Thanks mate means a lot! Slowly starting to take shape now which we're glad of :tired: It's mint when they're on board too like you say haha, she loves it as equally as I do if not more:tearsofjoy:
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RB PH1 172 Rally Car Progress
Thanks mate means a lot! Slowly starting to take shape now which we're glad of :tired: It's mint when they're on board too like you say haha, she loves it as equally as I do if not more:tearsofjoy:
Greeny.
ClioSport Club Member
440i + 182
Is she allowed to drive it on track though?
I know my Wife would be to scared to take it out on track, shes scared enough in the passengers seat lol.She most certainly is, it's half hers! She's driven my 133 Cup on track before and can drive haha... I'll let her drive this seems she's paying for half of everything :wink: Real adrenaline junkies lol:tearsofjoy:
Greeny.
ClioSport Club Member
440i + 182
Most certainly is lol!
Tbh mate we most probably will be as my Aunties live up that way so was thinking stay at their house and then go have a play so I'll give you a shout! Likewise if you ever head down this way to Oulton Park, Donny etc give us a shout!
Found a spare 10 minutes today in-between getting ready for going back to University and being at work to fit a few things to the car.
So we went to fit the PH1 pedal on Friday and didn't realise that it isn't a straight fit to a PH2 pedal box which we have. To save buying a PH1 pedal box I searched around for brackets to mount the PH1 pedal onto the PH2 box. After a bit of looking I found that PMS make a kit to convert to the cable throttle and so I contacted them asking if they'd sell me just the plate.
Below is the plate pictured! :smile:
We would've made the plate ourselves however for the sake of £12 it wasn't worth the effort of measuring it all up and making one. It's really nicely finished, the bottom groove also allows for adjustment side to side to space the accelerator and brake apart/closer more.
I've currently set the pedals to be as close as possible for ease of heel and toe. If we feel they're too close we can simply unbolt the plate and re-adjust it until we're happy :up:
We also bought a PH1 inlet manifold after realising a PH1 Throttle body doesn't fit on a PH2 inlet. All of Alex's hard work making it look pretty was wasted and now we're stuck with this ugly monstrousity 😂😂
Gonna post a list of jobs we need do to next on the car later as I want to keep the thread focussed and have some set goals to achieve :tonguewink:
With a bit of luck I won't have too much uni work this week and can spend a couple of night's/days doing some bits to the car to make some progress as not much has happened this week due to us being busy
So we went to fit the PH1 pedal on Friday and didn't realise that it isn't a straight fit to a PH2 pedal box which we have. To save buying a PH1 pedal box I searched around for brackets to mount the PH1 pedal onto the PH2 box. After a bit of looking I found that PMS make a kit to convert to the cable throttle and so I contacted them asking if they'd sell me just the plate.
Below is the plate pictured! :smile:
We would've made the plate ourselves however for the sake of £12 it wasn't worth the effort of measuring it all up and making one. It's really nicely finished, the bottom groove also allows for adjustment side to side to space the accelerator and brake apart/closer more.
I've currently set the pedals to be as close as possible for ease of heel and toe. If we feel they're too close we can simply unbolt the plate and re-adjust it until we're happy :up:
We also bought a PH1 inlet manifold after realising a PH1 Throttle body doesn't fit on a PH2 inlet. All of Alex's hard work making it look pretty was wasted and now we're stuck with this ugly monstrousity 😂😂
Gonna post a list of jobs we need do to next on the car later as I want to keep the thread focussed and have some set goals to achieve :tonguewink:
With a bit of luck I won't have too much uni work this week and can spend a couple of night's/days doing some bits to the car to make some progress as not much has happened this week due to us being busy
List of next steps on the car in order (ish):
Boot Floor:
Boot Floor:
- Tidy up boot floor & clean up surface for welding.
- Make a bracket to weld to back of boot floor so that we can weld in the flat floor.
- Cut out spare wheel well & weld in flat boot floor.
- Work out final position of fuel tank & filler pipe route.
- Cut hole for swirl pot in floor and make a cup for it to sit in.
- May have to modify filler... Cut off and re-weld onto right hand side to allow easy route to exterior filler cap.
- Bolt new PH1 manifold on & throttle body.
- Fit engine loom and wire up.
- Make a decision on handbrakes - Hydraulic or Standard?
- Remove last few redundant wires from under car - ABS etc.
- Modify seat rails to meet MSA spec - weld in some mounting points for the side mounts to bolt into. (Min 40cm sq. surface for each mounting point)
- Make PH2 rear lights work with our PH1 loom.
Yes thankyou we've got a pair mate!
Ticked a few things off our to-do list today which I'm pleased about :laughing:
Finished Uni a bit earlier than planned today as some lectures finished early/we're called off; what better to do than work on your own car after learning about race cars all day?! Living the dream...:blush:
So firstly I trimmed down the boot floor to it's final shape and ground off the edge ready for welding all the way round.
After that I bolted on the new manifold and throttle body properly and gave the throttle body a clean as it was a bit gloopy.
Much better now.
