Pedal Box

Still saving for the engine so installed the pedal box last weekend which has been lying around for a while. Offered the pedal box up with the clutch pedal removed to make it a bit easier and marked all the holes. Then did a lot of drilling, pic below was taken from within the engine bay looking back at the front of the footwell and shows the cutout for brake servo with slotted holes (ahem - intended!) for adjustment.

The braket for the clutch master cylinder sits ontop of the footwell. Installed pedal box shown below. You can also see the U-bolts for the column on the scuttle hoop above, and the SLFL25 RHP bearing (from RS) fitted ready to take the steering column. This replaces the dax part and is much firmer and prevents the column wobble that some kits using the sierra column can suffer from. The guidance for fitting this is as high and as close to the centreline of the car as possible. It also says to beware that the column could foul on engine/exhaust parts so you need to be sure of where everything is before you fit it. Initially this worried me as it will be a while until we get the engine and exhaust during which time I wont be able to do any dashboard work without a steering column. I then remembered that we will take the car to Gary at Sidepipes who will be making us custom sidepipes and will bend the exhaust to fit around whatever is in the way so I could whack the steering column in and bo**ocks to whatever might clash with it.

The Dax manual says to mount the pedal box as high up as possible, you'll notice mines dropped 1cm or so. This is because the manual also says the lower part of the pedal box bolts through to plates on the chassis on the other side of the footwell. If the pedal box is at its highest then the bolts dont come through the plates, they are too high. Therefore I lowered the pedal box a bit so it all located properly. The only side effect this has is that the pushrod of the clutch master cylinder is at a slightly increased angle but it still operates smoothly. One thing to note is that the pedals are pretty high off the floor. We'll either have to put larger pedals on or raise the floor a bit so its comfortable for Naomi, mind you she is just sat on the floor with no seat.

As far as the steering goes, the column height is of most importance to me so I can get my legs under the steering wheel. The sierra wheel is 14" but I plan to use a 13" momo wheel eventually. I could have got the bearing a little further inboard but would have lost a bit of height on that mounting point which would make the steering wheel sit more at an angle and given a less comfortable driving position.

Clutch master cylinder can also be seen attached to the pedal, theres a slot in the top of the footwell to allow the pivot off the top of the clutch pedal to come through. Got a brake servo from a 1998 1.8 TD escort van off ebay for £18 as opposed to £150 from Dax. That just needs painting then it will go on with a new master cylinder (£15 ebay).

Lights

First post in what feels like ages, what with the micra needing a new timing chain (took us nearly a week!) and trying to make the best of the weather so the garden doesnt look like a jungle. We were planning on doing nothing else until we saved for the engine but thats far too boring.

Bought some rear lights - Lucas L594, Landrover lights and fitted them with LED bulbs. What a difference to the rear it makes, it actually looks like a car now. These lights required an earth wire from the bulb holder to work on a fibreglass bodied car.

Loads of stuff arrived in the post, radiator (200sx S14 off ebay), pedal box, fuel filler assembly. Also on order is a fuel tank and wiring loom.

Stoneleigh Kit Show

Can't do much now until the engine arrives, apart from radiator (200sx S14 triple core, Ebay £120, rather than £400 Dax one) and a bit of wiring. To keep enthusiasm high while we were kicking our heels trying to save money for the engine, we went to Stoneleigh kit car show which was very good, had a good look at lots of other cobras, especially at the interior design and dash board to get some ideas of what layout we want.

Heres a few photos, Naomi is almost entirely convinced that when we move to somewhere with a double garage, we need to fill the extra space with a GT40 replica.

Fortunately we stumbled accross the interiors seating stand and had a go in a few seats. They do Dax specific seats which are narrower to match the available space. Originally we had an idea to have a modern high-back race seat but we both found the original style ones a lot comfier.

The only benefit of a modern race seat is that I would sit an inch lower (im over 6ft) but I've sat in a cobra with a classic seat and I wasnt looking over the windscreen. Also we cant have the seat too low as it would be too low for Naomi. The classic seat with the potential for a booster cushoin (not a joke - interiors seating actually do these which blend in with the seat) is the best compromise.

Body Fitting Part 2

A lot of work in this post, securing the body down to last forever more is pretty stressful.

Once the body was in the correct position we jiggled the body about a bit with plumb lines from 12 o'clock in the wheel arches to get left/right alignment correct, then deployed lots of clamps to hold it in place. Then mega-drilling commenced on the floor. Quite awkward drilling right in the footwells. Couldnt get the drill straight through the chassis becuase of the shape of the top of the footwell so we just drilled through the fibreglass to leave a mark on the chassis to drill out later.

We lifted the body off to clear all the swarf away and started applying the Wurth adhesive like it was going out of fashion. One interesting point at the rear end the manual suggests a pretty convoluted way of getting a line of holes drilled into the extreme rear cross member. Our solution was to dremel two slots in the boot floor at either end so we could see where the bar was, then draw a line down its centre and get drilling. All holes were spot on the centre of the round bar.

The body went straight back on and line it up on the drilled holes, not too difficult. I bought an air riveter of ebay and I can honestly say that without it we would have been completely stuffed as these are pretty meaty rivets. Heres Sam doing some lazy mans riveting.

At this point we hadnt put any adhesive around the engine bay and it was a good job as it was getting dark We judged that the inner wings were flexible enough to apply adhesive and rivet at our leisure the next day as we were tired and hungry and didnt want to encourage any mistakes.

Below - first the passenger  side inner wing on the front horn. Job well done, good fit. The fibreglass is bendy enough for this to meet the chassis snugly and was rock solid with a metal spreader plate on the outside, a good dollop of adhesive and neatly tidied with a good fillet of wurth around the edge.

The drivers side was not as good - There wasnt enough flex to make up the gap and have a nice flat face of the fibreglass wing against the chassis rail, giving a vastly reduced area for the adhesive. The solution here was to make a half inch thick spacer plate bonded and riveted to the chassis, these rivets interspaced between the rivets that would eventually go through the exterior spreader, fibreglass, spacer plate and chassis. This required a quick trip into town to get some longer rivets. All faces were copiously covered in wurth adhesive.

Eventually though all was well. The spacer plate was covered by a large fillet of adhesive to neaten it up The insides of the wheel arches currently have the metal spreader plates visible which to be honest look like a bit of a bodge but all this area will be covered in 5mm thick neoprene rubber to stop stones cracking the body. 

For now though its quite satisfying to look at the mass of rivets, although after getting some of the wurth stuff on my hands I know the adhesive is doing most of the work in stopping the body blowing off in the breeze.

Body Fitting Part 1

We drafted in friends Max and Chris to help finish the slightly messy assembly of the rear end, driveshafts and CV joints which took most of the day at a steady methodical pace but passed without massive incident, apart from having to adjust the rear caliper carriers as the wheels were catching. We ended up griding away the slave wheels in frustration which solved the problem.

When it came to it, 3 people was enough to fit the body. One at the front and one each on the rear wheel arches. Bit of effort required for the two at the back to get it chest high but it dropped straight on. Pushed the footwells up against the plates in the chassis to ensure fore/aft alignment was correct then stepped back to admire our handiwork. The difficult bit will be tomorrow when we start drilling and riveting but for now we basked in the glory.