My nine-month sabbatical is over and I’m back in the garage. As is appropriate when re-kindling a relationship with a lady one’s been ignoring, it was appropriate to bring my build gifts. In this case it was a nice shiny set of rocker arm covers and fuel rails. Here’s the covers installed, the fuel rails not yet added:
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Fresh momentum was needed as I kind of lost track of where I was in the build, so several small tasks that had frustrated me earlier were first up. One was re-doing the throttle pedal (iteration #4, I think.) Now when I put the “pedal to the metal” it doesn’t actually touch the metal. Trickier than it looks as the foot well is narrow, the tranny-side panel sets at an angle and the pedal swings upwards.
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The fuel tank had been shipped from the factory with AN-8 fittings instead of the -6 fittings ordered. They had sent the replacements, but I hadn’t gotten around to making the conversion. So got that done, and then made up some fuel lines to connect the in-tank plumbing to the filter/regulator. Also bought a length of Earl’s Vapor Guard fuel line to run from the regulator to the fuel rails.
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A 14” driveshaft was ordered and installed. Once the safety hoops are mounted I’ll be able to finish up the tunnel framework.
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Even with the high cockpit sides on Car9, curved arches just above the rear fenders needed to be added. I wanted the arches to continue the 1.5” tube profile used in the cockpit upper rail for side panel continuity. The arches have a roughly 16” centerline radius, so a tube roller was required. JerryH kindly offered use of his HF unit and the job was done. Note of caution here, I used 1.5” x 0.065” DOM tube for the non-structural arches. This was tough stuff to roll in the HF tube roller. If I had to do it again I would have used softer tubing, probably 1.5" exhaust tubing.
Here’s the driver’s side arch with coped ends. I decided to use the harness bar for the high point of the arch. It will also be the high point for the sloping rear boot, so there will be more non-structural tubing added on the way aft. The cardboard cutout shows the fender outline and the tire circumference.
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Adding the eye-candy to the motor convinced me that the nose cone needs to be lengthened about 5”. The scuttle is already full length, no hood is planned and the nose has been widened about 6”. The problem is making a male mold for the extension that keeps the lines between the scuttle and the nose cone true and fair. I’ll probably build a plywood bulkhead closest to the motor that sets the loft lines at that station and then fill forward to the nose cone with either formed aluminum sheet or a carved foam block. Glassing will need to be done
in situ to hold the shape together. I’m looking for suggestions on how to do this. I’d like to minimize the amount of bondo need to get the shape right after the glass is laid.
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Its good to be back in the garage