No Glory, No Splash, Repeat.

There is nothing major to report, but I think that will be the trend for the foreseeable future. Until it's time for the bodywork, there aren't a lot of big splashy items on the to-do list.

A prime example of not-splashy is the radiator brackets. The OEM Miata upper brackets are easily adaptable, but not so the lower brackets. Fabricating and fitting these brackets has been a multi step project in and of itself and although essential, all this work will basically be invisible when it's done. 

Last time I posted pictures of my cardboard mock-up radiator brackets. Now they're no longer mock-ups and they're done in mild steel.

The hydraulic brake at Pops Racer's shop is extremely handy for any kind of metal fabricating job. I bent some tabs and gussets on the sides of the bracket to add stiffness to the structure.

After brazing the gussets. It was hard to exactly match the flare profile of the OEM radiator bushings but I think this will be serviceable. Kind of like my brazing: not artistic, but serviceable.

Radiator brackets temporarily held in place with clamps and skin clips.

Now painted. Pops Racer had the idea of using flat head Allen screws and dimpling the screw holes. Rationale in next picture's caption. The nice thing about enamel paint is that when you have small parts, or you have to remove paint to weld, or other need for touch ups, you can brush paint it. These parts are a little too big to look good brush painted - but it's a pain setting up the spray gear and then cleaning up afterwards. These are not high visibility parts so I think I will let this slide.

Corresponding counter sunk holes in the frame. This way, the dimples will be hanging on the counter sink sidewalls instead of the full weight of the radiator exerting shear force on the screws. I installed m5 riv-nuts on the other side of the frame rails. 

Completed brackets installed with radiator. Lots of steps resulting in "Meh, okay, so the car has a radiator."

Inspiration Break

Brother Ray called on Saturday morning to let me know he had stumbled across a British Car Show. Other than most of them being left hand drive, it was like a little slice of the Home Islands right here in Indiana.

Love this era of Jaguars. I had been pressuring Pops Racer to get wire wheels for his Mk II project (in progress). But in this comparison of the same car with wire wheels and steel wheels, I have to say the steel wheels don't give up much to the wires. And besides, Pops is extremely pressure-resistant.

I spent most of my time checking out the interiors. This car's interior door panels - and the overall level of fit and finish - seem exactly right for a roadster. Not too fancy, not too unfinished. 

No sooner do I advocate for "not too fancy" than I come back enthusing about figured hardwood dash panels. I found some cherry veneer that I think will work perfectly for the Replicar dash, but I am struggling with how to finish it. I love the look of musical instrument lacquer, but there is after all a reason we are advised not to leave our musical instruments in our cars. Polyurethane is probably the wiser choice.

A tidy engine bay is a place of serene beauty.

Never to be Seen Again

So, fitting the Miata clutch pedal bracket to the Replicar chassis requires a spacer on the engine side of the firewall (or, I suppose, removing the two bosses the bolts go through). 

Spacer design rendered in SolidWorks

This is a good job for 3d printing but it's still a bit of a process; designing the spacer in Solidworks then printing it in ABS, then re-printing it because ABS is not dimensionally accurate for 3D printing. It will repeatably produce the same dimensions, but the 4mm on the 3D file may not be exactly 4mm when printed - so there's usually some adjusting to do.

So far I have been using ABS for all my 3D printed car parts. It's kind of a pain to work with, but it is heat resistant to 100 deg Celsius (unlike PLA, which prints beautifully, but gets mushy at 60 deg).

Once installed, it's the kind of non-entity part that will never be noticed or thought of again. Unless it isn't as heat-resistant as advertised, and turns in to a misshapen blob. I have heard of people using ABS to make intake manifold adapters for individual throttle bodies - actually in contact with the engine head - so I would think it should hold up over here on the firewall. 

The black thing in between the clutch master cylinder flange and the firewall. Exciting, eh?

Probably my next 200 jobs on the car will fit this pattern: fiddling around to make, modify, or install something that is completely un-glorious. The kind of things you just take for granted when you buy a car.

I did get the pedals and steering column mounted. Much less drama this time, with the correct RHD parts in hand.

That is a really cheap junky steering column adapter (upper right corner). I wasn't sure if I was going to need a short or long adapter, so it didn't make sense to buy a really nice one. This was a $13 experiment the main finding of which was that I need a much shorter adapter. A secondary finding: I really don't want to trust my life to cheap junky steering parts. When I get the short adapter I'll get a quality one. Also, the sharp-eyed reader will notice the steering column is currently held in place with a bungee cord. This is not the long term plan. But I don't want to make the steering wheel position permanent until I am sure that it works well with the driver seat.

So above really was kind of a fun step. This is the donor car passenger seat. I'm not going to really use this seat, but I did just temporarily place it inside the car to test the position of the pedals, steering wheel, etc. Main findings: 1) This car really does not need power steering. I am using what was originally a power rack but I took off all the power steering clutter and drag so it's now a quick ratio manual rack. Even sitting still in the garage, it takes very little effort to steer the wheels lock to lock. The 15" diameter radius steering wheel probably helps with this. 2) I am grateful I was able to pick up a racing-quality steering wheel quick release on the local Miata owners' forum because it is vastly easier to get in and out of this car with the steering wheel removed. 3) For my final seat choice, I need to get my butt a couple of inches lower than it is in this position. Current plan is DIY aluminum bomber seats, which will allow me to custom tailor exactly the seating position I want. The next step in this process is to start mocking up a seat in plywood to get the basic angles and dimensions correct.

Dashboard concept exploration. Cherry wood laminate bonded to Replicar dash. Three engine turned aluminum or stainless steel panels. Right side panel has tach, speedo, ignition switch, starter button, turn signal lamps, and ignition lamp. Small gauges and switches in the middle panel. Rally style 3-stopwatch set on the left panel.