I know, I know, this was supposed to happen a month ago! Well, it seems that I was a little premature saying that all the house jobs were done in advance of the baby arriving. Turned out I'd neglected to actually do anything to the nursery ;) So that and business trips have soaked up the last 5 weekends or so. But, with steely determination, today was the day to finally get off my arse and start building - and that's exactly what I did :)
Have to prepare photos and the HTML pages, but a proper update should be in place on Monday
So, where do we start? Due to the level of detail in the original GTR site, it's tricky to think of ways that I can add some value with this one. I guess the major advantage will be that I have the benefit of the experience of an Ultima build and all those little things that I was going to 'do differently/better next time' can now be done. This really will be an 'idiots guide', after all, it's being penned by one ;) In addition to the build, I'll try and cover the tools required and their uses in a bit more detail as well as a comprehensive parts list with photos etc. so that referencing your own inventory of bits will be a bit easier. It's a bit intimidating when all those boxes turn up and you're looking for one small component! Of course, there's the differences in the cars themselves. Not only the model, but the specification. The GTR was a pretty hard core track/road hybrid, I make no pretences with the Can-Am, it will be a road car, pure and simple. That's not to say I couldn't track it, but it's not its raison d'etre.
A final point before we get cracking with the actual car build, I had a great deal of interest in the original GTR build site (and Locost prior to that) and I know that quite a few people downloaded it as an handy reference for their own builds (and some just copied it almost word for word). For this reason, this build will actually be covered in 3 ways.
Anyway, enough waffling, lets get busy! Here's a new addition to the site, it's a quick link to the parts required for each part of the build. Makes for easy reference I hope!
Job:
Panelling
Parts required:
Panel fixing pack
Rear bulkhead panel
First part of the build, is the panelling, But before you start, it's worth getting your workspace in order. You've got a heck of a lot of trimming, drilling, filing and deburring ahead of you, so might best to make sure it can be done with as little pain as possible. I found it useful to have the following tools at hand for the job:
Of the list above, all are readily available from any decent workshop/tool suppliers, with the excepetion of the rivet jig. The rivet jig is simply a strip of aluminium, with holes drilled at 30mm invtervals (and 10mm from the edge of the strip). This is used as a template, to make marking out the rivet holes a lot quicker. Drill the holes in the jig just large enough for the centrepunch to protrude through to ensure accurate hole centres.
The alloy panels are supplied cut to size and the bends formed where required. The sheets should be covered in a protective film, that you should leave on, until you're ready to rivet the panels to the chassis. It helps to familiarise yourself with all the panels first as some are quite similar. If, like most, you're leaving the panels bare of any covering material, leave them in their bubble/wrap etc. until you're ready to work on each one. If you want to polish the panels, then now's the time to do it, but be prepared to repeat the exercise over and over again! Lacquering them is probably a good idea once you've polished, but I can't comment on the finish as I've not tried it.
I set up a large 2.4m x 1.2m workbench, using some old marine ply we had hanging around. It's at a height where I can sit on my crawler (that doubles as a seat) and whizz around it, whilst being large enough to cope with even the long cockpit sides. The marking/drilling/deburring takes time, so being comfortable will save you a lot of grief from your back!
The panels are usually fixed in the following order:
Now, a quick word about the rivet spacing. To coin the old adage, measure twice, cut once! To fit the rear bulkhead requires you to drill for 3 lines of rivets. The first runs along the top, 19mm down from the top edge. The second runs along the bottom, 10mm up from the lower edge and the third, runs vertically up the middle of the panel, directly behind the handbrake. Now, because the panels aren't made as multiples of 30mm, sometimes the rivet spacing will need 'tweaking' to fit. In this instance, you have a panel where two parallel lines of rivets are bisected by another line. If you're a stickler for detail, then you need to find the optimum alignment of the rivets to that the vertical line of rivets becomes coincidental with the horizontals, however, this will usually mean adjusting the spacing accordingly (28mm-32mm in most cases). The following diagram explains:
The long and short of this explanation is that it pays to mark up the panel with the rivet lines first to avoid any mistakes when drilling. Worst case and you do make a slight error, no-one is ever likely to see it on the rear bulkhead anyway. But YOU will know it's there ;) Personally, I prefer a mid-spaced central rivet line - so as long as you're happy, then it's cool.
