Update April 28th 2021

 

Hood all complete

The hood fit completed. A bit of care and attention on trimming the excess material and vinyl edge has paid dividends. Car look better without the hood, but living in the UK, its essential!! I have ordered a cover for the hood, which will make it look a lot tidier when folded down.

Front Bonnet Handle

I have fitted the front bonnet handle, it required drilling out the hood which meant I had to peel back some of the leather trim that had been fitted under the bonnet. Should have thought about that earlier!. Just need to fit badge once it arrives.

Badges

I had the front and rear "Porsche" badges powder coated in the purple highlight colour that has been used on the rest of the car and have been fitted to the front and rear. I also had a new badge 3D printed for use under the hood. (see next section)

Under bonnet cover

I made some templates for a set of covers to go under the front bonnet.  I ended up with a main cover plus templates for trimming up the sides. Final cover and side trims have been made from scrim foam covered with a vinyl. Speedster logo on the electrics cover was 3D printed and then painted.

Steering wheel

The old VW steering wheel needed for IVA test has been removed and replaced with a nice item I sourced in the US a few years ago. I have the rim trimmed with the same leather as used in the seats.

Luggage Rack

Fitted the luggage rack that I got off eBay, two brackets bolted inside the lid. I have also fitted 4 self tappers through the grill cover to hold it in place.

Carburettor update

Long running saga of the leaking carburettor. Its annoying that it leaks under no pressure. I have even had it leaking on my bench being gravity fed from a bottle. 

My current theory is that because the carbs sit at a 2-3 degree angle, sloping towards the front of the car, the standard float setting whilst providing the correct level of fuel to be in the reservoir when the carbs are level, on this car with the 2-3 degree slope the fuel may be too high at one end and may well be the source of the problem. I'm off to to have another adjustment on the bench and try out my theory.

UPDATE - nothing to do with the mount angle, so it went back to the supplier, they have replicated the leak, but like me don't understand where its coming from!!!!

DVLA Registration

I'm still waiting for the necessary registration documents to come back from the DVLA. 

Next time

Full picture set of finished car and hopefully rolling road tuning results

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