LocostUSA.com

Opening all the way is good practice because there's an upper face seal.

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Too much week, not enough weekend.

OOPS I did it again
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

Blood Sweat and Beers
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15216

Interesting, I haven't been opening it the whole way. I'll change my habits and see if that helps. Thanks for the tip!

Rod

Nice work, as usual, Rod. You're going to find many uses for the TIG torch. Great first use.

Nice to see your dad's TF is coming along nicely. Signal red? I know a women in Portland who has had one in her garage, undriven, for 40 years. Wish I could get her to sell it to me. Sigh.

Ron

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. By the time you finish the car it'll feel like you've done it on your knees.

Ron,
The tank was my first real aluminium welding project, and I'm very happy with the results. Next up is a pair of gas tanks and the coolant transfer pipes.

As for the TF, the serial number does show it being MG Red, but dad prefers a colour that he painted his TC back when I was a toddler. It's closer to an Autumn Red, but is a Ford colour. Unfortunately, my camera doesn't quite show the colour properly. I might have it finished for the All British this year provided I can get the rest of the panels in paint by March.

Rod

Rod: re argon usage

My friend's large Miller has an adjustable post flow dial and I think it's usually set for about 7 seconds of post flow. My smaller Miller doesn't have that adjustment and the post flow is set to 17 seconds. That doesn't sound like much but when you're stop and go tacking I was going through argon like there's no tomorrow. I added a toggle switch on the torch handle to stop the flow after a few seconds. Great improvement in argon usage. So the question is, do you have any control over the argon post flow?

Ron

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. By the time you finish the car it'll feel like you've done it on your knees.

Time for another update, I've fabricated a pair of gas tanks for the car, though they're not quite finished. I still have to fab the fuel pick-up pipe, figure out where to mount the sender unit and weld on the filler necks (plus plug/weld up all the pin hole leaks).





I've also fabricated a brake balance bar:





And I've sorted out a starter for the motor/gearbox combo. I picked up a starter for a Ford Focus (the motor is ex-Focus) and machined up some threaded bungs to weld to the bellhousing. The top bolt for the starter picks up in the stock location, but the other two required the bungs. I've left the original lower mounting point for the Lucas starter intact, in case someone in the future wants to install it.



Yesterday this happened:





I bought some pieces from a friend, but in order to complete the deal I had to take the blue body shell. It didn't come with papers, but it does have a serial number still on it. I'm trying to decide if I should keep it and try to get the title or just pass it on to someone who fancies a Europa project. It's in fairly good condition with only a few repairs needed (the front cover on the shell currently is shot, but there is another one with the body).

Rod

Wow! What happened to that front deck? I am having a hard time imagining how that happened.

There is another lid painted the same colour as the body, I think my friend just lobbed the broken one on to keep most of it together. He had a pair of doors that matched the grey that it's painted, so I would assume the car it came off of was in some sort of altercation with a larger object and all that was usable was the doors and most of the lid. I'm planning on repairing the damaged lid and making it a ducted type cover for the one that I'm building. It's an easy swap, just undo two bolts and off it comes.

It's been a while, I think its time for an update.... I've now sprayed a second coat of high build primer after months of endless filling and sanding small voids and pin holes:





But, I've now found even more. Luckily they are easy to spot and there aren't a whole lot more, so now its a few hours of filling and sanding then some "spot priming" and the body will be ready for paint. The doors and lids will still require a few weeks of work, but at least the end of the bodywork portion of this build is in sight.

My goals for the summer/year are to have the car in paint by September and the motor in the chassis and running by October. Fingers crossed I'll meet the goals.

Rod

Glad to see the update Rod. I was wondering how it was coming along. Looking good, hope you make the target dates.

Now, if I could only get airframefixer to do an update.

Ron

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. By the time you finish the car it'll feel like you've done it on your knees.

Ahmen Ron and I hope he tells us about bonding steel to aluminum.

Looking good Rod.

I took a few days off last week to make the August long weekend even longer (civic holiday here in Canada). Thursday I had the car flat decked to my parents garage (more space, tools, etc):



Friday I borrowed a friends engine hoist and shoved the motor and gearbox back into the chassis, though it wasn't all smooth sailing. I had remade the engine mounts and left them undrilled where they bolt up to the rubber mounts. The first set of engine mounts were ugly and the motor wasn't sitting level. Anyways, while holding the motor with a jack in the correct position, said jack decided to slip out from under the motor and tear up one of the rubber mounts. But, I did manage to get the motor in place for now:





Next up was refitting the body to the chassis. I was hoping to not have to cut the firewall, but that didn't go to plan. the motor protrudes about a half inch into the cockpit. No big deal, I'll just have to make up a metal cover. On the plus side, it allows access to the front of the motor, so installing the serpentine belt and perhaps the timing belt will be a lot easier:



And this is how it looks for now:



I still have tons of work to do on the car, but it's at least one or two steps closer to being finished.

Rod

It's great to see the body and chassis side by side. There must have been quit a debate about the length and anchoring location of those trailing arms. They do eat up a lot of space. I'm old enough to remember when that car was first introduced and how controversial it was at the time. It looks so simple now even with the tube chassis in place of the sheet steel original.

There were some in the motoring press at that time who said the FWD Renault gearbox disqualified it from consideration as a high performance sports car. It's funny how biased, silly and bigoted even "car guys" can be sometimes.

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

Loved seeing it come together.

I've always been a fan of the backbone frame, but now it's beginning to scare me.

Not just from the fact that you need all of your side impact protection to come from the body, but also because I know how much more work a short lever arm has to do than a long one. So when you put all the forces down the middle in such a short distance it seems that the longer lever arms of the front & rear suspension will be hard to tame.

Oh I know it works, but it just seems to me that it would work so much better with a wider chassis/backbone.

In any case if you should one day decide to drop that off at my front door, there's no way in hell I'd kick it out of bed. That's going to be a hoot!

Should I send you my address for when that day comes?

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mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.

After a long, hard slog, the car is now in paint. But, it will have to be resprayed, the paint is a bit thin. It didn't fully cover in spots, but it's at least painted. Saturday morning it looked like this:



By the afternoon it looked like this:



Today the body was reunited with the chassis, and rolled out into the natural light. I have to say I'm very pleased with the colour, it really suits the Europa.





I'm not to upset about the need to respray. The plan now is to fit everything i can, hang the doors, make it run etc, then wet sand and respray in the spring. That was I wont be too concerned about scratching or chipping the paint while doing all the mechanical work.

Rod