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Previous Build Diaries
October 2003
The picture in the logo was taken by Richard Crowe on a wet day at Nutts Corner on the 24th of Febuary 2004. |
30 January
2004
Nothing much to
report. I've sent off my completed 627/1 form and a load of
reciepts to the DVLNI in Coleraine so I can (hopefully) get a chassis
number. Once I've got that I can complete another form to book an
SVA date. I contacted Nutts
Corner today, and they are solidly booked for the rest of the year (!)
at weekends, so it looks as though any test session will have to be
during the week sometime, as late as possible in the evening. I'm
gonna have to discuss this with some of the other folks who might be
coming along before I book anything for definite. Congratulations to Donut, another MK Indy
builder who had his MK Indy Pinto pass today. Something
hopefully I can look forward to. 21 January 2004 OK I have totally
revamped the 'Suppliers' page. It now
is a lot closer to a links page with details of a lot of very
interesting website of both suppliers and othe builders pages.
Have a nose around there are some neat pages there. Today I bolted on the
roll bar using some electro-polished bolts I got from Inox fasteners in
England. To be honest they don't look that outstanding, but it's
good to get another bit of progress made. I also fitted the
immobiliser. This cost me a total of £35 and I got the 2
parts (reciever and keyfob transmitter) from Maplin. Order codes
are L55AF for the Remote Reciever and L54AF for the Keyfob
Transmitter. It seems to be a good job. The car cannot be
started when this is activated, so it does what it's supposed to.
That's not to say it's perfect, if you knew exactly what you were at, it
can be defeated, but I'm glad that I'm not relying purely on a Ford
Sierra ignition key as my only security device! Mind you cars like
this simply cannot be left alone. I dread to think what I'd do if
she got nicked! Kinda strange today,
I didn't do much, but I sort of realised I'm running out of things to
do! I knocked up a list. And that's about
it! No doubt I'll come across more things, but it looks to me like
I have a couple of weeks work left, and about 10 weeks to do it as
there's still no sign of that flippin' receipt! I think I'm going
to book Nutts Corner again sometime towards the end of February for some
testing, so I'll let you all know if anyone wants to come along. 19 January 2004 Got a few more
smallish things sorted out. First I have finished the lights by
fitting and wiring the number plate illumination light.
I also got the handbrake gator finished, and very neat it looks too.
16 January 2004 OK a few pics for you
all. First off I received and fitted today the indicators on their
12cm stalks from Stafford Vehicle
Components.
They look very nice and fit in very well with the whole chrome look, mind you they did cost £36 for the pair (inc P&P). I think I'd get sued if I tried to call this car a Locost! Also here's an overall pic of the car with the seats and the roll bar set back on, with the cover fitted and the indicators on.
Once I get her all
bolted together properly and a proper silencer fitted we should be ready
to finish preparations for the SVA. I still have no date for the
SVA as I'm still awaiting a receipt for the kit from Bill. It's a
little frustrating because until I get the receipt I can't get the
chassis number, until I get the chassis number I can't apply for the
SVA, and there's about an 8 week waiting time for the SVA. All of
this is being held up for the want of a bit of paper. Ha-ho. 15 January 2004 Not a huge pile to report. I have the fog light totally working now, and mounted correctly. I'm going to re-mount the taillights as they have to be fitted so the lenses are totally vertical, which they still aren't, despite the black rubber strips I've been using. The only thing I can do is make wedges out of wood and use longer bolts to mount them instead of the captive bolts already fitted. Very, very little on this car is straightforward! Oh yeah, Ricky
Crowe's video 'Nuttscorner.wmv' is being
used on the MK
Owners Club web page - towards the bottom of the page. Pretty
pleased about that! 13 January 2004 12 January
2004 I did a few details
in around the car today.
I got some beading from www.vintagesupplies.com.
I have cut and fitted this around the two front cycle wings, and used a
little PU adhesive to secure them. They look pretty good I reckon,
and they'll help the old SVA cause.