After that I marked up where I needed to cut out the spare wheel well and then Kevin kindly cut it out for me :relieved: I then polished all of the primer off the edge so that nothing set on fire when Pete welded it in for me:up: We then made an L shaped bracket to weld onto the back of the boot floor, to connect it to the back of the car.
Whilst that was cut out we placed the fuel tank inside the car there to see how low it would sit when the swirl pot was inside the car. The top of it sits just level with the bottom of the roll cage bar across the two rear struts. We looked at the location of the external fuel filler flap in relation to our filler on the fuel tank and it was clear that we definitely need to get the filler cut off the front of the tank and re-welded on the top, facing to the right. I didn't get a picture of this as we did it so quickly but I'll draw a diagram of what we plan to do in another post (Too tired now:tearsofjoy
Pete welded in 3/4 of it for us tonight, just the bracket to weld along the rear now to complete it.
Below is how the floor looks now, really pleased with how it's turned out. Once its completely welded in we're going to tidy up the underside and ensure that where we cut out the well is flat - then at some point we'll either paint it or seal it with something.
While Pete was busy welding that for me... I begun to piece together the PH1 engine bay wiring loom. I bolted in the fuse box and the other plastic brackets holding in the wires. Not much more to plug in now, I didn't get a picture of the bay as it looks kinda a mess with all the wires everywhere, but I know where everything is and what everything does... I've definitely spent too much time with Clio electrics...:tired::nomouth: Heres a picture of the only tidy part currently 😂
Summary of jobs completed off list:
Finished Uni a bit earlier than planned today as some lectures finished early/we're called off; what better to do than work on your own car after learning about race cars all day?! Living the dream...:blush:
So firstly I trimmed down the boot floor to it's final shape and ground off the edge ready for welding all the way round.
After that I bolted on the new manifold and throttle body properly and gave the throttle body a clean as it was a bit gloopy.
Much better now.
After that I marked up where I needed to cut out the spare wheel well and then Kevin kindly cut it out for me :relieved: I then polished all of the primer off the edge so that nothing set on fire when Pete welded it in for me:up: We then made an L shaped bracket to weld onto the back of the boot floor, to connect it to the back of the car.
Whilst that was cut out we placed the fuel tank inside the car there to see how low it would sit when the swirl pot was inside the car. The top of it sits just level with the bottom of the roll cage bar across the two rear struts. We looked at the location of the external fuel filler flap in relation to our filler on the fuel tank and it was clear that we definitely need to get the filler cut off the front of the tank and re-welded on the top, facing to the right. I didn't get a picture of this as we did it so quickly but I'll draw a diagram of what we plan to do in another post (Too tired now:tearsofjoy
Pete welded in 3/4 of it for us tonight, just the bracket to weld along the rear now to complete it.
Below is how the floor looks now, really pleased with how it's turned out. Once its completely welded in we're going to tidy up the underside and ensure that where we cut out the well is flat - then at some point we'll either paint it or seal it with something.
While Pete was busy welding that for me... I begun to piece together the PH1 engine bay wiring loom. I bolted in the fuse box and the other plastic brackets holding in the wires. Not much more to plug in now, I didn't get a picture of the bay as it looks kinda a mess with all the wires everywhere, but I know where everything is and what everything does... I've definitely spent too much time with Clio electrics...:tired::nomouth: Heres a picture of the only tidy part currently 😂
Summary of jobs completed off list:
- Bolted PH1 manifold & throttle body on.
- Tidied up boot floor for welding.
- Cut wheel well out and cleaned up for welding.
- Welded 3/4 of boot floor in & made bracket to complete last section.
- Decided to modify filler on internal fuel tank & decided on location over the new boot floor.
- Decided to keep the standard handbrake as don't think we'll have a use for a hydraulic one - we can add one at a later date if we decide to ever.
So I didn't get chance to go down Thursday as I felt ridiculously ill unfortunately and spent the whole day in bed :mask:
Just about made it down today to do a few bits thankfully.
I used a felt flap preparation disc on the grinder to tidy up the weld on the boot floor and then proceeded to prep the surface at the rear of the car for welding, so that Pete can finish welding it in.
Looks a bit of a mess but that's just because it hasn't been painted yet and my phone camera is broken for some reason
After I'd finished that little job I then finished off the wiring in the engine bay...
Really happy how neat I've managed to make it all. I was able to hide a lot of the wires through little bits and pieces, such as the headlight section of the loom; I hid behind the custom brackets for the bumper that we previously welded on the car. Can't wait to get stripping the loom again tbh, I've definitely learned from my mistakes last time and ready to give it another crack now. I will be doing that after the car is running this time as it will be 100% easier I think.
The only plugs that need going in now are for the radiator etc and there's also still some unconnected that need to be removed, such as the ABS, Heater box etc...
While I was there, I also fitted the cable throttle up which was pretty simple :up: Gonna try figure out a neater route for it however as it's just sorta floating in mid air atm 😂
Last thing I did today was check out some deliveries that we received last week...
T Pull cable, with solder-less nipple; for our extinguisher system - once we install one.
