I've been meaning to do this for ages but I need a final push to get my car upto a decent state and get the IVA booked! Hopefully in time for summer....

So I thought id attempt to plot my progress with the hope that you lot can get me to pull my finger out and steer me in the right direction!

So......
Some time ago a fateful bid was made on ebay and that weekend me and my Dad travelled down to the midlands to pick this lot up-



It was some form of Locost chassis with Westfield body panels and wishbones/ uprights/ axle etc.
Numerous nights were then spent sanding down the rust/ primer/ paint that was on the chassis, then more numerous nights spent painting every last nook and cranny! A job that I wouldn't want to do again but I was straight in at the deep end in true Locost style!
Heres a picture to prove to myself that there was actually clean metal underneath it all!


Heres a picture to prove to myself that there was actually clean metal underneath it all!

A donor car was picked up via ebay with a 1.6 Pinto engine. This was bought to keep insurance costs down as at the time I was only 19 and insurance crept into the equation. Unknown to me by the time I had even begin to think about insurance I'm 22 and want to fit a bigger engine!!



After some time It was made into a rolling chassis so I took it out of the garage for a picture in the sunshine...



The body work wasn't in much better condition than the chassis but after a lot of work it was made to fit the Chassis and all holes/ cracks had been filled and sprayed the same white as the gelcoat from the bonnet that had been purchased from Westfield as a factory second(because I'm tight!). It turned out that the paint match was a few shades out so my tightness has cost me more money as I need to get the bonnet sprayed to match the rest of the panels now!


One of the trial fits (not my garage btw!)


After a lot of time and time and effort it got to this stage..




That's the story up to now (if it was as easy as that in real life!!)

Mark.

As I left the garage this evening this is how it stands...

The wiring has been done by a family friend over the last few weeks and apart from the odd little niggle and the Koso dash not working its nearly complete. (still had no reply from them either!)

I've been tidying up the engine bay and ended up fitting a new ally (one of the few things I've gone away from Locost style with) radiator and header tank.


I've undersealed the arches in black as I felt the white didn't look finished properly and it showed every speck of dirt.



The bonnet has been aligned using some angle brackets I made up. and a new set of smaller black lights have been fitted.



the back end is nearly complete-



And finally a quick picture of the interior (note the cycle wing- for a few reasons I'm not using my old set up and have bought some C/F ones).



That's all for now. I'm hoping for at least 2 updates a week.. but we will see what happens!!

Thanks for reading, Mark.

Mark

You'll be taking me out at the rate your going. Keep up the good work fella

quote:

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Originally posted by welderman
Mark

You'll be taking me out at the rate your going. Keep up the good work fella

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Another long overdue update!

I seem to be working as many hours as I can at the minute on this but that old saying is coming back to haunt me- the last 10% takes 90% of the time!
Generic picture that I quite like-



New Carbon wings fitted to custom made wing stays (made out of old school chair legs ) which are 100% stiffer then my old stays/ most other stays I've seen. It was such a pain to get everything lined up but now its done I'm very happy with how its ended up!






Next job was mirrors- after a post I started on here, the most popular way it seemed was just to place them as high as possible on the scuttle. After marking out a position to attach the mirrors my Dad decided to intervene and got 'found' some cones and a tape measure and we set to work.... After a lot of messing about/ measuring and some very confused neighbours ( I thought they would be used to it by now!!) we got the mirrors mounted. One problem however was the central mirror- I can only see half what I'm supposed to; If I bought a wider mirror I would just see the reflection of the driver and the passenger. So I'm a little stumped on what to do!



Here is a pic of the rear view problem. I presume everyone has a similar issue and somehow gets round it?



I'm not sure how this happened, but I've ended up doing a mini restoration to my front suspension... I just stripped everything down, cleaned, repainted in rubberised black and replaced all ny-locks. It looks loads better..

Before-



After-



I've also treated myself to a newly refurbished set of weber twin 40's, but as usual with this car the courier decided to damage two of the trumpets.. I've hopefully got somebody coming to tune them on Saturday..

This also means modifying my throttle pedal to accomodate twin cables-




Finally I got the bonnet grills attached and placed the bonnet on to get a bit of inspiration back and I think it looks pretty good!






Thanks for looking- and comment welcome, Mark.

Looks great. Good luck with the IVA.

What's this rubberised paint you mentioned?

Thanks!
It's from halfords.. It's just a hard wearing paint that dries like satin/matt. I've become quite obsessed by it!

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_764729_langId_-1_categoryId_165495

Mark.

Very smart looking car

Good luck at IVA too

Very nice looking car.
Kinda see where roadrunner got its design from then

Thanks for the kind words!


A little update...

I sent the IVA forms off this morning.

My list of jobs are-

Fit a new cylinder head! Its burning a little oil and my best guess is old, hard valve stem oil seals. So I have a 2ltr injection head that's getting a quick refresh and ill get that bolted in next week sometime!

Finish my bonnet stay.
Calibrate my speed on the digi dash.
Work out why my digi dash reads 147000 miles! Oops....
Try and get a reading on my rev counter.
A few little bits of edge trim and nut covers
Bung a db killer in the exhaust. I think its borderline but to be on the safe side ill get one in for the test!
Then a quick clean and polish....

It sound so simple when you write it down!

Mark.