Mk1 Rally/race car

[jpayne]

Hey mate,
been there discovering rusty front corners.
get a photo up of the area so I can advise if the panels I bought from SMCKA will fit. the inner sills were fine but at the front have a split and need shaping, trimming and welding.
the floors were fine except the outside edge where they turn down to meet the sill. the return wasn't deep enough or steep enough falling down from the floor edge and couldn't be bent down due to the floor profiling. So I cut the profile, re-bent to shape and welded the cuts up.
you can see it here:

I think both scenarios are what is known as Fettling and expected. Not a drama just takes time.

JP

[wayovermyhead]

Thanks for the pic Justin, that along with all the other in your build thread have been a good reference for me to figure out the way to go about it.

I just picked up a set of Magnum panels which I think are the ones you had. I did notice that they would need some work at the corners but I picked these up very cheap from a bloke who didn't need them so it was worth it to see how close they get.

Here is the LH side, It's not too bad other than all the holes in the channel by the sill. The old bolt in cage has distorted it a bit and there is a bit of pitting around. Prob not as ugly as it looks with all the body deadener.

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And the RH side. Which is pretty bad. The seat crossmember is removed in this pic and you can see all the rust and hopeless patches all over it. All very well hidden by someone under a very thick layer of body deadener.

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Anyway, i'll see how well those panels work out, I think they'll be OK. The only other option was a full set of floors from Ex-pressed. But that's a massive job and massively more cash and just overkill as the rest of the floors from the seat crossmember back are great, and believe me I checked under all the deadener (had to wash my hair 4 times after that effort with the wire wheel)

[wayovermyhead]

Well, been slow going lately. Mostly because I've been taking the time to learnt how to use new toys.......

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Definitely took some time to produce tig welds I was happy enough to lay on the car. I decided I wanted to butt weld the floor pans in with the TIG. I know everyone advocated the MIG but I felt it was possible to get a more discreet result and potentially less distortion and finishing required.

I was happy enough with the end result, definitely took a lot more work to get the fit up good enough and sure as hell learnt a lot about the TIG (which was the other half of the motivation to use tig not mig).
No perceptible distortion and a tiny wipe of filler would render it invisible in the future if I wish, so I feel it was worth it. I will say this though, butt welding .8mm sheet with a TIG is not easy!! And without a doubt will do a far better (and quicker) job on the other side.

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[wayovermyhead]

Anyway, drivers side done. And I was so sick of cutting and grinding I decided to do something more interesting so started on the cage.

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As usual, more work than it looks like. Especially to get a nice tight fit.

And I'm going to TIG the cage as well so a tight fit is crucial.

[ozstang65]

That's exactly the same welder as I have, and the bender that I want! (Next major tool purchase....). If you haven't found this youtube channel already, it is a great source of welding knowledge. I haven't done any panel work with my TIG yet, but I've heard it is much easier to work (panel beat) a tig welded joint than a mig one.

[jpayne]

welds and floor looks good. well done.
God on you for learning new tricks and the cage looks the business.
JP

[stuart]

looks like a good bend. i am always worried about the how much some benders squash the tube as you only have 5mm difference in the diameter

[wayovermyhead]

Thanks folks, The bender works well indeed although it does have a few tricks that take some working out. Sooo much easier having this style of bender though as opposed to the other 'bolt to the ground horizontal types' like JD2 and the other speedwerx one. I didn't really have an option though anyway as I'm space limited.

Scott, I did a little beating on some of the practice welds and they definitely were much easier to work. It takes a bit of practice, and took me a while to get my head around all the various Tig setups and consumables to find what works best. I'll keep at it, and hopefully end up being good one day.

The floor pans were not a great fit, but close enough. Your pics were a help Justin, the pans position ended up a little differently to yours but no doubt a result of the different sheetmetal between our cars etc, you won't pic the difference though once the seat crossmember goes in. Just goes to show everycar is different. If I had more time though (and money) I would without hesitation get some Ex-pressed panels. I can now see the true value of them when you look at the differences.

Spent the whole day today figuring out one front leg of the cage. Takes a bloody long time to get a really good fit when there is multiple bends and angles involved. Will post pics shortly.

[wayovermyhead]

G'day folks,

Been a while since last update, mostly because iv'e been too hard at it to post. And I had to take a forced holiday for a week to Byron so not much action there.

Diff is in and all sorted, brakes and everything all hooked up since this pic but no pics of that yet.

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Floors are done too thank god. And cage is finished... for now.

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[wayovermyhead]

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[wayovermyhead]

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I'm pretty happy with it in some ways, less so in others.

The fit is Tight!! which is good. There is about 3mm clearance between the front legs and the upper door aperture. And about 10mm clearance between the legs and the A pillar. Barely enough room for a big pretty gusset.

I could have been happier with a couple of the welds, but only from an aesthetic point of view. They are all deep and solid. One advantage of the tig which makes me glad I went that route.

I did have alot of difficulty with some access due to the tight fit, and I if I do another i'll leave some more room. Just one of those lessons learnt. It all worked ok, just took A LOOONG time to do a few welds, And it's hard to make them really neat when your upside down with a bar in your back, operating the footpedal with your head looking into a mirror to see where your welding...

I will add a gusset or two at a later date, i'm all out of time right now though. Less than four weeks to go to get it all back together.

Sorry bout the lousy pics but too much contrast in the garage to get a good pic. will wheel it out into the sun shortly.

Only wiring and a few other loose ends to go. Some of which is done by the time you read this.

