KugaWestie Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 That welding looks good to me Mark! Thanks Gary I'm confident I can do much better than that with more practice so I don't have so much grinding to do after Just make sure you are sending those grinding sparks away from the completed Westfield Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted November 27, 2011 Author Share Posted November 27, 2011 That welding looks good to me Mark! Thanks Gary <!--emo& I'm confident I can do much better than that with more practice so I don't have so much grinding to do after Just make sure you are sending those grinding sparks away from the completed Westfield Fear not, that one has to get pushed out of the garage to create enough room to work on the narrow There's really not a lot of room otherwise in my single garage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted December 3, 2011 Author Share Posted December 3, 2011 We'll she's now all stripped down again, the tubes are cut and all ready to be trailered over to Ben's workshop in the week to get the welding done in the tunnel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 An early start to the day before the sun had risen and it was off over to the other side of town and Ben's workshop with the trailer loaded for the fabircation to begin properly. First job was to cut out a couple of tubes which I'd left in place to keep the chassis rigid and stop it from twisting. The obligatory photo therefore of Ben wielding an angle grinder at some metal Health and safety please look away now While the sparks were flying I'd been tasked with the measuring and cutting of the new tubes to reconstruct the tunnel. Let's just say there was a lot of head scratching by myself trying to work out some of the angles and plenting of subsequent fettling and filing to get that perfect fit. I tred to convince Ben that a tollerance of +/- 1/8" whould be perfectly acceptable since that's what Westfield appeared to have used when they made the chassis, but he was insistent that everything was fitted to the thickness of a scribed line So after some cutting naturally there was some welding to be done. Not even lunchtime and already the new transmission tunnel is tacked into place. A couple of the damaged tubes were cut out and new lengths let in. Then the mounting plates for the engine were croped from sheet and tacked in their postions. End of day one and the steering racks now in place so we can mock up the position of the upper column support It's all only tacked together at the moment so there's another fun day still to come to seam it up and reattach a few of the brackets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTR2Turbo Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Looking good. Why so much fabrication? Was it accident damaged or do you need to increase clearance for gearbox etc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 Looking good. Why so much fabrication? Was it accident damaged or do you need to increase clearance for gearbox etc? The chassis had been in an accident before I bought it so there was some past poorly repaired damage to the engine bay that needed attention, bent tubes had been cut out and new pieces added in that in a lot of cases weren't the same size or section. For these and to aid strength we removed and replaced the whole length of tube. The main work though is to accomodate the gearbox. Much as I tried it was impossible to accomodate the MX5 box within the narrow type9 tunnel so it's had to be widened by a further 3". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Good work - did Ben call you the gofor today? gofor this Mark, gofor that Mark? Knocking 3" off the tunnel - does that make it tight on the pedals? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 Knocking 3" off the tunnel - does that make it tight on the pedals? The footwell on a narrow as standard is actually wider than a wide because the type9 tunnel is only 9" wide compared to the MT75 tunnel used now which is 14". By designing my car with a 12" tunnel I've actually got a 1" wider drivers footwell compared to my wide. The Passenger suffers a bit though as the engine is offset to the passenger side so their footwell is 2" narrower than the drivers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Thats an interesting fact The passenger does not have 3 pedals to contend with though, so I am sure they can live with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 Thats an interesting fact The passenger does not have 3 pedals to contend with though, so I am sure they can live with it. They are lucky they've got a footwell at all There was a time when I thought about pulling the bulkhead back and fitting the fuel tank in that space. It was only the proximity of the exhaust manifold that made me think it would probably be bad idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Pete Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Looking good - Cant help but think that this project would be much much harder without your finished car for ref. Keep up the good work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikpro Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 Looking Fantastic Mark - a real credit! (Did the package arrive safely?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted December 8, 2011 Author Share Posted December 8, 2011 Looking Fantastic Mark - a real credit!(Did the package arrive safely?) Thanks Fraser, and yes thank you it arrived Tuesday. I've been a bit busy to do much on that car at the moment probably will be a job for the weekend Thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 Are you going to take the opportunity to add any extra bracing on the chassis? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 Are you going to take the opportunity to add any extra bracing on the chassis? Wrong thread - you want this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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