Brrrr!

 Cold Snap

I had a bunch of jobs lined up ready to go - and time off work to do them - so of course Winter suddenly decides to get serious. I have a radiant heater I can use in the garage, as well as a propane turbo heater, but when the day's highest temp is -9 F (-23 C) those aren't going to cut it. Just going out to the garage to grab tools for an indoor job (always abundant around Christmastime), I needed gloves because the tools were so cold they were painful to touch. After a couple days of Siberian cold, the temps soared to balmy mid-20s F, which made the garage semi-habitable again.

I knew I would eventually wind up getting a set of ProTech shocks. These are made in the UK and while they are not cheap, they are extremely affordable for custom spec dampers. Tim at ProTech has a bespoke Replicar set, so the damping and spring rates are appropriate after shedding about 300kg from the donor Miata. Ride height and damping are adjustable, and the shocks are rebuildable, not to mention the testimony of several very happy Replicar owners using these shocks; all of which combined to make these a very easy choice.

"Eventually" turned out to be sooner than expected, as Sir John of the Holy Order of Jedi Kit Car Knights had a set for sale at a discounted price. Some of the savings were unfortunately eaten up by the US Customs Service, who had obviously been inside the package to make sure these weren't terrorist shock absorbers, and they lost 5 of the 8 spherical joint bushings and both of the spanners. Tim at ProTech was super helpful as advertised, and sent me the bushings and spanners at an affordable price just in time for my garage to become uninhabitable. I did manage to get one corner done before Indiana turned into Novosibirsk, and it does look nice.

I was able to work on some jobs at Pops Racer's shop. In addition to all the tools and Pops' expertise, his shop is also heated. Above is a cross-drilling vise, which is the only satisfactory way to drill into the side of anything cylindrical, especially if it's small. 

The cross-drill vise came in handy working on the faux rally timing set, which has a lot of small cylindrical parts drilled crosswise. This is coming along nicely and has the advantage that it can be worked on indoors. Making the long bar at the top out of brass turned out to be a key decision, because cross-drill vise or not, the stainless steel rod I started with was completely impervious to drilling. I got about .030 into the stainless and broke the drill bit, at which rate I would have needed 63 drill bits per hole - so 252 drill bits to finish the whole thing. Or, alternately, buy just one drill bit to replace the one I broke and switch to brass. Another decision that did not require prolonged consideration.

As long as SendCutSend is doing the cutting and drilling with their Space Lasers, I really like stainless steel. But if I have to do anything to it other than the swirly engine turned finish, stainless and I are not friends.

Only tangentially related to my ill-advised car project, but kind of fun: this is a 1930s Snap-On toolbox that was given to Pops Racer by a Speedway mechanic when he was a teenager in the Indy Roadster days. Pops replaced the hinges and repainted the box, populated it with tools, and gave it to me for my 13th birthday. It was my main toolbox until 7 years ago when I got a proper garage and my tools grew fruitful and began to multiply. Extra space is a strong inducement for tools to mate and perpetuate their species.

Now it's time to pass this heirloom on to the next generation, and as she is my most mechanical offspring, this goes to Taylor the Mighty. Pops' hinges are still going strong, but it needed a new coat of paint to be a presentable Christmas present. The box got a nice selection of new and hand-me-down tools, many of the latter donated by Pops. I picked some stickers but left room for Taylor to add her own. Metal Supermarkets is a favorite haunt, and Beth the Queen of Metal is so enthralled with Taylor that she showers her with attention and interesting bits for welding practice whenever we go there. Earl's specializes in plumbing for race cars. I remember going to Earl's with my dad when I was a kid - and they are still going strong in Gasoline Alley. Yes, Indianapolis has a street officially named Gasoline Alley. IMS and Hoosier tires are of course prominent in the racing scene around here.

Mostly Decorative

Of course, mechanical soundness and automotive function and safety are high priorities for this ill-advised project car, but it is after all a toy and it's important for toys to look cool. Part of the fun is seeing how the aesthetic evolves through the course of the project. I started out with some ideas, but most of them changed along the way and lots of new ideas have sprouted up.

The rear cockpit upper panel is two aluminum sheets that butt against each other. I really don't like the look of sheet metal butt joints so I decided to make a finish strip to cover the joint. This also gave me an opportunity to use aviation rivets. These are solid rivets and have to be crushed from both sides, either using a crushing tool as above, or using an air hammer on one side and a metal block on the other side. For most of the Replicar rivets, there is no way to access the opposite side so I have been using a lot of blind pop rivets (these are the ones with little holes in the center). But when I can use them, I love the look of aviation rivets.

Another detail of the rear cockpit upper panel: the seat belt bosses are on the other side, in the trunk space, so this requires a cut out in the sheet metal. I found these computer wiring grommets which I think will look a little more tidy than having two random peepholes into the trunk. This is the kind of detail that goes unnoticed if done well, but sticks out like a sore thumb if not. Doing my own project car has given me an appreciation of how many details like this there are to figure out even on a really simple car like this one. I can barely wrap my head around how many of these finish details go into a production car.

The cockpit is starting to come together. In the upper right quadrant of this picture you can see the decorative strip with the aircraft rivets. I'm doing most of the aluminum in the cockpit with a sanded/matted finish but decided to polish this strip. If I don't like it, I can always hit it with an abrasive pad later. Also evident are the all places I used black faux leather trim on the exposed sheet metal edges. Did I mention that I don't like unfinished sheet metal edges?

So far I am happy with the aesthetic that's developing. I wanted to hit somewhere in between Race Car Spartan and Classic British Roadster. Trying to get the whole thing to a Jaguar or Aston Martin road car level of finish would be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive - and if achieved might not be my preferred look for a race car tribute. Or, alternately, the race-y aesthetic might just be my convenient excuse to minimize my workload and expenses. Whether styling sense, frugality, laziness, or all of the aforementioned, "race car with a few finishing touches" feels like the right target to aim for.

Roundabout

My hometown of Carmel Indiana is famous (or infamous, depending) for roundabouts at almost every intersection. Which I find to be fantastic for traffic flow, as long as everyone on the road is a Carmel resident. Because Elsewhere Folk seem to be utterly baffled by them. 

Roundabout is also a good way to describe my progress from one step to the next. Regular readers will remember back in November I mentioned fabricating a fuel tank as my next big project... but having to do some other stuff first. Most proximate to the fuel tank job is a test body fitting, to make sure the fuel tank will fit under the trunk lid. But there are some other items on the test body fitting agenda, and a bunch of jobs that are more convenient to do when the car is up in the air as high as my jack stands will go. So all this sheet metal work and cockpit fitting and shocks installation is building up to setting the car down on roller dollies and lowering the body onto the chassis. Not exactly a direct route to the fuel tank job, but getting there eventually. I anticipate reporting on this for my next blog post and hope that will not be too terribly far off in the remote future.