Hot as Hell ..........

or rather not I hope !. I clad the positive battery lead with aircraft fireproof sleeving at the point it passes under the manifold and we have completed the heat shield dressing it with' Magmatape '.
Hopefully we have negated any problems we may have had in the future. Of course if I had a steering column we would not be wasting time on trivia !! Still looks as though it should do the job !

Positive lead protected under manifold.

Heat shield in place.

Shiny bits ...................

A good day today, started by joining the body panels together off the car. Took care to use plenty of clamps and to get the panel lines as aligned as we could. We couldn't put the body on the car as lack of a steering column means we need access to the offside to be able to cut a hole and sort out the steering. After finishing the body we took it apart and wrapped in blankets, my wife has yet to come home from work and see the dining room ! however we will cross that bridge when we come to it !
Having seen some of the posts on the forum and read some of the stuff that has gone before we decided to tackle a problem we don't yet have, that of overheating the starter and solenoid. We cut a heat shield from 1.5mm aluminium which will bolt to the two outer lower chassis members via rivnuts and will be clad in carbon effect 'magmashield' tape with one stainless tie wrap to the outermost exhaust pipe. Hopefully will look neat and should serve a very useful purpose. The header tank I had previously bought, I had omitted to alter the angle of the mount plate so it would still have necessitated some sort of wedge affair. I decided to bite the bullet and ground off the rear plate and had it tigged on again at the correct angle. The mount we cladded in 3m white carbon vinyl and polished the tank, some effort but will be worth it in the end (I hope). The steering column is now key to progress I think so hopefully someone somewhere will extract their digit ! 8 hours today between us so 146 hours so far.

Body !

Rear wing attachments

You can never have too many clamps

Heat Shield from front

Heat shield from above

Header and scuttle

Starter wires protected with heat shielding

Trotting along ...........

Not a lot to report in the last week, in an effort to crack on with the car I bought a fish salad from a local shop for lunch, couldn't be bothered to sort my own ! To cut a long story short I finished up with a bad case of the "Bombay Quickstep" so work on the car came to a halt and I finished up with a day in the bathroom and a day in bed ! I have however finished wiring the rear lights thanks to the excellent article from Jon on his blog http://2js-westfield-build.blogspot.co.uk/, and hope to crack on now this week and fit the body. The lack of steering column and dashboard is a pain and I am trying to work around those parts being missing. 2 hours to the total so 138 hours so far.

Its a beautiful day ..........

At last as the sun returned so did my enthusiasm and off to an 8am start this morning. I started by fitting the two rearmost tunnel panels using rivnuts and 4mm stainless dome head bolts with just enough sealant to do the job, should be removable with ease should I need to. I then tidied and vacuumed the interior, mechanically with the exception of the steering the car is almost complete. I found a use for the old handbrake panel which was too small, I cut a section of aluminium and made a foam lined bracket for the ecu to sit in with rivnuts and domed stainless bolts to the bottom of the ecu panel took a little time but worth the effort I think ! I had found some furniture blanking ends on e bay which were a perfect fit for the holes in the front panels so made a neat job of sealing where the wires for the ecu emerge (in the photo the yellow tie wrap is only there until the silicon dries !) Then spent some time tidying wiring behind the scuttle to make sure all fits and does not interfere with heater wipers etc.
We have now collected a few body parts so Joe fitted the rear lights and before we packed up for the day couldn't resist putting the rear on for a photo ! A day in the sun building......... bliss ........ almost forgot about the missing bits ....almost ! 8 hours today 136 hours total.

Foam padded ECU mount

ECU cable exit silicon drying

Scuttle trial fitted for wiring clearances

Look at the rear on that !!!!!!!!!

Slow going .........

Little to report so far this weekend, finally finished getting the suspension torqued and the anti roll bars connected and something like aligned, it can now safely go to a garage to get a basic set up sorted. Still waiting for vital components, steering, dashboard etc etc ! so no real point in working flat out !
One thing I have managed to source is a header for coolant, the company made it two pipe as requested very nice it is too ! ordered on the 10th to be made as requested delivered on the 14th (No it wasn't Westfield LOL).Why is it you think of things too late, I could have asked them to rotate it 28 degrees on its mount then there would have been no need to fabricate a wedge mount for the scuttle front face ! ahh well too late now but a nice addition nevertheless. Will give it a good polish up before installation.
128 hours total.

Header tank.

Five minute job this ..................

Famous last words.......  started to fit the heater/header take off pipe positioned the pipe as it should look on the edge of the top panel like so ...

but found once properly in place it wanted to meet the bottom hoses exactly on top of the anti roll bar mount .........

would have been no problem had I not had the front anti roll bar !
A call to Westfield confirmed they had heard of the problem ! It seemed to me there were two options one was to cut off the bend in the take off pipe and make the join with a preformed 90 degree hose to the bottom hose. The only problem with this would be the lack of a swage on the cut end of pipe which could blow off under pressure. The only thing likely to blow off under pressure at this time is me !! LOL. The second and simpler option was to try and bend the pipe enough to clear the roll bar mount but still make a join with the bottom hose. A huge pair of plumbers pipe benders were pressed into service, the pipe was not a good fit in the benders but with a bit of care I managed to bend the pipe enough to make a join. A few suitably placed P clips later and all was well .....

A five minute job took over two hours perhaps something for those retrofitting a roll bar to bear in mind !

I then secured the top rail and fitted the temp sensor, the sensor was a very tight fit in the threaded boss and was tight before it gripped the ground terminal fitting around its base. I was very conscious of not overdoing the thread so introduced a couple of stainless washers to make the sensor grip its terminal before it possibly stripped its thread I made sure the terminal was clean and well grounded and used a little thread sealant and boy is it tight ! Finally adjusted the ride height after a conversation with the factory so tomorrow can torque up the suspension. 4 hours today 126 total.

Slow weekend ..............

Not a lot to report over the weekend, started piping up the cooling system only to find I do not have half the required hoses another e mail to Jason I think ! Spent some time playing with ride heights and found loads of conflicting information regarding a set up, I have to pick one and at least tighten the suspension so I can get it to somewhere to properly set it up. Mechanically it is almost complete so will need to retrieve parts of the bodywork from my friends house. Still no dashboard so cannot install the instruments and of course steering column will be a stumbling block ! Nothing really to photograph for now. 122 hours building.