LocostUSA.com

I had hoped to make a little more progress on the car in the last couple of weeks but I had a few setbacks.

First off, I fell into a gumption trap of my own making: one of the batches of bondo that I mixed up and put on the fender as part of the filling/sanding process didn't quite have enough hardener in it and didn't fully cure. I had gradually reduced the amount of hardener I was mixing since it's been hot out and the working time of the filler is abysmally short when mixed with regular proportions and I found that adding slightly less hardener made it easier to work with, but unfortunately I took it a bit too far. Anyway, the uncured bondo was just hard enough to not be easy to scrape off with a scraper, but too soft to sand as it just clogged up the sandpaper instantly. So, I did what Robert Pirsig suggests and left the fender alone for a while. Yesterday I finally worked up the gumption to take a wire wheel to it, which takes off the uncured bondo quite well but also removes much of the previously sanded and levelled filler and puts me back at square one. Oh well, minor thing.

Another setback is that my wife's car decided to start spewing coolant all over the driveway one day. I thought it blew out the head gasket, so I put it in the garage and started taking it apart. When I got the head off, I discovered that the issue was not the gasket, but rather a chunk of metal missing from one of the cooling passages. I can't think of what would cause that other than a manufacturing defect that didn't show any symptoms for over a decade. The metal had been missing for some time since there was a fairly thick layer of buildup on the head-gasket in that spot. The guys at the machine shop were convinced it was caused by acidic coolant due to not changing it often enough, but I don't see why that would erode that *one* spot and not any other place on the head. Now I'm waiting for the head to come back from welding and resurfacing, but in the mean time her car is taking up space in the garage which makes working on the locost challenging.

Ahh, nice to have the wife's car done and out of the garage so I have a little more room to breathe.

Not too much progress, though I did get some nice shiny chrome headlight buckets in the mail. Naturally I had to make a couple of mounts and attach them to the car. I have to say, even without any bodywork, having the lights in place make it look a lot more like a proper car. I also put a chrome oil cap on the engine as I needed a PCV intake filter and happened to find a cap with filter built in for $10.

I picked up a couple sheets of 0.040" aluminum and will be able to start on the bodywork sometime soon, though I'm wondering if I should do the chassis paint first. Obviously the chassis has to be painted before the body panels are riveted on, but I was worried about the paint chipping while I was shaping the panels around the tubes.

The car also has some proper sized tires on it now. The rims I had for the ranger with shod with 205/75/15s which were about 27" in diameter and made the car look like an offroader. I took them down to the local used tire shop and got them changed out to 195/60/15s, which are just under 24" in diameter and look a lot better on the Locost. These aren't performance tires so I'll have to get another set later, but the price for these was right: $0. I was rather surprised they didn't even charge me for mounting.

Lastly, I added one more piece to the roll bar - the short piece of harness bar on the passenger side. This tube took forever (well, like an hour) to grind down to get the proper fit as it had to have both ends fishmouthed at different angles and be an exact length to attach to the diagonal bar at the exact same height as the long part of the harness bar.

You're right. It's definitely looking like Locost 7. Nice stance. The headlights are cool too.

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

To make it look even more Locost-ish I decided to start working on some of the body paneling. I've never done any sheet metal forming before this project and it was one of the main things (along with painting) that had me worried about being able to complete it in a way that actually looks good. It turned out that I was right... I suck at sheet metal work. For now, at least. Hopefully I'll get better with practice. Anyway, I made the rear panel. The results are not spectacular, but I guess I'll live with it for now until I figure out how to improve it, or remake it at a later date. The issues were with folding over the top edges (couldn't quite get these to go all the way around), and also with poor fit-up. I thought I had the panel properly lined up on the car before I started folding over the edges but it turns out it was just a little too high, which means the sides ended up just a wee bit too short and it doesn't reach the diagonal round tube just behind the tire on one side, and also the bottom edge of the panel ended up being about 1/2" wide instead of 1".




Now, to be honest, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. There are plenty of things that need to be done before the panelwork is attached, not the least of which is painting the frame. This is one of the other major things I'm worried about, having not done much before. I have a can of POR-15, a can of self etching primer, a can of rust converter, and not much of a clue about how to proceed. The internet, unfortunately, has about 1001 different opinions on this subject.