So the procedure to fit is as follows.
Pay close attention to point 8 above. It's easy to remove too much material, too quickly as the panel tends to move around a little before it's skin-pinned in place.
Now you may be wondering why I've left off the actual rivetting to the chassis? Well, this is mainly because the sikaflex sealant that is used to waterproof the panel joints, cures quite quickly. If you fix one panel, then leave it a week before doing the next, chances are the sealant will be useless when you come to re-use it. By leaving the panel fixing until you have most of the panels ready to go, your sealant will go a lot further!
So that's all for now, more updates soon!
Well, as promised, here's the next update. Not masses of progress mainly because I had to backtrack and re-video a load of stuff as I had no sound from last week - doh! The whole video thing is doing my head in as it takes an age to do :( Still undecided whether to persevere with it or not as it's a LOAD of effort for what I reckon will be little reward. Still, we'll see.
So we left off last week with the cockpit rear bulkhead almost finished ready for fitting. However, you'd be well advised to consider what's going to need to pass through this bulkhead so you can make the necessary holes now. For my GTR build, this meant holes for the handbrake cables and rod linkage for the G50 gearbox, but, for the Can-Am I'm using a Getrag cable operated transmission, so things are slightly different. Other considerations at this stage are things like ignition/fuel injection ecu control boxes/alarm ecu etc. But for the time being, I'm concentrating on the handbrake (e-brake) and gearchange cables.
Now, regarding the holes for these and their positions, the handbrake cable has an 11mm sheath, but, you need to be able to pass the large cable ends through the hole, the smallest of which is the 16mm diameter nipple end, which eventually attaches to the Brembo e-brake caliper. In addition to these, I need to allow for the gearchange cables which have an 8mm sheath. You can strip the fixing nuts etc. off the transaxle end of these cables to make it easier to put in place. So we now have a 'keyhole' shaped arrangement, with a large hole for the handbrake (e-brake), with a slightly smaller hole above for the getrag cable to 'piggyback' it. To prevent the cables from chafing on the bulkhead panel, I also allowed a couple of mm for a grommet. A 15-16mm I.D. one is perfect for this.
So now I knew the sizes of hole required, it was a question of positioning them correctly. To do this, critically you need to make sure that the cables can pass through the bulkhead without fouling the lower, or central chassis rails. Also, try to keep the cable runs as straight as you can from the handbrake brackets (and cable operated gearshift in my instance). After some careful measuring, I found that a hole, 34mm either side from the panel centreline and 30mm up from the bottom of the panel, gave the straightest run, whilst clearing the rails. This was definitely a case of measure twice, cut once, but I must have measured about 18 times :) If you're concerned, drill a small pilot hole first and offer the panel up. If it's a little off, chances are you can change the hole centre slightly and still remove enough material with the larger hole to remove all trace of the pilot one. But, care paid off and my holes were spot on. I chased them out with the stepped drill (the ONLY tool to use for this) so that the cables could be fitted with a grommet. Once done, the panel could be set aside ready for final fitting.
Now, following the normal order of build, you'd move onto the cockpit side panels, but, to make life a bit easier later on, I decided to fit the engine bay double skin panel instead. The primary reason for this was again, the handbrake/gearchange cable holes. With the cockpit side fitted, it's a good opportunity to mark out the position of the holes for the engine bay skin.
