Trim Diary #2 - Dec 23rd 2020

Here are a few pictures showing the work completed since the last update.. Very close to being finished now.

🎅 Happy Christmas to everyone and lets hope for a better 2021!!🎅

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Front bonnet complete carrying the same style from the interior

The sill and upright panel by the doors have been filled and sanded to achieve a perfect flat and straight edge, one issue with diamond stitch pattern is that you can see any unevenness in the panel being covered.

Centre tunnel looking good! 

Nearly finished! The seatbelt bracket is temporary only for the IVA test

Trim Diary #1 - Nov 24th 2020

Change of trimmer

I decided to change who I was going to trust to trim the car, Option 1 Sports Cars who did such a good job on the paintwork also have a small trim shop. They have a great eye for detail and only take on one job at a time, unlike a lot of trimmers who jump around between jobs.

The car was dropped off on 20th October, and they have been making good progress, what follows is a  diary of the trim process to date.

30th October

First mock up of a door panel in vinyl with other areas of the car marked out to determine the pattern and layout of the two leather colours and diamond stitching 

The seats I had made are not going to be used and I have decided instead to use the two Mazda MX V seats I have as a start point. The foam seats and back panels will be modified to reduce the overall width then trimmed in line with the rest of the car.

12th November

The rear trim panel that sits around the rear area has now been carefully fabricated in fibreglass and is ready for the final trim. The door panel for the near side has been completed again in fibreglass and foam covered ready for trim (no photo)

The two rear quarters have been trimmed, the centre panel is still in mock up stage in vinyl.

24th November

The original mazda seats have now been reshaped and covered, looking good.

Rear "seat" storage shelf has been completed

 Central tunnel is a work in progress

Update Oct 1st 2020

A few final jobs before it goes back to the paint shop for a little remedial work to a few paint scratches caused build during build, I'm quite pleased that there isn't much.

From the paint shop it's up to the trimmers 1st week in November. So this is probably going to be my last update until I get the car back, hopefully in December (maybe)

Offside rear suspension

The offside rear was just not sitting at a good height, I had maxed out on the adjustment on the spring plates, but it still was not correct. I decided to bite the bullet and strip down the suspension arm, and reset back one spline on the outer torsion bar. Quite a job, but it's done and I now have a good ride height with the adjustment set the same on both sides of the car.

Other jobs

• The front and rear sway bars have been tightened

• Fitted the old VW steering wheel and got the horn working, this will be replaced with my custom wheel after the IVA test

• Added Stickers relating to brake fluid

• Finalised fit on the external oil filter and pipework.
• Refitted final engine tinware
• Completed a full engine run and final check on any leaks etc

Engine will need a final tune and setting up of tappets, but for now its running ok

Interior

The trimmer has provided a visual mockup of the interior, finding the colour carpet I wanted was not easy, then I found it when having a browse around John Lewis! These are just a start point, be interesting to see how it progresses once we start.

Handing over the car to someone else is scary!!! I've warned the trimmer that I am more than a little obsessed with detail,  but I'm not sure he gets how OCD I am!

Update Sept 3rd 2020

Rear parcel shelf

On a normal Chesil, the rear "seat" is a simple trimmed cushion. As I have mounted the oil cooler into the base of the rear shelf I needed to create a raised base to protect the cooling fan and also hide the audio amplifier. I drew up a quick sketch, then made a couple of rough prototypes then with the help of my local furniture builder they made the final cover. 

Sketch

Formed cover made from layers of bendable ply

Waxoyl

Thought I would inject some Waxoyl into the floor pan before the trim is started. Although this was done by Chesil as part of the floor pan shortening, looking at it I wasn't convinced. I have sprayed into the rear warm air inputs; interior heating ducts and anywhere else I could get the probe into!

Oil lines, refit tinware and engine bay seal

The external oil cooling circuit has proved to be a bit of a pain. Once I fitted the exhaust then I found the pipes were going be too close to the exhaust. I have had the pipes remade with different angle joints. I have also added a bracket to support the pipes and heat proof protection.

I have refitted the exhaust back box which I had to remove to sort out the oil hoses, 

Exterior trim

Fitted the lower side trim, had to send back one of the pieces as the quality wasn't good so waiting for a replacement. 

Fitted trim to front bumper, who knew how nice the car looks with no bumper fitted!!

Fuse and electric cover

I have made a cover for the electrics in the front of the car. It may or may not survive the final trim, but I think it looks ok. Made it out of shaped hardboard and covered it with a dark purple vinyl

Geometry

Lots of work here. Firstly setting up the ride height using the adjustable front beam and rear plates. A bit of a faff. Front end suspension setup for camber and steering geometry etc

Petrol tank

The petrol tank has now been fitted and connected.

Car rolled outside

Car out in the fresh air!

Next Jobs

• Test the engine for leaks then refit remaining engine tinware and engine bay seal
• I might adjust the rear suspension to give a little more ride height
• Final fix on sway bars front and rear
• A few small jobs
• Interior trim finalisation

Update July 27th 2020

Its been a busy July!! Lots done and the car is nearly ready for the trimmers. As you would expect not everything came together as expected and there has been a few reworking parts that were fitted earlier. 

Pinstriping detail

I have some pinstriping added to the engine tinware and around the from bonnet (hood) latch area.

