correct results.

I tell you, be warned, once you have climbed aboard the attention to detail train, there's no f*****g getting off until it arrives at its destination!

Still I have the things right now.

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[Scottie22]

Because I had so much trouble with the doors opening correctly and the lexan side windows, I kind of stuck my head in the sand, and thought I would drive it like McQueen did, without the side windows, and I'd put them on later.

Recently it occurred to me that if I followed that route, I would at some stage be trying to fit windows on a finished painted car, which is not ideal, so I spent today fitting the windows.

I was over the moon with the drivers one, as it opened well, with no clearance problems at all. As usual, my euphoria was short lived as the the passengers one did foul the quarter light a bit at the top. I will sort this out somehow, but not today.

The fan kicked in while I had the engine running, and when I checked it
although it was working well and cooling as it should, it was blowing forward not backward, so I reversed the polarity. I had not noticed it before as it cooled well, but would have been in a serious fight with the slipstream once mobile if not sorted!

I also took off the two nesting hood frames, anti-rusted and painted them, a job I had been meaning to do for ages.


Here are the pics of the windows fitted:

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[scimjim]

Nice - is that 4mm lexan?

[Scottie22]

Yes it is Scimjim, I thought any less would be too floppy, and any thicker would have looked elephantine, it seems about right.

Another side effect, is it appears to make the cockpit EVEN SMALLER!

Very cosy though!

My dash will be 2 inches closer than the one in it now, and with the seats back in. I'll be two inches closer to the dash

If I put any weight on, I'll not fit in it, and have to flog the car to an anorexic dwarf

[Scottie22]

No offence meant to any anorexic dwarves that may read my thread,
in fact, stay tuned, and you may end up with a real bargain car!

[Paul L]

Scottie - Even if it is a pain, you know it makes sense to do all the fiddly jobs before paint.

The side widows do look the business.

Good luck, Paul.

[Scottie22]

I have just come back from the engraver that I use with my choke button.
I immediately painted it "russet brown" then high lighted the writing and lines with white.

It looks a bit newish, but it will be okay. I think the original knobs were brown in colour because they were made of "bakerlite". which to anyone that's never heard of it, was the early form of plastic.

It only came in brown and was very brittle and broke/shattered fairly easily if hit hard.

I won't have that problem with mine as it is a very durable modern plastic/rubber, most likely made in China.

Just got to make the dash board now..................

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[landmannnn]

Hey Scottie, bakelite is still used today to make domestic electrical sockets. They have changed the name to something like phenolic, but still the same stuff.
So not all 30's tech has gone!

[Mister Towed]

Originally Posted by landmannnn

Hey Scottie, bakelite is still used today to make domestic electrical sockets. They have changed the name to something like phenolic, but still the same stuff.
So not all 30's tech has gone!

Bakelite was indeed a form of synthetic plastic polymer created by the reaction between Phenol and Formaldehyde. Mixed with fibrous asbestos(!!) it makes an incredibly strong and light material that's resistant to heat and chemical attack. It's what the underwing drop tanks on most of the military aircraft I worked on during the 20th century were made of.

Here endeth the first chemistry lesson...

[Scottie22]

Very impressive stuff Mr T!

We eagerly await the second chemistry lesson...........??

You mean, there's MORE?