Build day fourteen is a combination of the fourteenth day, and today's progress which is in fact day fifteen, but the fourteenth day of building.
I had pre-organised the stone chip protection applicator guys to come round on day fourteen, and as the decals that were originally applied to the car were wrong we had to get the decals changed to the 'correct' ones which for me are the triple stripe variant before the stone chip protection film was applied.
The guys who fit the stone chip protection film from
http://www.signsuk.co.uk (who also do the work for the CC supplied cars) came down from Burbage, Leiecstershire and arrived around 11am. I had already got all the bits (nose cone, rear wings and bonnet) down from upstairs, so everything was ready for them to crack on.
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Panels ready for decal re-application and stone chip protection film. |
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The guys removing the originally fitted decals. |
They removed the decals and applied the first stripe on the side of the vehicle you can see in the picture above, but the new decals were a matt orange which didn't have the 'pop' of the fluorescent orange I'd become accustomed to. The stipe also didn't have the chevrons in them (towards the front) so they were wrong. After a fair bit of pondering, I decided it best to get the guys to stop and to come back at a later date with the correctly coloured (and cut) decals. Ed (I think his name was) called his manager to discuss the 'situation' and they agreed to have the decals re-cut, printed and then to come back to do the stone chip protection film.
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The stone chip protection film which will be applied over the (correct) decals. |
The disappointment then set in of another 'snag' which really sucked the motivation out of me, so I decided to just do a menial task of fiddling with the rear suspension and then I called it a day.
Tonight was a different matter. I had set myself the task of fitting the watts link arms to the mounts provided and to the De Dion tube. I also wanted to get the brake calipers on (or at least together) so the final duty would be to torque everything up.
I'd already sized the watts link arms as per the instructions on Sunday, but I found the bell crank to be too tight to fit the eyes in, so a quick email to Derek and he said he used to prise them open. I found the best (and easiest) solution was to pop a t-bar socket in the top and give it a light tap with a soft hammer.
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Opening the bell crank with a t-bar socket and a soft hammer. |
After fiddling around with the watts link arms, I decided to put them together off the car to ensure all the bolts and washers were correct which helped a great deal.
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Watts link arms fitted together. |
After fitting the watts link arms together I checked that all the bolts would fit into their respective mounts and the cap head bolt (passenger side) didn't fit as the hole hadn't been cut entirely. So out with the Dremel to sand down the additional couple of mm of metal and then viola the cap head fitted in perfect. The driver side was fine and didn't require any 'adjustment'
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Using Dremel to open hole up for cap head bolt for Watts link front arm (passenger side) |
Fitting the arms was then pretty straight forward, however there were some small spacer washers which had to be fitted to the De Dion, and these were quite tight. I copper slipped them, and found a way to push them into place using a small adjustable locking wrench and a piece of kitchen roll to protect the powder coat.
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Pushing spacer washers into De Dion using small adjustable locking wrench and 'protective material' |
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Front Watts link arm, note that the recessed edge points outboard. |
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Rear Watts link arm, note that the recessed edge points inboard. |
I then torqued the watts link bolts, marked them as torqued and then decided to tackle the brake calipers.
I lightly greased the drive shaft splines and put the brake discs, thrust washer and hub nut in place and tightened gently. Steve Grubb (Grubbster on blatchat) had very kindly emailed me a copy of a CC internal document he received which was a very handy step by step guide of how to put the calipers together. I followed the pics and the have pretty much a finished rear suspension and brake setup, which was exactly what I had set out to achieve tonight so I feel very satisfied with the progress.
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Rear brake disc and calliper in place. |
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Rear calliper assembly with bolts (notice deliberate spacer error) in place. just need to check with Derek tomorrow morning what the correct torque is for these bolts. |
Tomorrow night I am just going to take it easy. I'll finish the brake caliper fitment, fit the brake lines and torque up any remaining rear suspension and brake bolts that need tightening.