And 2000mm of CDS Roll Cage tube: 44.5mm DIA, 2.6mm Wall Thickness (To match the same material as the rest of the cage) We shall be cutting this up to make some extra door bars to weld onto the cage.
List of jobs that now need completing:
Just about made it down today to do a few bits thankfully.
I used a felt flap preparation disc on the grinder to tidy up the weld on the boot floor and then proceeded to prep the surface at the rear of the car for welding, so that Pete can finish welding it in.
Looks a bit of a mess but that's just because it hasn't been painted yet and my phone camera is broken for some reason
After I'd finished that little job I then finished off the wiring in the engine bay...
Really happy how neat I've managed to make it all. I was able to hide a lot of the wires through little bits and pieces, such as the headlight section of the loom; I hid behind the custom brackets for the bumper that we previously welded on the car. Can't wait to get stripping the loom again tbh, I've definitely learned from my mistakes last time and ready to give it another crack now. I will be doing that after the car is running this time as it will be 100% easier I think.
The only plugs that need going in now are for the radiator etc and there's also still some unconnected that need to be removed, such as the ABS, Heater box etc...
While I was there, I also fitted the cable throttle up which was pretty simple :up: Gonna try figure out a neater route for it however as it's just sorta floating in mid air atm 😂
Last thing I did today was check out some deliveries that we received last week...
T Pull cable, with solder-less nipple; for our extinguisher system - once we install one.
And 2000mm of CDS Roll Cage tube: 44.5mm DIA, 2.6mm Wall Thickness (To match the same material as the rest of the cage) We shall be cutting this up to make some extra door bars to weld onto the cage.
List of jobs that now need completing:
- Weld in back strip of boot floor to complete it.
- Cut hole in floor for swirl pot & poss cut hole in OSR Wheel arch for filler hose.
- Make brackets for fuel tank to mount on.
- Modify seat rails to meet MSA spec.
- Remove redundant wires from underside of car.
We've previously mentioned that we would be adding more door bars to our roll cage as we felt it wouldn't provide sufficient protection in a side impact. The current design only had a single bar running from the main hoop, connecting to the front section of the cage; meaning there wasn't a lot of protection anywhere above that - where our knees and legs would be...
So firstly we made a mockup of the bars using some plastic tubing of the same diameter. Cutting roughly where the notches needed to be before perfecting them onto a template - which we then transferred onto the actual CDS tubing.
First one completed with accurate notches cut out - ready to be welded in.
We made another bar identical to this using the same template.
Both bars welded in :up:
Would have been nice to continue the bar down back to the main hoop to make an X shape, but the gap between the body and main hoop is to tiny it'd be impossible to weld anywhere even near there :disrelieved:
Once that was done, I set about marking out where the final position of the fuel tank needed to be to allow room for fuel line fittings and a fuel pump. Also, bearing in mind where a firewall cover could fit over to meet MSA regs.
After taking some measurements, I marked up where the swirl pot needed to go and begun drilling away a 5" diameter circle in the boot floor.
The finished result... a perfect circle :smirk: Getting good at this stuff :wink:
Once that was cut, we made a cup to protect the swirl pot. I calculated that it needed to be 3.25" deep and have a circumference of just under 17". So I cut a piece of steel and bent it around a motorbike exhaust which was pretty much the perfect curvature. Then Alex finished it off using some of her jewellery making wizardry techniques to form it to the final shape.
We then cut a circle for the base - slightly larger than the diameter to allow for a weld around the edge.
The finished piece before Pete welded it together for us.
And there it is welded into the car...
Test fit of the fuel tank, now that it can actually sit flat and in the correct position finally!
Now what we need to do is:
So firstly we made a mockup of the bars using some plastic tubing of the same diameter. Cutting roughly where the notches needed to be before perfecting them onto a template - which we then transferred onto the actual CDS tubing.
First one completed with accurate notches cut out - ready to be welded in.
We made another bar identical to this using the same template.
Both bars welded in :up:
Would have been nice to continue the bar down back to the main hoop to make an X shape, but the gap between the body and main hoop is to tiny it'd be impossible to weld anywhere even near there :disrelieved:
Once that was done, I set about marking out where the final position of the fuel tank needed to be to allow room for fuel line fittings and a fuel pump. Also, bearing in mind where a firewall cover could fit over to meet MSA regs.
After taking some measurements, I marked up where the swirl pot needed to go and begun drilling away a 5" diameter circle in the boot floor.
The finished result... a perfect circle :smirk: Getting good at this stuff :wink:
Once that was cut, we made a cup to protect the swirl pot. I calculated that it needed to be 3.25" deep and have a circumference of just under 17". So I cut a piece of steel and bent it around a motorbike exhaust which was pretty much the perfect curvature. Then Alex finished it off using some of her jewellery making wizardry techniques to form it to the final shape.
We then cut a circle for the base - slightly larger than the diameter to allow for a weld around the edge.
The finished piece before Pete welded it together for us.
And there it is welded into the car...
Test fit of the fuel tank, now that it can actually sit flat and in the correct position finally!
