Slow, Slow, Slow

Dateline - April 17 (Tax Day!)

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been working, all so slowly on the car. I've spent a lot of time working on the air box and air controls. It took me almost three weekends, a lot of metal cutting and fabrication, and several failed attempts, to get a working system. The GM air control that I'm using has six settings: Off, Floor, Floor/Vent, Vent, Floor/Defrost, and Defrost. I've been able to create a system using vacuum motors that will give me everything but Floor/Vent and Floor/Defrost. Because of the system already on the car, I was just not able to come up with a working, reliable system to split the air between the floor and vent / defrost. So I decide to just make those dead settings. Not what I wanted, but it will work.

I also engineered a way-too-complicated system of levers to try to drive both sides of the floor vents with just one vacuum motor. After consideration and talking to some friends, I decided to get rid of the complication and just go with two vacuum motors.

Finally, my original idea of the flapper doors in the center console air vents just didn't work because I could not figure out a way to activate them without bending flexible push rods into figure eights! So I redesigned the flapper doors so that the levers are in a place were I could easily run the push rods to the defrost vacuum motor. This works much better, but required removing the vents from the air box (which I had already installed), and fabricating new doors. Well, better to do it now while it is out of the car, then a year later when things stopped working.

BTW - The flexible push rods are Radio Control push rods that I picked up at my local hobby shop. Yet another example of how all those years working on R/C aircraft paid off!

So, here are pictures of the completed air box and the air box in the car! This was a major deal. Now that I have the air box back in, I can really move forward with other work, like moving the fuse blocks, setting the center console and getting the dash fascias done.














Over the last few weekends I started working on the front door panels (door cards for those British folks monitoring the blog). My original plan was to just use press board, open cell foam and vinyl to make the panels, but I could not leave well enough alone, so I have created a pink foam buck for the door panels, arm rests and door pockets. I also extended the door mounted speakers out and up to better direct the sound. It was a lot of cutting and sanding (about 5 days worth since I took two days off work to do this), but I now have both driver and passenger side doors done and ready to fiberglass. One nice thing is that I am going to keep the pink foam on the door panel, instead of melting it out. This will give really good sound insulation so that I don't need to use expensive and heavy sound proofing material, and I don't need to lay up as much fiberglass because the foam will act as a reinforcement. I am going to need to buy my fiberglass and resin though! Doing much more then I expected!

February Update

Dateline - March 8th 2011 - February was full of bits and pieces work focused around fiberglass and wood, plus a couple weeks down sick! First, started by creating the foam bucks for the center vents. I need to pull air out of the main ducts that run alongside the airbox (black plastic in the pictures), so I designed two new ducts in foam that I fiber glassed to create ducting.





I also got parts in for the turn signal based upon 1994 Chevy Astro parts. Of course, nothing fit like it was designed because I am creating something new, from something old. So I had to do a lot of manufacturing, cutting, sanding, drilling, bending and general hacking! But I got it to work. So now I have a modern turn signal that has the windshield wiper, cruse control and dimmer switch all on one turn signal that fits on the steering column and even has automatic return! Okay, sometimes I just have to admit that "I'm good!"







Back to the air ducks. Once I got the bucks done, and the fiber glass, I created aluminum sleeves and then laid up the fiber glass on the bucks. Once dry, I cut and sanded the fiber glass smooth and got ready for the next step.




...But first, I and Matt had some work to do with the birdseye maple. Lots of cutting and sanding gave us enough 1/4 inch pieces to create the entire dashboard. We will have to mirror the pieces, but it is going to look really, really good!






Back to the ducting! I melted out the pink foam with with acetone, cleaned up the residue, then created the aluminum back plate and also the damper value that is used to stop the airflow when the defroster or floor only settings are selected. These will be activated by push rod connected to the vacuum motors that will activate the other air control valves.






And my final work for the month before I was knocked down by a vicious cold, was to fiberglass the center console. I haven't had time to clean this up yet, but the fiber glass came out just like I wanted it too. I'm very pleased.