I have fitted the filler pipe, always nasty drilling more holes in the body!. Didn't quite line up initially, but quickly sorted it. I'm not going to do a final fit on fuel tank until I have finished setting up the ride height and steering geometry, the access is so much better without the tank in place 

Not quite aligned!

Seat belt fix points

Photo from Westfield Cars
showing the required bracket

Photo from Westfield Cars
showing the drilled out panel

The IVA test requires a specific minimum height for the part of the seat belt mounted over your shoulder.  

Having looked at what Chesil have done in the past, and with some measurements and photographs from Westfield cars (thank you Patrick), I drilled out the mount points and will need to fabricate the bracket. 

Rear parcel shelf

On a normal Chesil, the rear "seat" is a simple trimmed cushion. In my car as I have mounted the oil cooler into the base I need to create a raised base that will protect the cooling fan and also hide the audio amplifier. I drew up a quick sketch then have set about making some templates, with the help of my local furniture builder we are crafting up a suitable frame and cover. Pictures next month will make this a lot clearer.

Mock up drawing

Current state

Fit Exhausts

I did a trial fit of the exhaust and figured out what tinware needed to be modified. I did the mods which also meant crafting a couple of new brackets then had some of the tinware re powder coated.

Fitted the exhaust, getting hold of the 42mm gaskets wasn't easy, or cheap.

I am having to modify the oil hoses in order to route around the exhaust, during the refit I'm going to be protecting them with a heat protection sleeve.

Insulation.

I completed the interior insulation with a layer of sound deadening then another layer of the foam sound proofing material

Starting to fit the sound deadening

Both layers in place

I have fitted the soundproofing carpet underlay

Doors

Final fit on glass, with never ending adjustment on the winding mechanisms! Also fitted the rubber outer glass seal and inner felt seal.

Prepare seat mounts

I worked out the position of the fixing points for the seats (donored from the an MX5 courtesy of my local scrapyard) that I will be using to get the car through the IVA test. It's definitely a case of measure three times, drill once. All four mount points are now done and painted to avoid any corrosion.The custom seats need some work to figure out the best way to mount in the car hopefully ending up at the correct height.

Time spent on build

I have been keeping a log of the build time, bear in mind this is my first build so a lot of head scratching going on, but thought I would share my time log todate. This does not include research time!!!!

Next Jobs

• Fitting exterior trim (some of it)
• Refitting the remade oil pipes and heat shield
• Refitting remaining engine tinware
• Fitting engine bay seal

References

Drawing for IVA seat belt mount, I take no responsibility!!!! 

IVA seat belt mount

Update June 30th 2020

A few what sound like small jobs but were quite time consuming that I have managed to complete this month

•   Finalised clipping in all the wiring
•   Final fit on main switches and instruments

Steering Column

Having polished up the indicator stalk (see earlier blog) I decided to do the same to the component that sits behind the wheel 

Original

Original

 

 

Paint removed using
180 grade

 

 

After around 4 hours and lots of grades of wet and dry, all the way down to 7000 grit, here is the 

finished result

 

The steering column has now been finally fitted and all the cables neatly fixed in place.

Steering wheel for IVA

In order to get the car through the IVA test I need to fit an original VW beetle steering wheel. Most of these are now cracked and not good, as was the one I bought off ebay. So I set about repairing it with epoxy steel and my trusty dremel, then gave it a coat of paint.

Cracked steering wheel

Dashboard

The dials and all related cables have been finally fixed into place and the speedo cable fitted to both the speedometer and the nearside wheel.

Door furniture and window winding mechanisms

The door pull, opening handle and window winder mechanisms  have been fitted. I used riv nut fasteners on the door pull to ensure a secure fixing. The wood panel shown on the picture below may or may not be used when the final door cards are made, designs for which are still very vague. I'm not planning to use any of the interior kit available from Chesil, its not that there's anything wrong with it, I just want a more custom/unique look to the car.

Seats

Another IVA requirement is the design & function of the seats. Mazda MX5 seats are the seats of choice and are used in the majority of Chesils. I have had a set of custom buckets seats made, but I can't fit these for the IVA. So I have had to find and then will need to fit seats from the MX5, then post IVA remove and refit my bucket seats, which of course don't have the same mount points! So lots more work.

I found some MX5 seats and during the month I have marked up the fixing points which will be drilled in order to do a test fit next month.

Exhaust

I'm using an exhaust set up made by Vintage Speed. Once the correct set finally arrived (long story) I had the header tubes sent out for ceramic coating (https://www.zircotec.com/)

Uncoated J tubes

 

Ceramic Coated

Rear muffler

Slosh in the petrol tank

I decided as the tank is clean and new to give it some extra protection using Rustbuster Slosh tank sealer which is tested to be Ethanol proof and will resist petrol with over well over the current and proposed new fuel standards E10 - E15. Straight forward enough, bung up all the holes, pour in and slosh around then after a little while empty out any residual. https://www.rust.co.uk/product/slosh-petrol-tank-sealer-7

Next Jobs

• Fit exhausts
• Prepare seat mounts
• Final sound proofing to cabin
• Set up steering geometry
• Fit petrol tank and all pipes
• Make panels for under front bonnet