Now what we need to do is:
- Cut filler off front of tank & re-weld onto RH side to allow use of original filler location.
- Buy a competition filler cap and fit it to the car.
- Weld in rear strip of boot floor.
- Modify seat rails to MSA spec.
RuskiWeldFab
ClioSport Club Member
Clio 172, RS4 B7
Looks great! You making some progress there!!! Been contemplating flat floor for mine as well.. maybe later on if I can find one
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thankyou! Starting to see the hard work pay off now. Contact Tim Finch on Facebook I bought ours from him :blush:
Brushwood69
ClioSport Club Member
Just checking but is that tank staying where you have put it? If it is then is it a dual skin tank? MSA Regs may need checking as the last time I looked you need a firewall between tank and cabin. Mk1, Mk2 escorts have a boot hatchbacks dont so tanks need to be inside another box. However not an expert on BlueBook others may have an opinion.
massiveCoRbyn
ClioSport Club Member
Several
Yeah I think it would need a cover. My Escort (a FWD one) with an internal tank has a carbon cover for the tank that encloses it from the cabin.
Yes guy's you're completely right, we'll be putting a firewall cover over the tank once installed to meet the MSA Regs. Thought I'd mentioned it before, must have missed it :blush:
Bit of progress tonight. I headed down to work on my car alone tonight so only managed to do a few things. I did a couple of small jobs that have been bugging me for a while like just tidying certain areas up, but nothing worth writing about.
So we needed to modify our seat rails to meet MSA regulations. The main point being that there must be 40cm^2 contact with each point where the side mount attaches. So I set to work taking some measurements and working out what I needed to do to achieve this.
After taking measurements I grabbed some 3mm steel - in accordance with the regulations.
Cut 8x pieces to my desired shape - using a mix of the grinder and guillotine.
Then I measured 25mm (Which is the height of the tube used for our seat rails) from each edge and bent them at a 90 degree angle to form the final shape of the bracket.
Potato camera strikes again - one minute its brilliant the next minute...well it's like that.
Prepped the surface ready for them to be welded in! Don't know if they're gonna be any good but at least I tried. My design was inspired from MSA approved ones that you can buy and also some of the rally cars with logbooks, down where our car is stored.
Hopefully can get these welded in at the weekend along with the boot floor and then the welding/fabrication stage is complete. Onto bigger and better things 😌 Maybe even spray the roll cage this weekend if everything goes to plan 🙈
Once I'd made those I just tidied up the car a bit so we weren't constantly working in mess. Gave it a quick vac out and blasted it with the airline to get some crap out. Once I'd done that I primed a few of the brackets that were exposed as I'd noticed some of them were starting to develop surface rust. Looks much tidier now but doesn't look it on pictures. Can't wait for it to be painted up so we have something to show for all the hard work 😞
So we needed to modify our seat rails to meet MSA regulations. The main point being that there must be 40cm^2 contact with each point where the side mount attaches. So I set to work taking some measurements and working out what I needed to do to achieve this.
After taking measurements I grabbed some 3mm steel - in accordance with the regulations.
Cut 8x pieces to my desired shape - using a mix of the grinder and guillotine.
Then I measured 25mm (Which is the height of the tube used for our seat rails) from each edge and bent them at a 90 degree angle to form the final shape of the bracket.
Potato camera strikes again - one minute its brilliant the next minute...well it's like that.
Prepped the surface ready for them to be welded in! Don't know if they're gonna be any good but at least I tried. My design was inspired from MSA approved ones that you can buy and also some of the rally cars with logbooks, down where our car is stored.
Hopefully can get these welded in at the weekend along with the boot floor and then the welding/fabrication stage is complete. Onto bigger and better things 😌 Maybe even spray the roll cage this weekend if everything goes to plan 🙈
Once I'd made those I just tidied up the car a bit so we weren't constantly working in mess. Gave it a quick vac out and blasted it with the airline to get some crap out. Once I'd done that I primed a few of the brackets that were exposed as I'd noticed some of them were starting to develop surface rust. Looks much tidier now but doesn't look it on pictures. Can't wait for it to be painted up so we have something to show for all the hard work 😞
Enjoyed working on the car over the weekend and got a lot of things done! :grimacing:
Firstly, I modified the brackets that I made Thursday night to taper outwards from the welded in rails - This is to allow us to fit a spanner under the bracket easier when tightening the nuts to bolt in the seats.
After that, Pete welded them in for us and I flatted the weld down so the seats sat flat on the plates and didn't rock.
Alex and I then worked out where we wanted each seat to be positioned and marked where the holes needed to be drilled in the plates for the side mounts to bolt into. I then drilled them and bolted in the seats - voila :hearteyes:
Goofy picture 😂:stig:
Once the seating was finished we moved onto bolting the fuel tank down! Our plan was make two brackets to bolt through the floor and be fixed/tightened up from underneath the car with nuts.
We cut some thin strips of steel to our desired length, bent them round the fuel tank leaving an equal gap each side. Then I cut some threaded rod and Pete welded it onto the steel that we cut out.
