Rear Panel - Day 3

Fhew, busy day today.  Spent all day working on the car straight, the reality is pre building the rear panel may have been easy but it made fitting an absolute pain.  Not sure if its normally as difficult as I found it, but the whole panel was very rigid so it didn't make my life easy....but...its on.

I had already laid the wiring loom through the tunnel.  The get the correct position I've temporarily put the firewall in and attached the fuse box to it, from there I've done what everyone else does (and actually whats really obvious) and ran the loom through the tunnel and past the diff, then out to the various places it needs to be.   I do quite a lot of cabling at work and I actually find it quite relaxing, in the end this was really easy.  Difficult to see in the photos but I have made a neat job, attaching the loom via rivets and cable ties all along the underside of the fuel tank (obviously attached to the chassis though!):

The rear earth is on the right hand side, via rivnut, you can just make out where I have removed the powder coating.

It took so much work to get to this stage:

It was made even more difficult work on my own but I got there:

It all seems straight and is level, I think I got lucky to be honest - preassembling was a mistake, maybe.  I will only know if I ever have to do this again and there's no chance of that any time soon!

Rear Panel - Day 2

After picking off sikaflex from the trim panel, scraping the tadpole trim (need to buy some more!) and a couple of hours work I am really pleased with the end result.

I have gone as far as I can now until I trial fit - and after I purchase the engine loom.   First, I got everything setup again:

Measured up the centre of the back panel and matched it up with the trim panel:

I started riveting from the centre, outwards.  Next it was time to trim the corners where the tadpole trim wraps round, this time I took longer and made sure that I left enough material to "nip" under the corners.  As I am no longer gluing it in place, it needs to be held in place by enough material:

 Then it was just a case of taking my time, working centre outwards -note the temporary bolts, they help keep everything lined up:

And the end result, like I say I can only go so far because it will require a little fettling to get everything lined up on the car.  At least now the fiddly bit has been done (hopefully!) and once I get the wiring loom purchased I can go ahead an trial, then permanent fit.

Rear Panel - Day 1

Bit the bullet and went for the rear panel.  I ordered a refurbished steering column and I purchased the bottom shaft separately off eBay, I need to refurbish that part myself.  So, knowing that would take some graft I decided to go for the more challenging option.

I had read a few horror stories and complicated blogs about the rear panel, it made me nervous, actually I found this easy and also enjoyed it.  The fact that you only get one chance to put the bends in made me nervous, I managed to take over the dining room so I could lay everything out and do the job in the warmth.  A freezing cold cramped garage wasn't the place for this one.  So, first I set out shop:



 In prep I had all my hand clamps (around 20!) G-clamps, clicos and half my tool kit just in case.  Coffee on and a quick refresh from the few blogs I had read.

The best method seems to be bend all tabs using mole grips > then put in the fold each side.  I remember when I was at the factory they mentioned that the fold will almost put itself in, but I was still nervous and question whether it truly would be that easy.  A quick look and there's a pre drilled hole each side which I can use to line everything up.  Great, lets get cracking!

Maybe overkill but I decided to mark everything up - I didn't want to bend each tab at different points, to make sure I got a nice straight edge I simply drew between each tab and used the mark as the point where I would create the bend, like this:

I used my pliers rather than moll grips as they gave a straighter, tight bend:

 I did all the tabs and started the bend one side at a time, I also used he top trim as a guide so I knew how tight the curve needed to be:

All done on one side:

 Note the towel - it makes it easier to apply even pressure, I read that on Richards blog and it definitely helped.  The bend also almost formed itself, just as the guys at the factory said.

Repeat for the other side and a small bit of sikaflex at the bottom corners, my thoughts were to stop any water ingress but I suspect its overkill but I had the tube out anyway so may as well use it:

I did move onto the top trim and also the tadpole trim, but that was a disaster as I glued it on and it looked awful.  After a post on the rhocar forum it turns out glue isn't needed and I now have the fun task of removing all the glue off to try again....

