Just a couple of hours yesterday, got the right parcel shelf fitted. LOTS of trimming required, but will be invisible when it's all done - I'll line the shelf with felt, probably. Confirmed that the stereo head unit will not fit in there, with the cage knee bar in the way. Need to find another home for it. I ordered an under-dash mount and will see how that works hanging on the bottom of the right side parcel shelf. Today, spent a couple of hours this morning cleaning out the car and fitting the carpet. Just needed to remove some foam padding from the back, didn't have to cut it to fit around the front cage pillars. This afternoon, installed the side sill covers. They required much fitting, but look good now that they're done. Also installed accelerator and dead pedals. Starting to look more like a car... Hope to substantially complete the front interior tomorrow, then can get started on the suspension and engine bay.
Still wired for stereo volume control, though some of the wires were broken in the crash and it needs to be fixed. But I'm not using that wheel in the final build, anyway. Even though I really love how it looks, works, and feels. QR wheel will be much more practical, with the cage.
Spent a few hours today getting the front interior mostly finished. Installed shifter, e-brake covers, DSC yaw sensor, anti-submarine straps, and sat the seats in place. Yes, I sat inside and made racecar sounds. Played around with head unit positioning for a little while. Still some work to do on that.
About 4 hours today, getting ready to build the rear suspension. These are the trailing arms off GP0769. Remember, that car was driven several winters in the snow belt... and it shows. Several of the steel-to-aluminum bolts were seized when I pulled these off the GP. One was seized so completely, I wrung off the shaft of one the big, strong pivot bolts before it would budge. Wellzy drilled it out for me, picked the remaining steel threads out of the arm, and saved the threads. So now they're functionally OK, but they looked like crap, tons of corrosion. So... BLASTED THEM! It's amazing how nicely they cleaned up. I don't want them to get gross again, so I'm not going to leave them as bare aluminum. I had considered powder coating them, but don't want to risk the heat weakening the already-weakened threads. So I decided to paint them instead. Picked a nice, neutral, "cast iron" color. Because there will be lots of other color elements in the rear suspension, the arms don't need to be flashy. Five coats (two cans) of Duplicolor "Ceramic" engine enamel. This stuff is really nice, dries fast and makes a smooth, hard finish that should clean up easily and should be pretty durable. They actually turned out better than I imagined. I also degreased the rear subframe from Blimey (which is much less rusty than the one on the new shell), scraped and scuffed a few small rust patches, and sprayed them with rust converter. Tomorrow I'll cover them with chassis paint. Also scraped, scuffed, and converted rust on the shell's front subframe, and on the underside of the shell where the cage A-pillar plates were welded in. Tomorrow I'll spot-paint the subframe, and will apply rust encapsulating undercoat where needed. I sorted out all my suspension stuff, to get ready for the build tomorrow. I also assembled my coilovers... pics of those tomorrow! And, this came... Very slightly used OS Giken STR clutch. From Ben Chaltraw's RMW Turbo Monster. He put this on to break in his new motor, then decided to go full retard on the turbo kit and upgraded to a dual disk OSG clutch to carry much more torque. This is almost new, but I still had Colin get the friction surfaces cut so it will be like-new when I install. So I'll have a slightly used Cluchtmasters FX200 for sale soon.
I know a guy who could have polished those rear trailing arms for you... Evidently he does good work.
Suspension Sunday! A bunch of parts: Blimey/Locutus Mk1's old rear subframe (with rust converted and painted), H-sport control arms, Gen2 JCW rear brakes/cables, sensors, and a bit of hardware GP0769's trailing arms, blasted and painted New wheel bearings, front suspension pivots, and lots of hardware, from eMINIparts A new pair of H-sport control arms and headlight leveler sensor attachment from Detroit Tuned New custom-valved BC coilovers with adjusters and Swift springs, GP shock adapter bushings, and Whiteline end links, from Greene Performance New 25mm Hotchkis comp sway bar from somewhere First refreshed my old H-sport adjustable control arms, with new bushings. the old bushings were showing some age, after about 100k miles. Boy, a press comes in handy for stuff that calls for it. Then took a lot of pictures of the existing rear suspension, to ensure I could remember where everything went after I took it apart. While looking at it, I concluded that it would be easiest to just drop it intact. I bought the high-lift transmission jack for just this kind of thing, after all. Determined that it's only 5 bolts for the subframe, 4 bolts for the shocks, and 6 bolts for the front pivots... then it's all free. The Harbor Freight Earthquake impact gun made quick work of a bunch of rusted bolts that had never been loosened before. Only took about 10 minutes, and it was off! It IS very heavy, don't attempt to drop it intact without either a similar lift to hold it up, or a couple of strong friends. Then, time to drill the shock towers for the extended adjusters. Figured out what size I needed, scouted a hole location, was pretty sure it would emerge at a good place above, and drilled a pilot hole. When I was sure the location was right, I expanded it with a couple of step drills, until it was just large enough to pass the top knob of the adjuster through. The long rear brake hard lines were badly corroded. I had salvaged the ones off the old car, which were like new. It's a pain, but I swapped them while I was at it. Much better, and one less thing to worry about later. Hung the fresh subframe, and built the new suspension piece by piece. Set the new adjustable control arms (my new lowers) to the same length as the old ones, then adjusted the old ones to match the length of the OEM upper arms. Used copious amounts of anti-seize on everything. Measured the position of the headlight adjuster sensor on the old left upper control arm, and mounted the bracket on the new arm at the right spot. Really love how the whole thing looks, especially the painted GP trailing arms. It's basically done. A little more cleanup to do on cables, brake lines, wheel well liners, battery cable, etc. another day. Makes my adjuster stand at attention.
Another big box from Steven at eMINIparts! Looks pretty exciting, yes? Well, it looks better on the car.... All new arch trim. Took a few minutes out from working on work stuff, to snap it on. Huge improvement. Starting to look like a car...
What it needs is a real race car fuel cap, which allows you to dump a five gallon can of gas into it in seconds.
Make sure to put some sort of grommet around the hole for the adjusters or they will get worn right through.
I considered it. But the hole in the panel is a different size than on the MCS, so it's not a simple retrofit. The Cabrio is made that way, because with the convertible top mechanism, there's not enough depth available to fit the MCS chrome recessed cap and stuff.