Also, I bought a shrinker/stretcher from Princess Auto and decided to try making the rear fenders out of aluminum. My wife decided that this work looked like fun and decided to come help me, which turned my shrinker from a hand operated unit into a voice operated unit, which is even better than a foot operated one. Time lapse of some shrinking action found here:

And the a semi-completed first attempt at making a fender:

I think it's a little too short...

Looks to me to be way too high above the tire - lower it, do a little more shrinking to tighten the radius to fit the new, lower position, and it should work great!

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Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Zetec, it is indeed clamped on pretty high in that picture. I could probably lower it down an inch or so, but keep in mind that the car supported on jack stands in that pic so the wheel is at full droop. I think I need to leave at least 4" clearance between the top of the tire at full droop and the fender to account for suspension travel. I will also rotate the fender forward a bit so it is a touch lower in the front than the rear, and then possibly add a bit of a mud flap to the rear. I don't want to shrink it anymore as right now it has a 15.5" radius, which is just enough to cover the trailing arms with it centred on the wheel. If I make it smaller, either the bolts will be exposed in front of it or it won't be centred on the wheel.

Okay, I get that. IMHO, centered on the wheel is important - I've seen some cars where the rear fenders weren't centered on the wheels, and it did, indeed, look "weird".

On my car (I have CMC, fiberglass rear fenders - poorly made, not remotely consistent from side to side (although it's not easy to see both sides at the same time...), the leading edges of my fenders at the bottom are level with my floor, and the tops of the fenders are 4" below the top of the frame behind the seats. That's a bit more than normal (most seem to be about 2" below), but I like the look.

Here's a pic (a really crappy, cell phone one) of mine, if that helps...

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Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

That looks really good. Any concerns with bumping the tire into the fender under full suspension travel? Yours appear to be a little bit more than 180 degrees of wrap around the tire, which probably would have been a better way to go. I used a 4 foot long piece of aluminum to make mine which results in maybe just a hair less than 180 degrees.

Btw, what part of BC are you in? I have a brother in Esquimalt and another starting school in Victoria this fall, so I may end up visiting the island on a somewhat regular basis. Would love to see some more 7's in person - so far I've only seen SkinnyG's car in Kelowna.

I'm pretty sure full-bump won't be a problem. I tried removing the springs & dropping it onto the bump stops on the shocks - even with no springs, and my weight on the back of the frame, I still have 1" between the fender & tire. So far, anyway!

I'm about 17 km. outside Victoria (Sooke). When you're coming to the island, shoot me a PM - I'll be very glad to show you my efforts so far!! Probably get you a tour of my buddy's shop, too (he's building the "sister ship" to my car, as well as a bunch of Triumphs).

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Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Thanks Zetec, I definitely will be in touch next time we head out that way. My wife and I passed through Sooke last year on our "honeymoon" camping trip through BC on our way to China beach campground. It's a beautiful area.

Glad you enjoyed your pass through Sooke, and looking forward to meeting you!. Hint - when driving through less-populated areas of Sooke, if you hear banjos...don't stop!

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Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Not too much Locost work recently between work and a couple of trips (Poland and San Francisco), but I am slowly working towards having a functional interior. I paneled in the transmission tunnel (which took a lot longer than I thought it would), added some pedal pads, and started on a dashboard. Not sure yet what I'm going to do about a speedo and tach yet - the transmission had a speedo cable coming out the left side but there is no room for it, so I want to go with an electronic speedo. What I was considering doing is putting a variable reluctance centre right behind the transmission to pick up the ears of the U-joint yoke, and have a PIC microchip or arduino process the signal and run a stepper motor for a home-made instrument. The tach is easier as there is an output off the EDIS module for one.

Next steps after the dash is done is to make the scuttle, add the bodywork sides, add tail lights (already bought some red and amber LED round lights from princess auto) and wire in the light switches/relays.

For simplicity sake, maybe a GPS speedo? No wiring, no motors...just 12V & a ground...just a thought. They're quite reasonably priced now.

I've tossed my wood dash, in favour of aluminum. It will still be padded & black vinyl covered, but will be easier to build.

Keep on pushing that peanut forward!

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Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Hey Zetec, I have definitely considered a GPS speedo, it seems like it would be an ideal way to go. However, most all of the ones I looked it were quite pricey ($300+). Do you have any links to some reasonably priced models?

EDIT: Actually, I just looked again on ebay and it looks like they have come down in price quite a bit. I saw a few models on there in around the $100 mark plus shipping, so definitely will consider that option.

Well, it would sure simplify the wiring!

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Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/