To do this, place the engine bay bulkhead skin panel on the bench and put the cockpit bulkhead panel over it aligning the BOTTOM edges. Now, simply mark through the holes you just made for the handbrake etc. directly onto the engine bay skin panel. Now you know that the holes will align PROVIDED, the bottom edges do. Now, whilst the cockpit side panels top edge aligns with the top of the upper chassis rail in the cockpit (so that it can be bent/napped over the chassis rail later), the engine bay panel sits just slightly higher than the upper chassis rail centrline. See the diagram for a visual explanation. I found, that the ideal position was with the lower edge of the engine bay skin panel, sitting 20mm up from the bottom of the lower 'box' chassis rail as viewed from the engine bay. A line of rivets 5mm from the top was coincidental with the centre of the upper rail, whilst a line of rivets marked 10mm from the bottom, should match those in the cockpit. Now that the lower edges of the two panels are at the same 'height', the holes you marked for the handbrake cables should align perfectly. And you know what, they do ;)
So, the last stage with these two panels is to mount the 'sandwich' brackets. These 'U' shaped brackets sit in the void bewteen the cockpit and engine bay panels so that the panel edges can be rivetted to something. I had a bit of a mental block with these on the GTR, but this time around, I got it :) First, I had to cut them down a little. Whilst it's possible to notch then so that they fit over the diagonal rails (this only really makes sense if you have the pieces in front of you, so bear with me ;). Making the brackets abolute full height between lower and upper horizontal chassis rails seemed a bit pointless and I was concerned that they may buzz/rattle a bit. So I just cut them down to about 200mm with the smallest of notches to clear the welds. Due to the positioning of the diagonals, it's also hard to get many rivets into them if you're going to (and I strongly suggest you do) fix them to the side chassis rails. Therefore, I opted to use some very strong 4.8mm rivets to hold the brackets in place. I skin pinned the cockpit rear bulkhead panel into place (so that I knew the sandwich bracket would be positioned correctly in the void) and with the front edge of the brackets flush against it, marked for the rivets in the side rails. They were then drilled properly, waxoyled and rivetted. No way those babies were going anywhere! That done, I could drill the cockpit and engine bay panel side edges, so that they were ready to be rivetted to the sandwich brackets.
So with all the fiddling about with the video camera and stuff, that's all I managed to do. Marking the panels so that they make sense to people/builders reading this site gets a bit tedious too, so I hope someone makes good use of the info! Cheers and more next week.
RIght, more panelling today. With the cockpit rear bulkhead and engine bay double skin ready to be rivetted, it was time to turn my attention to the side panels. These are relatively straightforward to fit, but involve a good deal of time as they are THE most visible panels in the cockpit. If you make a mess of the notching or screw up the rivets on these panels, you will see it EVERY time you get in the car. So my advice is to make sure you're absolutely 100% happy with their fit :) If not, order a new panel or make another one!
So, how do you go about it? Let's start with the driver side panel. First thing to take into account when fitting this panel, is the position of the notch where the steering column chassis brace meets the side chassis rails. Now, because the un-notched panel cannot sit against the chassis side rail for the moment (you'll see why when you try to fit it), it's easy to get the position of this notch wrong. The reason is that the support brace sweeps back toward the dash, so if you offer up the panel and mark for a notch, by the time you get the panel flush against the side rails, the notch will be too far forward! The solution I use, is to place the side panel flush against the rear cockpit panel (so that the bent corner flange sits against the rear panel), then mark a datum point on the chassis where the side panel is bent. Now make a cardboard mask, using the datum point as a reference, for the steering wheel brace chassis member. It's quite a deep notch, but once cut, you'll be able to get the side panel up against the chassis rails so that you can accurately mark and cut the rest of the notches. For the drivers side, you will probably make 7 notches in all. 5 along the top edge:
And two along the bottom, one at the front bulkhead to clear any weld and another small one to leave access for the safety belt/harness mounting bolt.
The passenger side panel is a lot easier to fit as you can get it close to the side chassis rails from the off. You'll need a fair size notch at the top front of the panel to clear another of the dash bracing rails, but other than that, it's just a notch on the rear flange, scallop for the rollbar downtube, notch for the dash rail where the panel bend is and a small notch again, for the safety belt/harness mounting bolt along the lower edge of the panel.
With both panels notched and flush fitting, it's the usual laborious task of marking/drilling/deburring each panel before skin pinning to the chassis and drilling. A task made much easier with the aid of my wife, Hels, who would you believe is due to give birth in 3 weeks time!!! A quick note about the rivet holes; don't bother to drill any holes on the lower edge of the driver side panel, 130mm back from the front edge as you will not be able to get a rivet tool in, this close to the pedal box.
Side panels done, it was on to the front bulkhead panel. This panel is a bit of a pig to fit, but has to be done right.
