LocostUSA.com

George Crushing has the basic measurements for the nose cone and the Skuttle is avaliable in picture form. (links below)
http://www.georgecushing.net/Nosecone2.html
http://www.georgecushing.net/nosecone.html
AND
http://www.locost7.info/files/body/scuttle.jpg
(big picture, I didnt want to crowd your build log)
between those to your can mock up some front and back metal hoops to get a feeling of about how and were the the bulge would be.

Thanks D. Looks like that's what I'll be doing.

Well I spent the day fixing broke mechanical bits. I did the Loctite crank nose repair, new front crank seal and timing belt alignment. I used that EXPENSIVE Loctite 660 Liquid Metal ($30 for a little bitty tube) as recommended with a new key and new bolt.

Want to see some carnage? Below are some pics of the woodruff key neatly sheared in half. I think that if it hadn't have sheared then the crank would have snapped. I hate pouring all this money into an engine that may or may not run but I'm committed now. The compression seems adequate so hopefully those crank bearings are tougher than we think. Did I mention you should stay away from badly crashed cars as donors. All of the money I thought I "saved" has gone toward replacement parts. I spent $200 on a replacement tranny, $35 on a diff case, $80 for a crank pulley, (more on that later) $65 for parts and materials to repair the cranknose, $40 for a water pump pulley, $25 for a crusty used thermostat housing, $50 for motor mounts, $80 for gaskets and crap to put it together. Add those up and you have $575 just fixing broken parts. Add that to the $500 paid for the car and you have $1075 spent and I still have to buy a radiator and all manner intake plumbing and coolant lines before I can even find out if the engine will need replaced. (which seems likely)
In addition to having to spend money to fix things, I also lost money because many of the unneeded parts that I could have sold were wrecked.

If I could do it over I would certainly pony up the cash for a decent running car. I would probably have ended up spending less in the long run. Not to mention the trouble rounding up the parts and not knowing what works and what doesn't.

**Edit** After writing this I installed my new water pump pulley and it didn't spin straight. The shaft of the water pump as bent so I had to go drop another $50 on a new water pump. So I got to do the timing belt thing again.






I tried to install a new underdrive pulley that I bought off Ebay. (auction 260031273186 for those interested) It doesn't fit. See pic below comparing the pulley's bolt pattern to the spacer plate from my car:



What sucks is I've already left pos feedback (hey it looked nice in the box) so this guy won't respond to my messages. I opened a dispute through PayPal, we'll see how that goes.

I think your advice is good. Best donors are running cars. If you get the engine in your locost and have some sensor that was shomehow damaged in the accident, but keeps it from running, you may spend a long time diagnosing it. Things were different in the days before electronics, but then again back then we considered a 120 HP engine to be very powerful for a Seven.

Here are some pics of the upper diff mounting plates in place. I've yet to decide how to anchor the bottom of the diff. In the donor car it was actually connected to the tranny.

Somebody needs more lights in their garage

So true. I can only see to work during daylight hours with the door open.

The weenie flourescent light fixtures at Home Depot are very inexpensive. My wife called me Mr. Lightbulb after I got done adding lights. I have two 8-ft lamps, one 4-ft, and four 2-ft units.

Looking great so far, buddy! Keep up the momentum - you're booming along like a train!!

Thanks!

I finished the rear diff bracing this weekend. I elected not to use the stock PPF and instead created my own ghetto bracing system. I managed to keep it all out of the tunnel, hopefully it will be strong enough. The vertical supports you see (that the bolt passes through) are 1" 16 g. with 3/4" 16 g inside them and welded at the ends. I braced it from the bottom and the top and made the top part removable to allow easier installation and removal of the diff.

Scored this really cheap, $30.50 shipped! Hopefully I can find the proper stub axles to make it work. The auction listing says I need different ones but I have yet to verify this. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will work with the ones from my open diff.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... 829&rd=1,1



I'd love to have a "real" LSD but I'm doing this on the cheap. Maybe later as an upgrade.

I drug my chassis out of the garage today to do some much needed cleaning and took some pics of it. I bought a sheet of 16g steel to do the paneled areas. I'm still debating what areas to panel off. I did some outlines on the pics of the proposed 16g steel paneled areas. I'm getting a little ahead of myself as I don't have all of the tubes in place, the ones that aren't there are also drawn onto the photos.





Comments, thoughts, suggestions are welcome.


On another note:

Here it is sitting on the ground after I drug it off the table to remove the engine. Visible on the photo, the 3/4" drivetrain offset to the passenger side puts the thottle cable linkage in the way.

A couple small updates. I put in my floor this weekend. I used 16ga steel instead of aluminum in attempt to stay within my $3k budget. It is heavy at 29lbs. but oh well. It's plenty strong.

I also got my seats. They are 15 1/2" Kirkey Economy drag seats that cost $340 delivered from Jegs. (with covers) I'm going to have to do something to raise them up a bit off the floor since the ergonomics are all wrong (legs too straight) with them sitting flat, and the 20 degree layback rules out leaning them back. If I could do it over I would get the circle track seats with 10 degree layback and then just tilted them back 10 more degrees. Regardless of what I do the seats will need more thigh bolster on the bottom.

Pardon the dark grainy pics.



Look at all that space between my driver's seat and the tunnel in my book sized frame.

As far as the seats are concerned, I used Mazda Miata seats, and had the same dilemma at first. I had to remove the tilt mechanism to get them to fit in the car widthwise, and made side plates to hold them at the rake angle that was comfortable for me, and matched the rake angle of the panel behind the seats. They were still too upright, though, so what I ended up doing was raising the front of the seats a couple of inches (mounting them on hinges with removeable pins), and fabricated a release mechanism for the back so I can tilt them forward (or, by removing the hinge pins, remove the seats entirely).

The reason for that was so that I could get at the wedge-shaped storage space behind the seats that resulted from raising them at the front, and I could get at the seatbelt mounts as well, as these would be impossible to get at otherwise. By the way, I left the slider mechanism intact, so the seats still slide back and forth about 5".

If you raise the fornt of your seats some, you'll end up with kind of a glovebox area behind each seat. Since there's not a lot of storage in these cars, it's kind of useful (and well hidden).