It's been a while, time to update the build log.... In mid February I decided to get my finger out and take a stab at fabricating the seat frames in hopes of having a pair of seats ready to go when the body was firmly attached to the chassis. Fabricating the seat frames has happened but making seat covers hasn't quite happened:
I'm currently trying to find a cheap source for foam as the actual foam shops here in town (or at least the one's I've found) seem to price there foam as if it were made of some exotic rare mineral.
Next up was fabricating sway bars and sway bar mounts. I picked up some 5/16" rod ends (RH and LH threads), fabricated some drop links and made the mounts. The bars themselves are 5/8" DOM (.120" wall), I chose DOM as after reading various threads on this forum and some others on the net, mild steel appears to be a suitable material for the mileage this car will endure in my ownership.
I've also been looking at clutches and how to intercourse a Ford Zetec with a Renault gearbox. Bolting the two together is easy, but making them transmit power is another story. The largest clutch disc I could find on this side of the Altantic was 220mm, there is no way it would work with the stock Ford Focus flywheel. I talked to a clutch guru in town and he gave me the bad news that the Renault disc couldn't be mated with the Focus disc. So, what to do next, well it turns out the Escort ZX2 used an 8 1/2" clutch which should work with the 220mm Renault disc. A flywheel was obtained and things look promising. It was, though, at this point I was told that a Peugeot 2.5l V6 disc matches the Renault input shaft spline and will work with the Focus clutch. Finding one turned out to be near impossible. I could only find clutch kits and there only available in Europe. So, back to the ZX2 flywheel.... a clutch kit was ordered and when it arrived things really looked like they would work.
The release bearing required a spacer to fit it to the Renault bearing carrier, so one was turned on the lathe. That one was too short, so a larger piece of aluminium was acquired and was duly turned into a spacer:
Turns out that it was too long. Next weekend, fingers crossed, I'll get the clutch fully sorted. Moving on to the oiling system, the stock Zetec oil filter didn't want to play nicely with the chassis I built, so a remote filter set up was ordered. Things looked great until I went to install them. The adaptor and hoses at the block still interfered with the chassis. This was solved by carving up the nice new adaptor and welding on some tapped bungs (1/2" NPT). This looks like it will work once I trim the threaded connector at the block as the new outlets are pointing in the wrong direction. This was found out today when I went to the garage to look at the clutch and install the sway bars (the photo shows them in the correct orientation, but the adaptor is loose on the block) :
Other than that, I have now started on covering the dash board, and my helper will be putting together the door panels sometime in the next few weeks. I might get this thing done by the fall this year.
Rod