Finished result:
Once those were made Alex marked where they needed to poke through the floor and I drilled the holes. I then got under the car and fastened the fuel tank down - perfect fit :smirk:
We need to buy a sheet of rubber to sit under the fuel tank to stop it rubbing the floor once it's painted, and also two strips to sit on top of the tank, under our brackets - again to stop rubbing.
Onto the filler piping!
We cut a new piece of aluminium pipe that we will use as our new filler - carefully measuring the angles we would need with our new filler location. We will get a local welding company to TIG weld this on in the new location this week. Then we got some fuel filler hose and stuck our pipe in the end of it.
I cut a hole and dremelled it out to the desired shape after a few careful increments in size each time - until it was perfect.
The picture below shows the hole halfway through my cutting - forgot to take one of the finished thing as we did so much today!
Final job of the day was we got Pete to weld in the last part of the boot floor - it's fully welded in now. Just need to tidy the underside of the car and seal/paint it so it doesn't rust. In no rush to do this as the car is indoors :blush:
Gonna tidy up the welds with the sanding disc and then prime the boot floor next time I go to the car.
So the major jobs are nearing completion now and it's almost time to spray the interior - just a few final little things to complete. We need to get all the drilling of holes etc out of the way before painting as it makes sense to... so unfortunately we had to spend some money today buying a few bits:tearsofjoy:
Firstly, I modified the brackets that I made Thursday night to taper outwards from the welded in rails - This is to allow us to fit a spanner under the bracket easier when tightening the nuts to bolt in the seats.
After that, Pete welded them in for us and I flatted the weld down so the seats sat flat on the plates and didn't rock.
Alex and I then worked out where we wanted each seat to be positioned and marked where the holes needed to be drilled in the plates for the side mounts to bolt into. I then drilled them and bolted in the seats - voila :hearteyes:
Goofy picture 😂:stig:
Once the seating was finished we moved onto bolting the fuel tank down! Our plan was make two brackets to bolt through the floor and be fixed/tightened up from underneath the car with nuts.
We cut some thin strips of steel to our desired length, bent them round the fuel tank leaving an equal gap each side. Then I cut some threaded rod and Pete welded it onto the steel that we cut out.
Finished result:
Once those were made Alex marked where they needed to poke through the floor and I drilled the holes. I then got under the car and fastened the fuel tank down - perfect fit :smirk:
We need to buy a sheet of rubber to sit under the fuel tank to stop it rubbing the floor once it's painted, and also two strips to sit on top of the tank, under our brackets - again to stop rubbing.
Onto the filler piping!
We cut a new piece of aluminium pipe that we will use as our new filler - carefully measuring the angles we would need with our new filler location. We will get a local welding company to TIG weld this on in the new location this week. Then we got some fuel filler hose and stuck our pipe in the end of it.
I cut a hole and dremelled it out to the desired shape after a few careful increments in size each time - until it was perfect.
The picture below shows the hole halfway through my cutting - forgot to take one of the finished thing as we did so much today!
Final job of the day was we got Pete to weld in the last part of the boot floor - it's fully welded in now. Just need to tidy the underside of the car and seal/paint it so it doesn't rust. In no rush to do this as the car is indoors :blush:
Gonna tidy up the welds with the sanding disc and then prime the boot floor next time I go to the car.
So the major jobs are nearing completion now and it's almost time to spray the interior - just a few final little things to complete. We need to get all the drilling of holes etc out of the way before painting as it makes sense to... so unfortunately we had to spend some money today buying a few bits:tearsofjoy:
- MSA Compliant 2.25 Ltr Plumbed in Extinguisher System w/ 1.75 Ltr Handheld - Need to drill the holes for the extinguisher brackets and possibly some holes in the front bulkhead for the lines to run through.
- Battery Bracket - Need to drill holes in floor behind drivers seat for the battery bracket to screw into.
- Passenger/Navigator Footrest - Need to drill holes for this to bolt into also.
- Fuel Filler Cap - Not interior related but we need to weld a plate where the filler flap is, so that we can bolt this new filler on.
Extinguisher kit and co-driver footrest was delivered today so we had a quick play around with them marking up where they will be fitted.
We marked out the position of where we will fit the extinguishers and where the holes needed to be drilled for the brackets.
Plumbed in 2.25 Litre will be going behind the passenger seat here - we can run the lines straight down the centre tunnel to the front bulkhead that way.
Handheld 1.75 Litre positioned slightly tucked under the passenger seat so that it's still accessible but won't get knocked about.
We also modified our footrest to fit in the position we wanted. I firstly started by measuring and cutting the left hand corner off so that it could sit central to the passenger seat. Then I bent the mounting flanges to the correct angles that would sit flat on the car's floor. Once they we're perfect, I bent the whole thing from the centre to get a steeper angle. Due to the floor not being flat we designed up some brackets that we'll get Pete to weld us in - these will fill up the space between the floor and allow us to securely bolt the footrest down.
Looks smart in the car - even better when painted!