Slow Progress Forward

Dateline - Jan 24th - It's been a long, slow journey over the last several weeks working on the car. It seems that, after a lot of quick progress, things have ground down a bit. But moving forward is a good thing, no matter how slow!

So, over the last few weeks, I started shaping the fascia for the drivers side dash out of pink foam. I will only be able to do the section from the door to the steering column because of the complexity of the column, turn signal and ignition key. That area I plan to mold in modeling clay on which I will lay up the fiberglass.

I also purchased my new emergency hand brake lever. Since the original hand brake was under the dash, I needed to make some modifications to get this to work. It is going to now be in the center console to the right of the gear shift selector. I would have liked it to be on the left, but there was not enough space there. I made a bracket for the lever out of steel and bolted it into the car. I may weld it in before I'm done. Not quite sure about that yet.






I've also started to think about fiberglass. I bought and read a book on fiberglass techniques, so now I need to buy the fiberglass and resin to start building up the center console and dash fascias. The center console should be pretty easy because I just need to put the fiberglass over the pink foam. The fascias will be a little harder because I can either layup fiberglass over the foam and then melt the foam out with acetone, or I can do a negative mold over the foam and then do a positive from that. Both have advantages. Doing the layup over the pink foam will be quicker, but I will need to embed reinforcements for the glove box, hinges, screws, hangers, etc into the foam as a lay up the fiberglass for the best strength. Plus I will need to make the foam significantly smaller then I want the finished product to be in order to account for the thickness of the fiberglass.

Making the negative mold would make it easier to do the layup because I would be able to put the reinforcements in as I lay up the fiberglass, and I don't have to make the plug smaller because it will be the size I want. The problem is that I will end up doing three times the work making a negative mold then a positive one, since you have to do a lot to make a good negative mold. Plus, since I am only doing this once, a negative mold doesn't provide a lot of extra value. Still moiling this over.










I also started modifying the air circulation system. I knew I needed to make room for the big GPS/Stereo receiver in the dash and the only way to do that was to cut a big section out of the air box. Fortunately, with the A/C evaporator out of there, I have plenty of room. So I marked out the area, cut it out with a saber saw, and then made sheet aluminum pieces to fit. I taped them in with aluminum ducting tape. I think this is going to be waterproof enough and robust enough for this application. If I start having problems, I can always fiberglass it in later.

I'm also working with Matt to come up with a wood dash design. The piece of bird-eye maple that we have available isn't quite wide enough. So we have come up with a plan to mirror the maple along the length of the dash, using a black seam as a divider. Since the steering wheel has a black seam in it also, the may be a really good solution that ties the dash in with the steering wheel. We are also thinking about putting a similar seam into the gear selector knob and maybe the emergency brake handle. Matt has purchased a drill that will cut the maple a little shy of the gauge diameters so that we can in-set the gauges behind the maple. I think this is going to look really cool. Here are some updated renders that I've done with the newer dash ideas. I've also updated the door panels and center console to reflect more of the reality of the interior.






Finally, I've been in conversation with a company in Belgium that specializes in classic car carpets. I think I've narrowed down the color that I want that matches my interior, and they have really good prices. Since these carpets are designed around the restoration market, I know they will fit, and I will not have to spend time myself trying to make my own. Dollars well spent! Now I just need the Euro to weaken so that I can get a better price.



So, I guess I'm making better headway then I thought! Now, I need to purchase a used heavy duty sewing machine, matching vinyl, fiberglass and resin, the GM turn signal and handle, two vacuum motors for the air circulation system, the power door switch, new fuse blocks and lots of wire to move the fuses from the center of the dash to under the drivers side dash. Everything but the sewing machine and vinyl have been sourced, I just need to make a purchase.

Stay tuned for more...

Actualizing the Plan

Dateline - Dec 28 - It's been a busy weekend. I had four days off from work, so I decided to take advantage and put some serious time into the car. Friday I started actualizing the interior, but I wanted to make sure everything would work, so I reinstalled the steering column and slipped on the wheel to make sure everything worked ergonomically. Boy does it ever! It felt really good to sit in the car as if it were running. Everything was placed perfectly!