By far the easiest way is to make up a cardboard template. First, mark a centre point on the chassis between the upper side rails and mark the centrepoint of the panel on the template (otherwise it's easy to get the offset wrong on the panel by notching too much from one side). Then, mark the notches for the upper chassis rail notches. Once done, you will be able to get the template into position, but it will be held off by the studs for the master cylinders. I just dab a bit of copper slip onto the end of each stud, then press the template into position to give me an idea of where the holes go. I say give an idea, as the distance from the top of the panel to teh studs will change slightly as the template will be at a slight angle when marking out this way. The studs leave a dent anyway if you've not got any suitable dirty, guey grease around ;)
The stud holes are drilled slightly oversize to 10mm (8mm studs) and the template fit checked. Once happy, I transposed all the notch/hole positions to the actual panel, double checking my measurements with a 90 degree rule on the chassis. The result, was a perfectly fitting panel :) Once it was in place, it's a simple task to mark the holes for the master cylinders themselves, from the pedal side of the front bulkhead. These were cut with a 39mm bi-metal hole-saw on my drill press. Very neat. Deburr the edges thoroughly to avoid any risk of cutting through the rubber bellows of the master cylinders.
Rivet holes next. Just two points on this: First, make sure you can access right around the panel with your rivet tool (otherwise it's pointless drilling holes for them!) and secondly, don't drill all the way along the top edge of the panel for now. The cockpit GRP sits over this panel, so wait until the bodywork is on, then you can drill straight through into the chassis.
That done (we're on a roll now!), I moved onto the radiator pan double skin panel. I could have worked on the cockpit floor, but would have had to turn the chassis over. Whilst I could just about let Hels do some drilling, getting her to help flip it over would have been asking a bit much :)
Quite an easy panel to fit. I marked the position of the rear weld notches and cut them, then measured up the front 'L' shaped notches to clear the diagonal downtubes where they meet the bottom of the radiator chassis 'box'. Not having the floor panel on made marking the position of the holes for the radiator mounting bobbins dead easy. With the notched panel in place, just drill up from below through the holes in the chassis brackets. These pilot holes were then widened with a stepped drill bit to 16mm. The bobbins were cut down by about 5mm (otherwise they would foul the radiator panel floor panel) and fitted to the chassis brackets ready for the skin panel to be fitted. The panel was ready for rivet holes, but I was out of time for the day, so decided to head for home before I made a mistake :)
Ah, the May Bank Holiday weekend. In theory, lots of time to work on the car. With my next few weekends being taken up with business trips, DIY and the small matter of impending childbirth, this was likely to be my last weekend of hardcore car building for a few weeks. My aim was to get the car to the stage of being fully panelled and who knows, maybe I might even be able to bolt something on? Whilst this update represents 3 days of work, I'll keep it as one diary day as some jobs weren't done chronologically.
As I'd pretty much finished pre-fitting the cockpit panels (rear/front bulkheads/sides and engine bay), my attention turned to the bottom of the car. Before I start though, it pays to think ahead a bit; specifically, for the double skin panels. Having pre-fitted the rad pan double skin, I put it in place and marked the position of the chassis rails from underneath to aid marking out for rivets later. Next, the cockpit floor double skin. A bit trickier this, as it will require some trimming to fit as well as removing a section for the pedal box. This is easy to get wrong, so let's spend some time looking at the cutout.
Now on the build CD it shows the section to be removed, 270mm from each edge. All straightforward enough so far. However, you also need to know the angle of the diagonal chassis rail that crosses the cockpit floor. Now, this is actually easiest to achieve with the chassis turned over, so that's what I did (well, with a bit of help). With the chassis inverted, align the double skin floor so that it's flush with the front bulkhead lower rail and centre it carefully. Now simply mark the position of the diagonal from underneath (and the pedals so you'll know which bit you need to cut out!) and set the panel aside. Now you can mark your cut lines at 270mm in from the front and side edges and lines at 290mm for the bends. Now, this is the bit that's easiest to cock-up. Mark your diagonal CUT line, 20mm away from the diagonal chassis rail line. The chassis rail position is actually the bend line for the diagonal portion. Now you can cutout and carefully bend the 20mm flanges over. Make sure the panel is tightly clamped before you bend to get a neat right angle. Now the panel is ready for marking/drilling/rivetting, but we'll come back to that once the chassis is the right way up.