(It's not blue - just leaving the protective film on so it doesn't get scratched)
Just waiting on the battery bracket and filler to turn up now and we can complete the final stage before painting! :tongueout:
We marked out the position of where we will fit the extinguishers and where the holes needed to be drilled for the brackets.
Plumbed in 2.25 Litre will be going behind the passenger seat here - we can run the lines straight down the centre tunnel to the front bulkhead that way.
Handheld 1.75 Litre positioned slightly tucked under the passenger seat so that it's still accessible but won't get knocked about.
We also modified our footrest to fit in the position we wanted. I firstly started by measuring and cutting the left hand corner off so that it could sit central to the passenger seat. Then I bent the mounting flanges to the correct angles that would sit flat on the car's floor. Once they we're perfect, I bent the whole thing from the centre to get a steeper angle. Due to the floor not being flat we designed up some brackets that we'll get Pete to weld us in - these will fill up the space between the floor and allow us to securely bolt the footrest down.
Looks smart in the car - even better when painted!
(It's not blue - just leaving the protective film on so it doesn't get scratched)
Just waiting on the battery bracket and filler to turn up now and we can complete the final stage before painting! :tongueout:
When we bought the car, whoever had the cage put in didn't think about the original location of the connecting plug from the engine loom to interior and so covered the hole up with part of the cage...:up:
So obviously we had to fix this. Last night we made a new plate to sit in where the original plug was which we had to bend to the shape of the bulkhead, and make a really neat cutout for the plug to mount into.
All welded in!
Also welded the brackets we made for the footrest to mount to and drilled the holes for it.
I also begun making a rough plate for the new filler cap to mount in. Hoping atm we can use the original mounting holes that were for the plastic original and not have to weld it in. Might make another neater plate as I did this one quickly just to see if we could actually do it this way.
Other little bits we did last night were:
So obviously we had to fix this. Last night we made a new plate to sit in where the original plug was which we had to bend to the shape of the bulkhead, and make a really neat cutout for the plug to mount into.
All welded in!
Also welded the brackets we made for the footrest to mount to and drilled the holes for it.
I also begun making a rough plate for the new filler cap to mount in. Hoping atm we can use the original mounting holes that were for the plastic original and not have to weld it in. Might make another neater plate as I did this one quickly just to see if we could actually do it this way.
Other little bits we did last night were:
- Tidy the welds in the boot floor up.
- Drill holes for extinguisher brackets.
Thanks mate! Getting rarer and rarer now, good to see people building them into track cars instead of locking them away in a garage their whole life. You got a thread on here?
Thankyou! Hoping to get some more done today:smile:
V6 255, 172's, JCW,
Well I have a ph1 garage queen too.. haha. No progress thread as yet, but I keep looking at my mate Mossyv6's thread thinking I ought to do something similar lol. I'm building mine with the help of 2 friends, as my mechanical knowledge is pretty poor.. :grimacing:🔨
I'll let you off if you have two :wink: Start one mate it's good fun keeping one and looking back at where you started. Ours has come so far when you look back, even if it doesn't feel like it! Gotta start somewhere, more fun when you're doing it with friends too :blush:
Chipped away at a few more jobs that needed doing today - slowly but surely.
I begun by sanding down all of the plates that we welded in last week and tidying up the welds to make them look neater for when we spray the car. I also cut off all of the unused studs and brackets that we're left in the car and removed all of the excess seam sealant in preparation for painting soon.
After doing that I set about making another plate for the new filler cap to mount into as I wasn't happy with the previous one that I made - it was too thin and could have been a lot neater. Also think we're going to weld this plate in now, as opposed to bolting it in which was our previous plan. Pleased with how neat it turned out in the end :smile:
After that we drilled some holes in our plate that we welded in for the main bulkhead plug, so that we could screw it into there to be fixed in place.
This allowed us to begin test fitting the layout of the wiring, planning on where we would mount the wires, UCH and fusebox.
Just need to design and make a bracket for the UCH to mount to now which we decided to leave for today and have a bit of thinking time as there was no obvious solution to us. We shall do it however!:grin:
Another side project that I'm beginning to work on...
I've been set a Uni Assignment to design a fully working front suspension of a car inc. brakes, arb, hubs, wishbones etc. using CAD. So what I've decided to do is accurately replicate the Clio 172's front suspension setup so that I can design some parts for the car in the future such as brake cooling ducts & plates and who knows what else :tongueclosed:
For anyone interested the CAD software I use is Creo Parametric 4.0 and occasionally a bit of Solidworks which I'll be using in Formula Student this year.
So yesterday I made the first part when I had a spare hour - we we're set to make this over the weekend by the lecturer to showcase our knowledge of geometric patterns and advanced modelling techniques.
A fully accurately dimensioned brake disc for a 172 - including all the hole sizes, and tolerances for all the holes. Doesn't really look anything special but it will do once the whole thing is put together and I can start simulating some things with it. I'll post some updates when I make a few more of the parts and start putting them together 😅
List of jobs doing next before paint:
I begun by sanding down all of the plates that we welded in last week and tidying up the welds to make them look neater for when we spray the car. I also cut off all of the unused studs and brackets that we're left in the car and removed all of the excess seam sealant in preparation for painting soon.