Cheers,
Llewellyn

[jpayne]

Well done. welds look good and its all getting there.
I ended up with the same watts kit after seeing yours. just need to fit it all up.
Cheers
JP

[wayovermyhead]

Cheers Justin, My only gripe with the watts kit was that it uses imperial threads.... in this day and age. I suspect due to rod end availability???

more progress, the usual boot scenario.

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And started the wiring

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Decided to go with a centralised switch panel, mostly as I cannot reach the dash from my seating position while strapped in. You will also noticed a hydraulic handbrake which I don't really care to have, it was mostly due to the placement of the switch panel necessitating the removal of the mechanical handbrake, which is useless now anyway du to disc rear end etc etc, this was the easiest and lightest all round solution. The panel is just a quick alloy fold job for now, I'll do something a little neater in the near future. it also incorporates aircraft resetable breakers for all circuits (no more fuses) and all wiring is colour coded to individual circuits using Tefzel wire. Turned out ordering the good stuff from the US was pretty much the same price as getting GXL or TXL wire here in Aus. And the breakers only cost about $20 us each as opposed to $60 each here. The only surprise was you have to use special strippers to strip the wire due to the mechanical resilience of the Teflon polymer insulator which cost $250.

I'll tape up the harness for now and just run it for a bit in case I want to add any other circuits etc before properly heatshrinking the whole length. Other reason for this is time constraints once again as unless you have stocks of everything at your disposal you really need to run everything first and then order all your heatshrink boots, splits etc as they are pretty expensive. I'll be using Deutsche DT and DTM connectors as well and am running the loom through grommets in the firewalls for now, and quite frankly will probably leave it that way as it's one/two less connections in the circuit to that would only serve to quicken maintenance on a car that really will never need speedy maintenance/replacement of a loom. And once again, proper connectors are bloody expensive too.

More to follow shortly...

[wayovermyhead]

Well did we make it...........

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Yes we did!

I was working on it right up until the last minute though. I tried to take it to the track the week before for a rough shakedown but got about half a lap round before the fuel pump died (brand new) so we pretty much lined up at the first stage having not driven it.
All went pretty much perfectly though, sailed through scrutineering and the car ran perfectly (almost) the whole time. We literally could have parked it each night and just turned the key in the morning and gone again. All we ended up doing was rotating the tyres (which still have a couple of days left in them) and fitting some foam to the underside of the guards after learning the hard way what sticky tyres and loose stones do to them, oh well an excuse to fit flares I guess.
The only small issues encountered were the gearchange was not perfect (will post something in the gearbox section for a better reference) and on the last day we developed a knock (heat/bad fuel???) leading to us limping through about 20klm of competitive stages until we put fresh fuel in. Fitting a visual knock indicator was a god send as we would have just kept pushing until damage was done. Other than that, about 1000klms problem free driving bliss.

Day one was pretty hot and uncomfortable with a whole lot of new stages, the field stopped in the town of Euroa for lunch, with all the cars parked up in the main street, which was full of life and excited locals. There was a fairly big transport stage on this day (about 80klm done twice) which was a bit of a punish, but was a great day which culminated in the infamous Buller hillclimb stage, which we got the 11th fastest time in classic outright!!!

Day two was fantastic and felt cooler with shorter liasons and felt like the day flowed much better, stopped for lunch at a fantastic winery and relaxed in the shade of a tree with a fantastic vview of the hills. The stages were fast, fun and smooth with the last of the day been the street stage in Mansfield which turns into targa fest with once again many excited locals with lots of stalls, activities and of course one massive car show.

Day three had two massive 30klm stages in it that had everything in them along with a few other shorter ones that were just as fun and challenging. The stages on this day were simply awesome, such a privelage to be given free reign on them. Once again the day finished with the hill climb but we could only manage the 14th fastest after starting very soft as I was paranoid about the knock which we had only just fixed although not knowing at that stage that all was good.

When I started the week I had no idea if the car would be a total failure and would just have been happy to finish the first day, In the end I was pissed of when we just had to back off for a couple of stages after having such a faultless car. In the end we ended up 21st outright in classic out of about 45 cars and 14th in late classic handicap, with the biggest handicap too as we just crept into the most modified class as we had a watts link. We will have to make some pretty big! upgrades to make the most of being in this handicap class, we have some big dollar company around us. And the whole experience was really just a huge learning curve about rallying and driving, looking back at the end of day three we were probably only driving at about 60% on day one, and it highlighted how much of an amateur I am with the car after only doing a few supersprints and a hillclimb, I felt like I really was learning to drive the car for the first time on these roads, it's not like a street car that you can just take for a spin on the weekends and get a feel for the dynamic limits. Massive credit to Drew my navigator and good friend too, It was his first time naving too and he pretty much nailed from the first day. We still have a lot to learn and practice but I was truly shocked at how well the whole communication and notes thing came together, a real credit to him.

It's a lot of money, but.... I want to do Tassie now!

Thanks for all the support and advice folks, and sorry for not keeping the updates more regular I have barely had time to take photos. When I uncover the car from all the gear in the garage i'll take some finished pics of it, although it aint really finished yet. The week showed up a few things that will need some work.

Cheers,
Llewellyn

[Danny M]

Good to hear!

[stuart]

well done

[jpayne]

thanks for the update, always nice hearing others good and bad stories.
Well done on getting it ready and making it last.

More photos of the car shows!!!!!!

JP

[Neville Bertwistle]

[wayovermyhead]

Thanks fellas, JP i'll stick up some more pics when I grab them all of my old man. Plenty of in car footage too, i'll get that up when i've had a chance to digest it too.

[Damion Parkin]

Awesome effort! Looking forward to seeing some more pics.