Fitting The Alternator
The original Sierra altenator cannot be used as it is too big to fit in the Indy's engine bay, also the original alternator mounting bracket fouls the new steering column. After a bit of research on locostbuilders I discovered that other people had used smaller Japanese alternators with a fabricated moutning bracket. My Dad found a brand new (very small) Nippon Denso alternator, which fits in the engine bay nicely, for free (bonus). The original alternator moutning bracket from the Sierra did not suit the new alternator and also clashed with the lower section of the streeing down-link. To get around this I fabricated a new mounting bracket from a piece of 50x50x3mm piece of steel angle. It's not particularly elegant, but it works so time to move on to another job.
Fitting The Fuel Tank
The wiring isn't finished yet, but I can't do any more until I get things like lights and a cooling fan. Anyway I've just collected an alloy fuel tank and all the GRP body work from MK Engineering so I'm going to have a play with that!
Before fitting the tank, the fuel gauge sender has to be fitted to the tank. As I am planning to use the donor car's gauges I have fitted the level sender recovered from the donor's fuel tank. Notice the extra plate rivetted to the top of the tank? Well I forgot that the tank has an internal baffle around the pick-up pipe. After carefully cutting a nice round hole for the sender I then found it wouldn't fit, because of the baffle plate - ARSE!
The fuel tank sits right at the rear of the car and is held in place with metal straps bolted to the chassis. The tanks is insulated from metal to metal contact with the chassis with closed cell neoprene foam. The securing straps are also padded with the same foam. With the tank secured in place, the fuel pipe to the engine is connected up via a fuel filter.
I looked into getting a fuel filler cap to mount on the rear panel of the bodywork, but they seemed to be very expensive for what they are. I decided on a screw top filler, which came from Merlin Motorsport
Trial Fitting The Bodywork
Sometimes it's difficult to decide what to do next! I should be concentrating on getting the engine up and running, but I decided to try loosley fitting some of the GRP bodywork. You need to be very careful not to damage it - it's fairly strong, but can easily be chipped or scratched. Every panel needs some fettling to make it fit properly and every build will be dfferent, depending on engine choice, light positioning etc. The panels will eventually be fixed with a mixture of pop rivets, rivnuts and adhesive.
First up are the side panels - the MK panels finish short of the front wichbones, meaning you don't need to take the front suspension apart to fit them. These are a pretty good fit and only needed trimming to clear the front brake pipes. Next I positioned the scuttle as it needs to line up with the start of the taper of the sides of the car. This needed trimming to clear the dash board hoop and is bolted down to rivnuts in the top chassis rails. The scuttle dictates the bonnet position - this will need trimming to clear the Weber DGV carb and the MK Pinto exhaust manifold. The nose cone can then be positioned and secured again using rivnuts in the chassis rails. I then removed all the bodywork to carry on with the build.
