LocostUSA.com

Good stuff Freezing.. I've come the the same conclusion on my Berk; the shifter needs to be located up on the dash of this wee car.. I'm not to your point yet, but I'm also going to use a Morse cable (3" throw on mine), and the shifter will either come through the dash, or will bend down, around and up from behind the dash..

You're a big guy (hence the shifter up at the dash)... have you thought of stretching the car body a few inches to buy some room? I'm struggling to find an inch here and an inch there for the driver... I'm 6'2", and this car is just so damn small!

Cool build- please keep the updates coming

_________________
Dean

1972 Honda N600 Restomod "ccrunner's N600 VFR800 repower"

1963 Volvo P1800 Restomod
http://locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=16309

1959 Berkeley SE492 Restomod...
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=19397

"ccrunner's 1960 MGA coupe Restomod" found on MGExp.com

Hi CCrunner , Well I am 6'2" also and and in hind sight , may be a 1-2 in stretch would have been nice , I think the best way would be to add in the doors , cut in the middle and add the length there . now its too late , i would have to redo the frame, torque tube and a host of other item . I have tried many things to get ever mm of room . when i tried the original car with original seat with fixed steering , it was so hard to get in . but i removed the seat and tried to sit strait oi the ground and it was not bad . I have encountered that with my esprit S1 , could no fit in , so i had the seat bottom cut out and redone so it looked like a seat but i was sitting on the ground.

here i have gone a similar way , i decided to go as load as you can go , up to a point where i also did like in some lotus 7 where they notch the floor to add 2 inch depth .

as mentioned before i decided to go with a home made aluminum bomber seat, which would allow me to make it low , i plan to use kindergarten floor mat as the padding for the seat .

here is the way i designed it .

I had an old water heater tank due to go to the dump and i took the wrapping off , very light sheet metal , works good and easier to find than the think cardboard .

used the same idea as for the bomber and started to make a shape



a bit of trimming later



once i got a good shape , i transferred to aluminium 1 mm thick, make a mirror image et voila



I am using little piece of ash wood to make reinforcement while keeping weight down

once i have the rear 100% , i will finalise the bends, glue the kid mat , cover in vinyl ..

next step , master cylinder and may be test drive

more stuff , in order to do a road test , 3 more things are needed , exhaust, brake master cylinder and contols

for the exhaust , my donor bike has a really nasty looking 4 into 1 , but it had tubes . i looked at a few videos of how to make 2into1 and 4into1 , how to cut the pipe and where to weld .


ran some lines under and used hot rod type hangers to keep it tight . i left 1 inch clearance from under the body and plan to wrap the pipe to keep heat inside


putting the muffler outside the engine bay keep temperature in there more manageable
the funky looking hose is because this engine is oil cooled , so i got a bike to car conversion kit and them a remote oil filter mounting kit ( not in the picture yet ) that will also have a small oil cooler mounted up front

exhaust part# , my inspiration for the muffler came from a picture of a Berkeley with a side pipe , looked great and was very reminiscing of a cobra .
I source one of the biggest side pipe for a bike and at 32 inch it turns out not too bad , the only drawback is that it is not obvious how to mount , front was easy



for the rear i had to make a bracket that would be inside the punt but outside the car and i cam up with this ,
so its a 2 pieces that the end is just inside the fiberglass and outside to muffler


final look

controls and custom cables .
As finding custom cable is difficult and expensive , i have resorted to home made solution I have used before

use the cable that was there and make it shorter , the issue become the ends , remaking them is pretty tricky .
Over the years i have done the soldering a new end with silver as tin/lead will not work as it is too soft

one of my other way is to simply used the unthreaded part of a bolt , drill across and through , thread the center , works for any size cable

here is exemple for choke