I put some more adhesive in around the edges of the interior panels, so there are no sharp edges, hence all the masking tape. But look up in the right hand corner of the picture. Yes, I cut the gear stick to a more acceptable size and fitted the cricket ball! Again it's secured with PU adhesive, and it looks brilliant.
9 January
2004 Well I got fitting the button clips for the back cover, and I attached the buttons to the body as well.
Here's a pic of the handbrake gaiter, although I haven't done much fitting at it yet.
And finally here is a pic of the modification I've made to my air filter to try to get it to fit.
Now it's worth adding that THIS DOESN'T WORK! I had hoped that keeping the filter intact while changing the box itself wouldn't affect the engine much, however the shape of the air ducts obviously have an effect, because the engine now seems to be missing above about 9,000rpm. I think however I have the answer, and it involves these...
..and a wee bit of
tuning...... 8 January 2004 More videos - OK I'm
going to list them all and a brief description, size etc. All
these came from the camera of Richard Crowe - Many
thanks. The last 3 are new today. Away from the Hollywood side of car
building, I had a cover made today for the rear boot area. I have
to fit the snap-press buttons both onto the cover and onto the body of
the car. I'll need to be careful with this or I could make a mess
of the car pretty quickly! My cousin-in-law Victor Swain is an
upholsterer and I have to thank him for this - it's a very tidy
job. He also made a handbrake gaiter. I'll try to get some
pictures tomorrow as I'm fitting it. 7 January 2004 Some video has
arrived you can download it HERE.
It's only 9 seconds long.
More
pics, this time from Richard Crowe's video camera. A nice sense of
speed on some of these!
3 January
2004 Another pic has
arrived, this one is from Sean McGoldrick, showing me and Ricky Crowe
about to head out on a run. Talk about two rabbits caught in the
headlights!
The lovely looking
blue car is Richard Morgan's Westfield Megablade. Fitted
with slicks, this car is extremely quick. Mind you Richard can
drive it pretty good as well! Sean's CBR1000 BEC is on the left
hand side, currently bereft of rear wings, she's undergoing a facelift
at the moment! 3 January 2004 Photos have
arrived. Many, many thanks to Richard Crowe.
3 January
2004 Holy Cow! I had the car down at Nutts Corner Motor today, for a wee 'shakedown'. You could not get the stupid grin off my face! The first run was a tentative affair, however once I saw the main straight I was able to give her the 'hey daddy, daddy'. I simply cannot comprehend how fast that thing accelerates. It's been 6 months or so since Brian took me out for a run in his locost fireblade car, and it really brought it home to me that Lucy is a supercar. It is going to take a fair amount of time until I learn to drive her properly. The track was damp, and since I'm really only getting used to her I took it easy. Mind you I still got the tail out (unintentionally) a couple of times - without spinning thankfully - under acceleration. Lucy lapped up the abuse, the only issues were the clutch cable adjuster wasn't tightened properly so the clutch got a little slack after a couple of runs, but that was 5 minutes to tighten that, and the steering grommet came loose, but that will be easy to put back in place and fit a jubilee clip to make sure it stays in OK. The brakes are a bit unlike a normal road car, in that they do require a fair amount of pressure to stop her, but they do stop her OK! That engine, that acceleration. I'm still on a high. My thanks to Brian and Sean McGoldrick who organised this wee outing, it was brilliant. And thanks for all the positive comments from the other folks who turned up. There were some great BECs on display, and since Richard Crowe was there with his video and still camera, you can expect some shots and movies up here in the next couple of days. Next step is to do the paperwork, apply for a chassis number, then MOT and SVA. Both of these final stages will require a LOT of work to pass. Mind you I still can't quite believe that I built a car that quick!
First off, I'd like
to wish you all a happy new year, and I hope you all have had a nice
holiday. Since I'm starting a new month, just to let you
know all the previous month's stuff is in my December
Build Diary . You can get to it from the table to the left as
well.
In the photo from
above you can also see a black rubber 'spacer' I've fitted in an attempt
to make the surface of the taillights point horizontally - an SVA
requirement. Finally a competition.
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Alister Jackson | No Rights Reserved |