After doing that I set about making another plate for the new filler cap to mount into as I wasn't happy with the previous one that I made - it was too thin and could have been a lot neater. Also think we're going to weld this plate in now, as opposed to bolting it in which was our previous plan. Pleased with how neat it turned out in the end :smile:
After that we drilled some holes in our plate that we welded in for the main bulkhead plug, so that we could screw it into there to be fixed in place.
This allowed us to begin test fitting the layout of the wiring, planning on where we would mount the wires, UCH and fusebox.
- Atm I want to mount the fusebox in the dashboard, in the left hand vent hole as I think it would look quite neat - not sure if the wires will reach but hopefully they will.
- The UCH we're planning on mounting somewhere in the region it's being held up, in the photo below.
- As for the wires, we checked they would all reach the places they need to go if we mounted the UCH as shown - they did :up: So happy days.
Just need to design and make a bracket for the UCH to mount to now which we decided to leave for today and have a bit of thinking time as there was no obvious solution to us. We shall do it however!:grin:
Another side project that I'm beginning to work on...
I've been set a Uni Assignment to design a fully working front suspension of a car inc. brakes, arb, hubs, wishbones etc. using CAD. So what I've decided to do is accurately replicate the Clio 172's front suspension setup so that I can design some parts for the car in the future such as brake cooling ducts & plates and who knows what else :tongueclosed:
For anyone interested the CAD software I use is Creo Parametric 4.0 and occasionally a bit of Solidworks which I'll be using in Formula Student this year.
So yesterday I made the first part when I had a spare hour - we we're set to make this over the weekend by the lecturer to showcase our knowledge of geometric patterns and advanced modelling techniques.
A fully accurately dimensioned brake disc for a 172 - including all the hole sizes, and tolerances for all the holes. Doesn't really look anything special but it will do once the whole thing is put together and I can start simulating some things with it. I'll post some updates when I make a few more of the parts and start putting them together 😅
List of jobs doing next before paint:
- Make bracket for UCH to mount on.
- Sand down all areas that haven't been sanded like new rollcage bars + primer them.
- Re-primer worn down areas and primer any missed areas.
- Get fuel tank filler re-welded and weld in plate for filler cap on outside of car.
- Mask car, flat down the rollcage and spray!
- Mask rollcage and spray interior!!!!:tongueclosed:
Designed and fabricated the bracket for the UCH today finally. Took us a while to come up with a solution but after a lot of different ideas we settled on a design and set about making it.
We used the original mounting points on the UCH from the original bracket, extended and widened them and made our own bracket which hooked under the UCH to support it's weight. It then extends up to the top where it is welded to half a piece of pipe which wraps around the rollcage and will later be jubilee clipped in place - opposed to the cable ties which we temporarily put there for demonstration purposes.
All mounted up out of sight once the dash is in, yet still accessible enough if we ever need to get to the relays in a rush. Happy with the final result.
Once that was sorted we bolted the dash in and loosely placed our centre console and begun planning how we would fix the fusebox into the left hand vent hole. We think we shall have to use the original mounting holes on the fusebox and rivet through the dash to fix it on.
Having De Ja Vu with all the wires everywhere 😧
One last thing we did was drill the holes for the battery bracket to mount behind the drivers seat.
As far as I'm aware all that's left before the paint prep is fixing the fusebox into the dash, hopefully will get that done Thursday and maybe get the cage sprayed at the weekend? :tongueclosed:
We used the original mounting points on the UCH from the original bracket, extended and widened them and made our own bracket which hooked under the UCH to support it's weight. It then extends up to the top where it is welded to half a piece of pipe which wraps around the rollcage and will later be jubilee clipped in place - opposed to the cable ties which we temporarily put there for demonstration purposes.
All mounted up out of sight once the dash is in, yet still accessible enough if we ever need to get to the relays in a rush. Happy with the final result.
Once that was sorted we bolted the dash in and loosely placed our centre console and begun planning how we would fix the fusebox into the left hand vent hole. We think we shall have to use the original mounting holes on the fusebox and rivet through the dash to fix it on.
Having De Ja Vu with all the wires everywhere 😧
One last thing we did was drill the holes for the battery bracket to mount behind the drivers seat.
As far as I'm aware all that's left before the paint prep is fixing the fusebox into the dash, hopefully will get that done Thursday and maybe get the cage sprayed at the weekend? :tongueclosed:
Since the last update we've been busy preparing the car for spraying and have been quite busy despite the lack of updates.
During the week I removed all of the excess seam sealant from the car and I'm so glad I did it because it looks so so much tidier without, wish I'd of taken a picture to show the difference but completely forgot! It was very time consuming and awkward in some places but It was definitely worth it - it's been bugging me ever since we've had the car.
I also took both rear windows out with Pete in preparation for painting for ease of access and also because we'll be fitting polycarb in the future.
Today, we removed the steering column so it doesn't get in the way when painting, all the door seals and the dash and all the wires again. So now the car was empty and it was time to mask it up!
