I Like Cake

A new part arrived through the post for the Fury today. It's a cake tin, 5" dia x 4" deep, anodised
aluminium. Obviously it's going to get modified & adapted to the purpose I bought it for, but I'm not going to say what that is just yet.

See it you can work it out.  😊

Cam Wheel Cover

Long story. The car's supposed to look kind of like a barn found late '50s club racer, so the large plastic parts detract from that (yes - so do the blue hoses, I know), some time ago the plastic cam cover got the heave-ho to be replaced by an alloy one which had the "Zetec" & "16v" ground off & was then kind of polished, or polished enough to look like it was polished 30 years ago.

But, there was still a large plastic cam wheel cover. Many people run without them, which was an option, but the thought of a stone getting flicked up & finding its way betwixt cam wheel & belt didn't bear thinking about. But when the bonnet wouldn't close over the plastic one after the winter upgrades (a new engine mount had pitched the engine up / left enough for it to rub) it was clearly time to get out the tools. There's no cleverness about the cover I've made - it'd make a tin-smith cry!

It's basically a plate the size if the cam wheels & a couple of angle brackets holding a flange covering the belt.

It'll need prettying up a bit & it's a few grams heavier than the plastic one, but it does - or at least will - look better, to me at least.

Up at the top there's a nice simple bracket where before there was none, a couple of titanium bolts & aircraft clip-nuts hold the cover away from the belt.


At the front it gets more complex where an angle bracket has to get into an awkward shape, but it's reasonably neat & kind of hidden. I need to work out what to do on the off side where I think I'll need to put in a removable section to make the cover easier to get off than the plastic one was.
 

Belly Panels

Yes, yes I know it's been a long time since I wrote - a lot of "stuff" has happened, almost none of it to do with the car - which is all you're interested in right?

OK, it's been cold here, properly seriously cold. It hasn't got above 4deg C at all in the last three weeks, most days don't get significantly above zero. S have I been spending long periods in the un-heated garage? No, but with Mrs Blatter away for the weekend, I have sallied forth. Yesterday I fitted a new high level brake light, when I built the car the choice of LED lights wasn't as broad as it is now & I selected a very neat, thin unit which only came in "clear" (it lights up red obv.), but they now make the same item in red which blends better with the roll bar, so as my in-laws had contributed to the car fund with my birthday present, I bought the new version. Fitting it was  bit of a struggle as the wired pass through the roll bar, but not too bad.
Next up was the bonnet prop, the feet of which got pop-riveted this time - last time they were bonded on, but the effort I didn't need to take it off suggested a more mechanical means of fitting it was appropriate.

Today I started by bleeding the front brakes as I'd had to remove the wishbones & hubs to do the de-rusting. That done I made a load of small brackets for the belly pan, then did some shaping on the panels for that, made brackets to join the pieces together & generally got it closer to being fitted.

Here it is, still with the mark-up writing on it, just a few more things to do & it'll be getting cleaned & sprayed silver ready to go on the car

 One of the things that took the most time was sorting through my old box of aircraft parts to find fasteners & anchor nuts. I found almost enough, but I'll need to use a different size round the outside edges, which is probably no bad thing.

Vented

Realised I'd not put the latest news on here. While staying at my brother's (long story), he got the belly panel punched for venting 😊. They're not fitted on the car yet, but they look like this:-

Now it has been suggested that the large hole in the middle looks a bit rude, but surely only if you're a lego man.

More Aluminium.

After yesterday's efforts panelling the underside of the car, I did less today (it was -5C outside when I got up), but I did cut out a blank for the front wall of the boot, & rough-shaped a panel for under the front of the chassis / splitter.

I might be having a change of plan there. I had intended to take the floor surface forward under the front of the body, to split the airflow into engine bay air & under-the-car-air, but looking at it as I made it, I think it might make more sense to bend it 45deg up at the front chassis member, doing that will direct between 1/3 & 1/2 the radiator air under the car rather than into the engine bay. this is going to need some thinking.