So, onto the floor. First, the 3 panels which make up the floor (rad pan, master cylinder area floor and cockpit floor) are dry-fitted. You may need to notch for the lowered floor pan welds at the rear of the cockpit floor panel, but I think the factory must have shortened this a bit as it wasn't necessary on the Can-Am. So you'll be please to know that almost no trimming is required for these - if at all! So it's simply a question of getting all your rivets in nice, neat lines so that any poor unfortunate soul how happens to end up under the car, can admire your handiwork :) WIth the 3 panels in place, they were all clamped in place ready for marking/drilling.
As usual, I started with a centre datum line, using the rad pan chassis rails for reference. I marked the position of the chassis rails from underneath to double check my measurement for the diagonals, then set about the laborious task of marking out, drilling and deburring. Rather a lot of rivets in such a small panel, but they look good in the end I guess ;)
Next up, the master cylinder/battery tray floor. Now, this is one area that I decided to modify from the factory design. Having taken great pains to seal this panel from water getting in from below, when you do encounter some wet weather, water and general road detritus tends to collect here in a small pond :) Whilst the side pod trimmer panels do keep most of the muck out, some WILL get in. Additionally, being directly behind the radiator (and just in front of the front bulkhead), it can get pretty warm too, so hot feet can be the order of the day. So this got me to thinking, how to vent this area so that water could go out, but not in and if this was possible, could it aid the egress of hot air from the rad?
Trawling eBay for bargains one day, unearthed a solution. Some chap was selling some louvred aluminium panels which looked conventiently like they would be the right size for the floor panel. My thinking was that by orienting the raised 'louvre' openings backwards, water, hot air and crud could escape without them acting like a scoop when driving. Well, at only a couple of quid each it was worth a go if nothing else :) Once I got them to the workshop, I found after a quick measure up that they were perfect for this panel! I would have to trim them a bit, but the louvred section sat neatly between the rails with enough excess for a rivet or two front and back. Marking out the area I had to work in (ie. inside the the bounding chassis rails as the panel overlaps them allowing you to fix it to the chassis floor), I evenly spaced the louvre panels, taking care that the battery tray wouldn't foul them. 4 rectangular holes were then cut into the floor panel (gulp! No mistakes to be made here, but at least it was a simple rectangular panel if I needed to make another) ready to take the louvre panels, then all were marked up and drilled for rivetting in position. Now, you may ask why I fitted these additional louvre panels rather than having louvres cut into the existing floor panel? Well, there are two reasons:
1. The louvre panels are mounted from underneath, so they are the lowest point of the floor panel, therefore water should drain properly.
2. I'm too bloody impatient to wait for the panel to be modified :)
Besides, I like the industrial look of this panel done this way and let's face it - who's ever going to see it! I did rivet them from above though, so anyone who wants a gander is at least faced with neat rivet heads instead of the stumps! Once all the louvres were fitted, the rest of the panel was marked and drilled to match the rivet spacing of the rad pan floor.
Which leads us neatly on the main cockpit floor. Well, no rocket science (or louvres) here. Just mark, drill, deburr again, and again, and again, and again etc.etc.etc. ;)
Now that all the panels were effectively dry fitted, I could finally start rivetting. You could of course do this as you go along, but, the Sikaflex (Wurth Bond & Seal) tends to cure in the tube once opened, so if you fit a panel one week and then come back the next to do another, you may have to wait for another tube of black death before you can. Annoying and expensive! The factory are constantly amazad by the amount some builders get through, but so you have an idea, I panelled the whole chassis with half a tube!
So goop dutifully applied, panels set in place, rivets laid out to make the worlds most expensive pin cushion, I could set to with the air rivetter. This is such a great tool and one that's definitely worth buying or hiring unless you want blisters the size of footballs and forearms like popeye. Also, it tends not to jump off the rivet heads like a traditional hand rivet tool, so you shouldn't end up taking great gouges out of that pristine ally panelling :)
So floor done, the chassis was turned right-way-up, ready to fit the cockpit panels where once again, I decided a bit of modification was in order :)
The bare ally panel, race-car-come-Le-Mans-refugee look is lovely and befitting of the car. When you first peel the protective covering off those painstakingly fitted panels, they look achingly beautiful. Trouble is, it take a great deal of time and effort to keep them looking like that! You can polish them, but not only is it a nightmare of a job, they then require consant upkeep and elbow grease. You can lacquer them, but the laquer will eventually flake and never looks as lustrous as you'd hoped. You can anodise them, but they'll scratch to pieces. Or you can paint them..... oh dear. So what else?