We masked the car up and started spraying...but all the newspaper was flapping around because of the air 😂 SOOOO.. we had to rip it all out again and spray it without 😂 But then because the cage is so close to the bodywork in some places (isn't a bad thing) it was literally impossible to spray it. So we trialled a section using a brush - The results we're equally as good as the spray gun was producing if not better so we continued painting it by hand. It was a lot easier as we could be way more precise and also avoid paint runs.
The first coat was complete by the end of the day! It looks good so far, obviously needs going over a few more times as it's a light colour on a dark primer. We're going to leave it a couple of days to dry and then give it another coat, then do the same again until we're happy with the finish.
Roll on Tuesday!
Once the cage is painted fully and dried, we'll be masking it up and then spraying the interior Racing Blue :hearteyes: Then it's time for the fun stuff to begin :smilingimp: Let the build begin.
During the week I removed all of the excess seam sealant from the car and I'm so glad I did it because it looks so so much tidier without, wish I'd of taken a picture to show the difference but completely forgot! It was very time consuming and awkward in some places but It was definitely worth it - it's been bugging me ever since we've had the car.
I also took both rear windows out with Pete in preparation for painting for ease of access and also because we'll be fitting polycarb in the future.
Today, we removed the steering column so it doesn't get in the way when painting, all the door seals and the dash and all the wires again. So now the car was empty and it was time to mask it up!
We masked the car up and started spraying...but all the newspaper was flapping around because of the air 😂 SOOOO.. we had to rip it all out again and spray it without 😂 But then because the cage is so close to the bodywork in some places (isn't a bad thing) it was literally impossible to spray it. So we trialled a section using a brush - The results we're equally as good as the spray gun was producing if not better so we continued painting it by hand. It was a lot easier as we could be way more precise and also avoid paint runs.
The first coat was complete by the end of the day! It looks good so far, obviously needs going over a few more times as it's a light colour on a dark primer. We're going to leave it a couple of days to dry and then give it another coat, then do the same again until we're happy with the finish.
Roll on Tuesday!
Once the cage is painted fully and dried, we'll be masking it up and then spraying the interior Racing Blue :hearteyes: Then it's time for the fun stuff to begin :smilingimp: Let the build begin.
Thank you that really does mean a lot. It's been a really steep learning curve but we've both learnt so much in such a short space of time it's really good.
Gave the cage a second coat today looks much better!
Decided now is the perfect time to make our polycarb windows whilst the painting is being done. We can keep giving the cage layers and then whilst it dries use the remainder of our evenings to measure and cut our polycarb windows. Thought about buying them already done but it's gonna be much cheaper to do it ourselves and more fun.
Gonna order some 4mm thick polycarbonate sheet and crack on with it!
Decided now is the perfect time to make our polycarb windows whilst the painting is being done. We can keep giving the cage layers and then whilst it dries use the remainder of our evenings to measure and cut our polycarb windows. Thought about buying them already done but it's gonna be much cheaper to do it ourselves and more fun.
Gonna order some 4mm thick polycarbonate sheet and crack on with it!
3rd Coat today! Will only need one more maybe two I reckon It's starting to look really good now, will look mint when the inside is painted racing blue also.
I also spent 5 minutes between paint drying, cutting down the rubber gaitor on the steering rack as it looked horrible in it's current form - with all the fixings for the interior sound deadening around the pedal box. I trimmed it all off and it looks much neater now. Also, I fitted our MOMO boss ready for when we get a steering wheel in the near future.
And the new key barrel for the new loom!
Our fuel tank has been dropped off with a local TIG welding company to get the new filler neck welded on and that should hopefully be done tomorrow or next week.
It's starting to look really good now, will look mint when the inside is painted racing blue also.I also spent 5 minutes between paint drying, cutting down the rubber gaitor on the steering rack as it looked horrible in it's current form - with all the fixings for the interior sound deadening around the pedal box. I trimmed it all off and it looks much neater now. Also, I fitted our MOMO boss ready for when we get a steering wheel in the near future.
And the new key barrel for the new loom!
Our fuel tank has been dropped off with a local TIG welding company to get the new filler neck welded on and that should hopefully be done tomorrow or next week.
Great read so far!!
Just read through the whole of the latest Annex J regarding roll cages. It's not a homologated design...but then the cage isn't FIA approved anyway - but says nothing about it being unsafe? The reinforcement is half the height of the door which is their recommended limit. The design is identical both sides which it says it needs to be. From what I've learnt at university in lectures on roll cage design it's perfectly fine? Obviously an X-Bar design is preferred as it dissipates energy more efficiently in an impact, but we don't have enough room to weld the second bar in with our MIG welder. Perhaps we'll add them in the future along with some gussets. Appreciate your concern though, thanks.
We decided on it due to being able to remove the PAS pump which are known for shitting themselves a lot. Also we liked the idea of being able to adjust assistance level, so could use it high assistance on road driving or maneuvering and turn it off on track for better feel. Can't comment on how it actually is yet as I'm yet to drive the car :blush:
