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Smokey’s Narrow rebuild


Mark (smokey mow)

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well the westfield has been getting a bit of a look in this year  :D and a bit of a thrashing too at various circuits  :devil:
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  • 1 month later...

A very quick update on progress or lack of :D  The last month has been rather nice so I've been making the most of it and getting in a few miles on the car before it's sorned for the winter.  I seem to have also had a sudden urge for DIY and have also built a new patio for the garden ???

As for the narrow car, nothing much has happened other than a little bit more planning, some drawing and ordering of a few more bits.  Before the chassis goes off for welding I need to finalise the driving position and the steering column so I've done a quick mock up tonight and tried it for size.  It all just about fits and in the right place.

The original plan was to use an MX5 upper steering column but because of it's short length I wasn't happy with the route of the centre column through the engine bay, so I've now switched to the Westfield Allegro upper column and centre column.  The use of off the shelf parts should also make my life easier sourcing replacement parts if I ever need to in the future.

Ulimately the steering rack will need moving back a couple of inches to correct the bump steer for the MX5 uprights I'll be fitting.

Please excuse the mess, the garage has become a bit of a dumping ground :oops:

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It alway's feels like Christmas when a parcel gets delivered, and even more so when It's a big parcel :D where the hell I'm going to store this I don't know :p but at least now I know what colour the cars going to be :blush::cool: Thanks Russ :t-up:

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So if you can imagine it with an aeroscreen we should end up with a car looking something like this

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Ahhh, I've missed this thread, mainly because I'm jealous of your CAD skills. :laugh:

Now with that little lot, what the devil colour am I going to do as a background colour for your revised badge? :suspect: Is that bonnet yellow or orange?  My head hurts... :bangshead:

Keep it up mate, doing great! :t-up:

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Ahhh, I've missed this thread, mainly because I'm jealous of your CAD skills. :laugh:

Now with that little lot, what the devil colour am I going to do as a background colour for your revised badge? :suspect: Is that bonnet yellow or orange?  My head hurts... :bangshead:

Keep it up mate, doing great! :t-up:

Thanks for the comments Captain  :t-up:

It's my iffy night time camera skills  :D it's actually a Yellow bonnet.

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Looks like a special revised yellow / green / black badge tomorrow then!
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Looks like a special revised yellow / green / black badge tomorrow then!

:D:t-up::t-up:

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Here's your new badges mate - but don't go changing the colour scheme again! :p

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Please excuse the mess, the garage has become a bit of a dumping ground

Call that a mess ?

You can still see parts of the floor and there's acres of space on the wall  :t-up:

P.S.

we wont ask what the chains are for  :oops:

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Please excuse the mess, the garage has become a bit of a dumping ground

Call that a mess ?

You can still see parts of the floor and there's acres of space on the wall  :t-up:

Indeed, a mess is when you go looking for yer grease gun, can't find it, but discover a motorcycle you'd forgotten about and end up having to buy another grease gun to do the the job you originally started hours ago before searching the garage.... :blush:  :blush:  :blush:  :D  :D  :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

P.S.

we wont ask what the chains are for  :oops:

The chains are for the engine hoist :D It's too chilly out there for anything else :p

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Today I had lots of jobs planned for both cars.  Before I sorn for the winter I'm aiming to get the road car MOT'd even though it's not due till February.  A couple of jobs before that, change the lambda sensor, new pcv valve and adjust the handbrake.  The first two were easy but the handbrake turned into a pig of a job as I ran out of adjustment  :mad: .  In the end had to strip the lot out and reassembled it again with an adjuster in the cable.  A 10 minute job turned into 2 hours :bangshead: but at least it'll now be easier to adjust in the future.

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So back to the narrow car.  I finally picked up a pair of arches a couple of weeks back so fitted them up this afternoon to see how the wheel would sit in the arch.  As suspected the tub is sitting a bit too far forwards so it's going to need trimming around the shoulder area to be able to slide it back an inch or two.  That a job for tomorrow now  :)

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Today I set about adjusting the position of the rear wheels within the arch as the wheels are presently sitting about 30mm too far.  Garry Bunn had previously suggested to me it would be necessary to trim the tub around the shoulder area to get it to sit in the correct position.

As this cut will probably be visible on the finished car I resisted the urge to use the angle grinder and opted instead for the tennon saw so I got a nice square and straight edge.

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a small amount of tidying up was also needed with the file around the area of roll bar mounting plates, and after a couple of trial fits and some light fettling with the dremmel the final fit looks pretty good. :cool:

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The back pannel has also now been properly trimmed to remove a total of 76mm (3") from the centre.  There's a few holes there that'll need filling at some point in the future :oops:

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  • 3 weeks later...

Those of you following my rebuild thread will probably have realised by now that I'm never one to shy away from a challenge and am certainly not one to follow trends or convention.  

So not wishing to disappoint I picked up a pair of these beauties last night.  :cool:   Your eyes do not deceive, those are Weller steelies :D Only problem is I still need to find another pair to go on the back :oops: I'll probably get them stripped and powdercoated at somepoint once I have a set.

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looking good chap - I have seen some good looking steel wheels about and they look pretty good to me  :t-up:

how are you going to strengthen the back where the cut is and prevent it from cracking?

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