Work Resumes!
Wahey - I've started working on the car again! After moving house in October 2005 with a very pregnant wife the new house had to be gutted, walls knocked down, new kitchen and bathroom fitted and generally re-decorated in double quick time. Our first child arrived on Christmas Day 2005....what better present can you get? Leo weighed in at 7lbs 1oz and was home from hospital 2 days later with 2 very bewildered new parents. Obviously time and sleep were at a premium for the first couple of months so the Indy didn't get a look in. However the little guy soon started sleeping through and some normality returned to the house. I now have my evenings back for car building activities.
Fitting the exhaust system
First job was to move the part built car from parents house (where I had been building it) into my new garage. Don't panic - I didn't drive it there. My dad and I trailered it across and then drove it into it's new home.
Once moved the next job on my list was to finish fitting the MK supplied stainless steel exhaust system. The 4 into 1 mainifold section was already fitted to the engine leaving the centre section, silencer and tail pipe to go. The sections slide together fairly easily and are scured with the exhaust clamps supplied with the system. I used Holts Fire Gum exhaust assembly paste on all the joints, which hardens off as soon as the exhaust gets hot, to seal the system and prevent it from leaking.
A bracket needs to be fabricated and attached to the chassis so the silencer can be supported by a rubber bobbin. The rubber bobbin offers some support whilst also allowing for movement and vibration. I used a bit of 3mm steel strip, bolted through the floor of the car to mount the bobbin on, then made another right angled bracket to attache the silencer to the top of the bobbin. I learnt from other Indy owners that the mounting bracket welded onto the silencer was prone to breaking off fairly quickly. To try and prevent this I got a friend to weld in some reinforcing gussets (see photo) to strengthen the bracket. For reference, the rubber bobbin was sourced from Westfield for abotu £6.
Finally I fitted some heat insulation wrap to the section of exhaust manifold in the engine bay. This is to reduce the amount of heat generated in the engine bay thereby reducing the risk of heat damage to other components in the engine bay. Some say it also improves engine efficiency - I have no idea whether this is true or not though. After looking through various catalogues, Ebay proved to be the cheapest source for the insulation wrap. One final note - wear a mask and rubber gloves when fitting this stuff or you'll be itching and coughing for days - it's not nice stuff!
Fitting the seats and harnesses
Next up it's time to fit the seats and 4 point harnesses into the car. The seats are Intatrim Rangers, which I chose after sitting in several different seats at a kit car show. The seat is a GRP shell, which is then padded and trimmed with your choice of colours - in my case, Black with Yellow piping to match the colour scheme of the car. The harnesses are Sabelt 4 point Caterham types (Sabelt part no. CFCI1034D/2) supplied by Lolocost (lolocost part no. 124) in Black & Yellow (to match the seats).
The seats don't come with any mounting brackets or runners although you can buy a set of runners from Intatrim. After looking at different options for brackets and runners I decided to bolt the seats directly to the floor and live with having them in a fixed position (it's my car, so I'll set the drivers seat right for me). The seats cannot be bolted directly to the Ally floor of the Indy, but the chassis has 2 steel straps welded in between the tunnel and outer chassis rails. Although these straps are meant to be used for mounting the seats I couldn't get the right position for the drivers seat so eventually resorted to using some 25mm x 25mm steel angle to make a welded subframe to bolt to the straps, which then allowed me to bolt the drivers seat in the right position. Without pedals to consider on the passenger side, the seat is bolted directly to the steel straps. If you use these seats, you will have to drill suitable holes through the seat base to bolt through. This was a bit fiddly and needed some care not to damage the padding and trimming. I used M8 (12.9 grade) socket cap screws, with penny washers and nyloc nuts to bolt everthing in.
The Indy chassis has welded in mounting points for 4 point harnesses, which are already tapped with the correct thread for the bolts supplied with the harnesses (easy). The harnesses have bolt in fittings as opposed to the hook & eye type fittings, which I prefer as they can't be easily removed from the car when if it's left unattended somewhere.
Making the dashboard
I actually started making a plywood dashboard quite a while agon, but then decided to buy a carbon fibre one to save time - this backfired on me quite spectacularly.
[RANT]
I ordered one from a registered trader on Locostbuilders on the basis of excellent feedback from other forum members. However after paying my £80 and waiting for 6 weeks with no communication from the trader I got fed up and asked for a refund. After another 2 weeks a dashboard finally arrived, but it was a complete pile of shite - badly pitted and scratched and not even flat. This was duly returned with a letter requesting a refund. After a further 4 weeks, a number of unanswered U2U forum messages, letters, voicemails and phone calls to a friend of the trader in question a refund was obtained. My advice is to make sure you know who you're dealing with!
[/RANT]
Anyway as a result of all this I decided to resurect my plywood dash and finish the job myself. I marked out the shape using the scuttle as a template on a sheet of 10mm thick marine grade plywood and cut it out using a jigsaw. Paper templates of the ETB Instruments guages and SVC warning lights were made so I could experiment with the layout before cutting any holes. I eventually decided on the layout below and also to make a seperate gauge panel mounted behind a cutout in the main dashboard - this meant that if I cocked up the gauge panel or wanted to change it in the future I wouldn't have to remake the whole dashboard. A requirement of the SVA test is to have a 19mm radius along the bottom edge of the dash and it took me a while to figure out a way of achieving this. I finally did it by glueing 2 pieces of 18mm radius pine quadrant together to make a half round "D" section, which I teh glued to the bottom edge of the plywood dash.
With the woodworking complete I sourced some Black vinyl, 3mm foam and spray glue from Woolies to trim the dash and finish it off. This is a fiddly job, but very satisfying when it's finished. Next I wired up all the gauges and warning lights on the bench, before moving them into the car to connect up and test prior to fitting into the gauge panel. Everything worked first time, which was very pleasing and somewhat unusual for me. Once the dash was fully assembled I connected it all up again and fitted the dash to the scuttle with stainless M6 dome socket cap screws, penny washers and nyloc nuts. Some people prefer the hidden fixing approach, but I quite like the look of the socket cap screws. All in all I think my homemade dash looks better and more unique then the carbon fibre one I nearly used ;-)