I have brakes! (and finally some new wheel studs)

Oh hindsight is a wonderful thing! First, I have been busy working on the car.  No blog update for a while, but not because I haven't done anything - I struggled for weeks with my wheel studs.   Its a long story but I leaned the hard way the studs I had were simply not going to go in without some serious persuasion, meet my new 6 ton press:

 

I couldn't resist giving it a quick try in the Kitchen, don't worry the rest were completed in the Garage like so (well earned biscuit break included):

Before I purchased the press I ended up snapping a couple of studs, threading a couple, wrecking two wheel nuts, bending my vice (!!), pulling my back and eventually deciding that something definitely wasn't right.  I still don't know if for some bizarre reason the studs I had were the wrong size, because they were immensely difficult to get in.  I checked the default size (they weren't oversize, 13.1mm) and even purchased a micrometre to double check.  A small amount of copper grease helped each as well as a little heat with a blow torch and the correct length studs are set to go:

Moving on now to the brakes.  After having to dismantle them completely to replace the studs, I was keen to finally get the system bled and that was made easy with this little bargain from Halfords:

It has a none return valve at the top (black pipe) which slips over the bleed nipple.  I was a little sceptical at first because everyone seems to go for the EasyBleed system, but at 6 times the price I was willing to give it a go, after some patience it worked perfectly and my system is bled.  I did have an accident, after a few hours I lost a lot of fluid from the reservoir and traced it back to the pressure sensor above the diff - apparently a common problem, it needed PTFE tape to seal properly.  Looking more like a car each day:

Glad I went for Yellow in the end - they are the same colour, its darker at the rear of the garage:

I did some tidying up of the rear suspension, cutting the bolts down to size with the dremmel and smoothing with a file they look much neater and "factory finish" now.   Small job but pedal box now assembled fully, only finger tight as it will need to come off later on:

That's me done for today - I may tackle the scuttle tomorrow, but that looks in depth and requires some thought.  I need to tidy the garage.  Steering column is on order, along with new barrel fitted at GBS along with a new set of keys.  A guy on the rhocar forum is also sending me a Sierra steering wheel (IVA) for postage which is very kind of him.

Replacement Wheel Studs

After putting the disks on I remembered that there is a possibility I will need to change the wheel studs, after measuring it turns out there isn't enough length.   I've ordered a set of 16 new studs, 47mm, but annoyingly it means I need to take everything off as I am not prepared to start smacking them with a hammer whilst on the car; I don't think the bearings will like that.

I've removed 12 studs already, I tried with a bearing puller tool from ebay but that was all but useless - I had to remove the marked red bit so I could get the correct angle:

After failing miserably I bit the bullet.  The rears were easy to get off as I hadn't yet tightened the hub nut (will do that last thing), the hubs came straight off.  The front is more difficult, I ended up removing the whole dummy strut, I need to get a bearing puller because the top ball joint is still connected.   After a couple of days of penetration fluid the rear studs came out quite easily, swift blow with the hammer.

The front was slightly harder so a change of tactic needed:

22mm socket behind the hub, tightened the vice and each one popped out with relative ease.  Apart from one, which took me three hours to remove.  I won in the end:

 

 After cutting the stud out and griding as close as I could to the hub, it finally gave up!  One more to do tomorrow and then I can wind the new ones in.  I suspect they too are going to be difficult, I will have to be careful as I really don't want to damage the threads.  I'll do some research but planning on both freezing the studs and heating up the hub with a blow torch before winding them in with nut + washers.  We shall see, Ill check rhocar forum.

Front Callipers - Complete

Well, I've been waiting to post this for a while.  Bit of a mammoth task to get these all painted up, lots of patience to make sure I didn't put the paint on too thin but got there in the end.  I went for Hammorite smooth yellow - that meant lots of coats, yellow isn't the best at covering.

At least I managed to do all this in the warmth inside as its been too damn cold outside for the paint, you can see the progress below.  After stripping my donor parts down and giving them a good clean:

And on the car, looking nice:

The bad news is I have now dismantled my rear callipers to prep for painting, which I spent ages fitting.  Oh well, it will look good when finished. :)

Fuel Tank Fixing & Fuel Lines

Fixed the fuel tank today, the norm seems to be sikaflex so I made sure I used plenty.  Not the neatest of jobs but thought it was better to use too much glue than not enough, this part isn't going to be seen and better safe than sorry:

Not really much to say.  Used my rathchet strap to clamp down and then a couple of bits of tubing either side to stop it sliding back.

I guessed where to put the fuel lines but I've noticed there is a guide on the KitSpares site, I am not far off to be honest I just routed both pipes down the right hand side of the diff and split from there, rather than top of diff.  I was worried about some kind of weird gravity affect for the top pipe (back from swirl pot), I ran the pipe along the bottom of the fuel tank and then back up to the top, which is exactly the same as KitSpares.

 I have the two inside crescent panels now.  I plan on fitting them, finishing my callipers off and then I am going to have to purchase the wiring loom as I don't see how I can get the rear end on without fitting the wiring as it will be a squeeze.