With that out of the way, I started on the center console. This is the center focus of the car, and I wanted to start laying it out so that I can get the overall look. I'm using the original console as the base so I had to get it in shape. I had pulled all the old vinyl and foam backing off, but there was still a lot of residue, so I spent some time rubbing it off. I thought of using acetone to remove the foam, but I didn't know how this would affect the rubberized paper that the console is made out of. So I just rubbed it off instead! Then I had to deal with rust. Yes, even the center console has rust! Anything made of metal in this car has rust of some kind!

I also had to work on the left and right foot well heater outlets which had some serious rust on them, partially because they were covered with vinyl, which held in the water, and partially...well...because they are metal and rust! Once I had everything sanded, I painted it with my rust encapsulating paint. Here are some pictures of the heater outlets before, during and after:







Because I'm extending the console up the dash, I had to create a steal framework and attach it to the console, using pop rivets. Once that was done, I cut out sections of one inch pink insulation foam and epoxied it to the frame, after which I sanded it into shape. I'm not completely happy with how straight-edge everything is right now. I think I will end up adding some more curves to the frame, but at least I know how it will look.










I also did a job that I've been wanting to do for some time. I welded in some blind nuts for the shifter quadrant. It was such a pain trying to reach between the transmission and the tunnel to get washers and nuts on the bolts for the quadrant (see previous post http://leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2009/06/steering-wheel-shifter-and-tunes-plus.html). Since I had everything out, I decided that now was the time to weld in some blind nuts so that I will not need to struggle with that again!

Saturday (Christmas) I took the day off and went and visited my friends Matt and Karen, who sold me the car in the first place (Yes, they are still my friends =). I've asked Matt, who is an accomplished wood worker, to build my wood dash for me. He showed me a piece of "birds-eye" maple that he had in his shop to see if it would do for my dash. It's a grand piece of wood! I hope we can make it work.

Sunday, back to the car! Since I couldn't do too much more on the center console at the moment, I decided to start the buck for the right side dash fascia. The Jags (like most British cars of the time), did not have a fascia below the dash. Instead, they had a black plastic edging that went around the bottom of the dash and a tray below to hold sundries. Since I'm building a custom interior, I've decided to add a fascia that will also incorporate a glove box. To do this, I need to create a fiberglass panel in the correct shape, which I will then reinforce to handle the glove box, and then cover in vinyl like the rest of the interior. To create the fiberglass panel, I first need a "buck" to lay the fiberglass upon.


The buck started out one inch pink foam. I cut each piece out individually and epoxied together. Once the epoxy set up, I took my sanding block and started sanding it down to the correct shape. I'll tell you, all those years of building scale model R/C aircraft really paid off here! It gave me the skills I needed to do this work. Here are some pictures of the process:











Monday was a day to work on more mock-ups. I needed to figure out how the kick panels that will run from the center console into the foot wells would work, especially with the heater air outlets. So, I broke out the good old construction paper and blue tape and figure out how they will fit. I will probably make these out of light gauge aluminum. I could make them out of fiberglass, but it will be just as easy and less time consuming to make them out of sheet aluminum. They will be covered in vinyl anyway, so that should work well.

I also started mocking up the door panels. The first thing I noticed was that my original renderings were not really to scale! Once I got a chance to see what was really in the car, I realized that I would have to change my plans a bit. But not to worry. I'm going to be able to keep my original idea of carbon composite insets with Jaguar Leapers in silver leaf! And with the narrower seats, I have more room for armrests and door pockets. I'm even going to be able to move the speakers out, making them more directional. Sadly, it looks like I'm going to loose that wood door trim that I wanted, but c'est la vie. Oops! That's French! This is a British car! Let's try the immortal words of John Cleese in "A Fish Called Wanda", "Right! Well! That's it then!"