On a less positive note the boot lid is looking rather curly, I've left it on the rear deck in the hope it would retain it's shape, but it seems to be gaining shape at an alarming rate. I've bought it indoors & laid it on a flat surface in the hope it'll flatten - or at least mot bend any further.

Belly Pan

Not a new kind of pizza with a domed underside, today I ar bin mostly aluminiuming.

It didn’t begin well, I couldn’t find the template I made of the front chassis, I couldn’t find the Stanley knife, “they’re only a few quid, I’ll buy a new one & I’ll take the in-law’s car & refuel it, then park it so I can charge the battery" – good plan – except the in-law’s car battery is already flat.

Push the in-law’s car to a place where I can re-charge the battery, hook up the charger, take my car to B&Q, which is FULL of families with v-small children gawping at Christmas trees & lights & generally getting in my way.

The idea of the belly pan is to make the underside of the car smoooth, the air passing under the car is less disturbed & the car is faster. On most cars it can't really be done because a production car has a lot of shape in the chassis to give it strength. On the Fury it can be done, the underside of the cockpit is flat anyway & I made up panels for the underside of the transmission tunnel & the diff cage when I built the car. The idea of panelling under the engine bay on my car is really to keep stone chips away from the chassis coating & keep the engine bay clean. There is of course a down side & often, the close panelling stops air getting out of the engine bay - if warm air can't get out, cool air can't get in & the engine cooling effectively stops. On my car the belly pan with be louvred, with the open side of the louvres downward & to the back so the forward motion of the car should pull the warm air out - fingers crossed

Anyway – I found the template, I now had a knife. I cut the outside profile of the near side panel plus a little wriggle room, then offered it up & marked out where the engine was, I cut out a space for the sump & offered it up again marking where the outside was too big. After some fiddling about it fitted nicely & I drilled it to match the brackets I’d fitted some weeks ago.

I say I cut the panel with a Stanley knife, for those not familiar, I use a straight edge & a craft knife to score the aluminium, then repeat a few times, then gently fold the sheet - it'll crease along the score, then bend it back & forth - only about 10 - 15 degrees at a time, until it splits in a perfectly straight line. The edge will be rough & sharp, but is easily dressed smooth with a small file.

The off side was much the same except for fitting the new piece round the louvred panel already fitted under the pedal box. But as the photos show, it all looks rather good – of course the only things to ever see it will be the MoT man & any squirrels unfortunate enough to find themselves under there.

Next jobs are some more brackets to support the outer edges, getting the panels louvred to get the engine bay air out, start on the forward panel / splitter & get some Dzuses (other 1/4 turn fasteners are available) & get it all finished. Then I can get back to doing the boot - I've had  few ideas on that score & I'm getting keen to test them out.

Clearing Up The Jobs Backlog

A number of worrying jobs had accumulated. Worrying in that they could be catastrophic if left forgotten, so this week I've put new nyloc nuts on the suspension bolts & torqued them, I've put oil in the engine (still needs coolant though) & that sort of thing.

 

Today as it was dry for the first time in a couple of weeks I rolled the car out of the garage & assembled the clutch cable – always a faff, as you need two arms in the space of one, but I got there in the end & joy of joys, the pedal now needs about ½ the pressure it needed before with the Zetec clutch (for those that haven't kept up, the FWD Escort flywheel was re-drilled to take a Pinto clutch). This was one of the main aims of the stip-down so I’m very pleased.

I moved on to the throttle pedal & cables, first of all I drilled the pedals - well it's the sort of thing I just do, after a bit of Dremelling the throttle cable’s now working nicely, so it just needs the exhaust & some coolant & I could start it 😊.

 

As a finale, I did a few jobs that’d been left, like tidying up the wiring under the airbox, putting the air feed pipe back on & tightening the alternator mounting bolt.

 

Major jobs still waiting:-

Engine bay belly pan,     Bleed the brakes,        Boot lid