Well, some time ago when planning this build, I considered how I wanted it to 'feel'. Bare ally and rivets are all well and good, but I wanted the full lux-pack in my Can-Am, with an interior befitting its supercar pedigree. So think hi-tech, think supercar, think luxury, think wow - think carbon fibre :) But how the hell was I going to achieve that? Autoclaving panels would be a nightmare, both in terms of development and cost. The panels would have to be pre-fitted and shaped (napping over the side rails for example), then used as bucks for a carbon fibre lay-up. Using a carbon-look film was as as 'out' as me buying a 1.2 Nova and Max Powering it!!! So what else? Well, after many more hourse spent trawling the interweb, I found a product that looked as if it could work. Basically, it's a 'pukka' 1mm flexible carbon fibre mat which comes impregnated with an adhesive that's ultra strong. OK, it's got not structural strength, but that's not needed - the ally and rivets do that job, but it does look ultra-trick, won't need re-polishing every 5 seconds and is tough as nails.
So what next, ah yes. A small, easily overlooked job is to put a rivet through each of the pedal box mounts into the floor. There, told you it was a small job!
With all the main panels final-fitted, I could continue with the double skins. First, the rad pan. Straightforward enough, just remember to temporarily fit the radiator side panels as you won't be able to rivet all the way along the sides of the rad pan double skin (only 3 or 4 rivets in fact) until these sides are fitted. Additionally, you'll need two lengths of 20mm box section (290mm long supplied with the double skin kit). These sit at the rear of the rad pan so that you have something to rivet into. In turn, they are bonded to the rad pan floor with sikaflex (no need to rivet from below).
Next up, the cockpit floor. Provided you've marked this out previously, the rest should be plain sailing. Mark and cut out the pedal box section and carefully fold the flanges to form the tray. Lay the ally box sections in place. These are:
Now, to explain how to fit this panel will take about 20,000 words, so I'll keep it simple with the following handy points. You'll have to use your own grey matter from there!
So, after lots of fitting, refitting etc. I could finally get the double skin in. Well, actually, not quite. Again, in my quest for a more cossetting drive, I had decided to sound deaden some of the panelling. Driving over gravelly surfaces in an Ultima can be like being shot blasted whilst wearing a metal bucket on your head! I'd sourced some new fangled material that actually serves three purposed. Firstly, it's fireproof - nice. Secondly, it's a thermal barrier and has reflective matting - even better. Thirdly it has a 3mm high density sound deadening layer with a further 1/2" of foam - awesome and finally, it's self adhesive - woohoo!!! :) It's not cheap, but it's way better than my old method of doubling up the glassfibre heat reflective matting that I used on the GTR. It's tricky stuff to cut as it's so thick and the sound deadening material is tough, but once trimmed to size, just peel off the backing and stick it down. Once it's on, it's ON!
It took some trial fitting to miss all the box sections (as these are stuck to the double skin panel) but I finally got them in place, stuck them in and gooped up ready to rivet the panel in place. What's most depressing is that all that time and effort taken to get the floor perfect will never be seen - as I'm carpetting the whole lot :) Still, I know it's right....and I suppose now, you do too ;)
So, I'd almost run out of time by this stage, but I'd also almost run out of panels :) Engine bay bulkhead next. I'd already covered this in carbon fibre matting, so it really was a question of fitting more insulation - double layer this time, so that's about 30mm of sound/fire/heatproofing! With this amount of insulation in the bulkhead, I probably don't need any more in the engine bay, but I'm undecided at the moment - belt and braces and all that. Anyway, not a great deal to say about this panel other than the usual goop-up and rivet. By this stage you'll have marked, drilled, deburred and rivetted not far off 1000 rivets. You'll probably learn to hate them, but the results make it worthwhile.
I've just the front bulkhead panel, battery tray and radiator sides to do, but the majority of panelling is done. As I said at the beggining of this update, I'm not entirely sure when I'll be able to do some more, but it will be as soon as I can, of that you can be certain. Right, I'm off for a VERY cold beer :)
