Brian has managed to invert the pics for me. Thanks for that. Neil, the parts are painted immediately, I just happened to be nearby at that stage. The small parts are being done first
The garage looks so empty with the chassis gone. I disassembled the build table the chassis has stood on for so long and used some of the material to make a pair of chassis trestles
Very exciting weekend for me! Got the chassis and subframes back from paint and I am very happy with it. The colour is Basalt grey RAL 7012. Before painting the main chassis and rear section weighed about 119 kg (260 pounds), the zinc rich primer and polyurethane top coat added about 2 kg (4.5 pound).
I bolted the engine engine adapter / mount plate to the rear chassis section and mated that to the main chassis section to check it still fitted. Had to relieve some paint thickness in the mating faces. Started to remove the threaded plugs and checked that a bolt turned nicely by hand into all the bushes. Currently busy with that as I am having to retap most of them.
A view of the engine bay showing various brackets for such as handbrake cables, fuel tank and lines, brake lines etc . The small structure in the centre of the cockpit that supports the gearshift is slight offset from centre to give the driver more elbow room.
And finally the roll bar structure. I bolted in the support for the driver head rest just because it could finally be a part that stays on once and for all. First time I have used locking nuts on the project.
Once I had finished cleaning out all the internal threads I could make a start on the aluminium panelling. Although this is a space frame chassis I want to panel the cockpit internal area so that it resembles a monocoque construction. I intended to fit the floor first but as I turned the chassis I realized access to work on the internal side panels is much better with the chassis on its side, and before the floor is fitted.
I make paper templates to aid in cutting reliefs around frame members and brackets. Rough fit it first and then tape bits on to get the final fit-up.
I had some drill templates made with several edge offsets so that I could easily drill the rivets holes equidistant.
In some places I am riveting 19 x 19 extruded angle to the chassis to give me a flange to secure to. I figured out a cheat to be able to set rivets at the bottom of a 19 mm U channel with the tooling I have. Just 4 off M4 nuts taped together to make a spacer.
In other news, I had previously bought bolts with suitable grip lengths to suit the suspension attachments. These needed to have the threaded length shortened. Once this was done I had them plated as part of a batch of sundry small parts and other fasteners. 10 kg (22 pounds) total.
Back on the chassis paneling, my friend who does the sheet guillotining and press braking suggested that we try putting some stiffening beads in some of the panels. I like how they look.
Currently I have almost finished making the left hand side inner panels, the right hand side will be quicker as they are a mirror image of the left.
Got some paneling done. On the foremost bulkhead I made things difficult for myself by wanting to close off on the outside face of the chassis framework rather than on the inside. Instead of just one panel across the bulkhead it had to be in sections. All this to save 25 mm of possible pedal travel. The joggle detail worked well.
Then put it back the right way up to see how it looks. The forward face of the seat back / firewall bulkhead is not yet finally fitted, pending resolution of the cockpit accommodation