progress skewed

Well - things are happening slowly... but happening none the less.

• Pedal box tray welded in
• Fuel cell tray welded in
• patch in floor welded in
• started sanding the engine bay with the aim of prep sanding all the interior to the cage going in
• massaged left rear turret for coil-over install - right rear still to do

The pedal box tray got installed slightly off centre...by about 5mm (at the most)  pure un-mitigated operator error - this will annoy me but will have no functional impact. Installed M8 Rivnuts for the willwoods to bolt up to.... had to fab up a tool as I was not going to pay $170 for a proper installer - mine was free.... and pulled the inserts up perfectly...

 

I will plod on with the various finishing - sanding - grinding - seam sealing and bashing things with a large hammer tasks (racing is such a precision sport) I *think* I have finished welding for now - yeah right

 

new email address for those who care - god does anyone read this stuff???

 

warwick dot gilchrist at xtra dot co dot nz

 

Smoke and Flames

Spent a Saturday afternoon creating dust and smoke - welded in a patch in the left front dash panel area and ground flat - removed the last roll cage footing from the old main hoop - need to patch a couple of holes from the previous welding efforts in this area.

Cut the boot floor out completely to allow the fitting of an 8 gallon fuel cell (small - but we only plan to run sprints/hill climbs and sprint circuit stuff - if we run enduros we just get to fill up lots!)

Chucked some zinc based primer on the front floor area and generally measured up for the pedal box mounts and fuel cell tray....

played chief timing manager for the Taranaki rally - lost a days fabrication and gained some good contacts - not a bad deal... good rally too

 

laters

w

 

oh

you know, if you looked really carefully you could say something might have happened..... maybe.....

 

okay I welded a wee patch into the dash area on the left hand side (its on the lis, so tick one more thing off)

 

then burnt a hole in my hand

 

and kicked the sharp end of the trolley

 

- while not wearing gloves but while wearing my best safety jandals

 

so one hole patched on the car and two patched on me....

 

more this weekend - hopefully no blood this time

 

W

 

super-market-fiat-trolley

isn't summer nice? (or winter for those north of the date line) - tore myself away from the sun shine for few hours to fab up a little car trolley so that the Fiat can be moved around and loaded up to come home....

 

four caster wheels - a couple of lengths of tube and there you go (attached to the suspension pickups - nifty)

 

that's it

 

later

w

nothing to see here - move along.......

notes -

Garage is painted

spares are being unpacked - junk tossed out....

new baffled windage trayed sump purchased via trademe - thanks Paul http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~pcia/index.html

the ignition controller from  the 128 is the same as on the Peugeot 405 Mi16..... (ask me how I know)

Price for a flowed big valve head with cam to suit is $1300 +gst from kelfords in Christchurch or $4500 from the guy in New Plymouth... hmmm choices - choices

I still don't have a roll cage

I will no longer be predicting a completion date

 

 

that's it - see you next year

 

x

x

w

 

 

 

 

more of the same

Spent a bit of Sunday afternoon grinding the last of the roll cage stubs out - in total its taken 7ish hours to get the old cage totally out - which is about half as long as it takes to put one in.... do not try this at home!

(do what I did - use someone else's garage - its a messy job!)

 

Pulled the head of the Super Ritmo Cabrio engine - these were the hottest SOHC available to the public - 1600cc and rated at 100hp as apposed to the super 90 Strada - head is dated 1983 and has bigger everything compared to my the 1500 head... off to the engine doctor to get a diagnosis - I just hope he can do something for this patient.

 

applied paint to the garage at home - hmmm patchy white is much better than black and gray timber....

w

make haste slowly

No much going on in the lair of the #67 Fiat at the moment -

 

cut the roll cage stubs down for final grinding (nasty horrible job) seam welded the wheel tubs where they failed when the old roll cage came out.... came up nice.

Threw a bunch of nasty little dabs of weld in the corner of the left A pillar - and then ground it back to look almost kinda just about not quite sick making.... its going to get a skim of filler to make it smooth - I just cant get a weld bead to come out good there - too much braze and seam sealer close to the joins... oh well! add in another 3.5 hours

 

Another two weekends should see it ready to slide back to my own garage - yay!

 

From the other weekend I have a bunch of  photos from my trip to Auckland plus a very gratefully received 1500 ported and milled head many thanks to Carl and Bob Hayman - the photo below is of Carls 1500 block with 88mm bore for 1560cc and IAPEL Pistons - looking forward to seeing this back in the #888 car  along with the big and beautiful Lynn Rogers Tipo Head for the Leisure Time series next year. Just hope the gear box hangs in there! on a personal note I am sorting out the cost of the engine for next year just so I have a total to aim for.

 

Cleaned out the garage at home ready for painting the walls and running the lights hopefully will be done by Christmas.