Norfolk Tornado

[Andy Green]

More business trips and then keeping the family happy has minimised the amount of time working on the car.

A removable engine bay cross-member has been added. A section of the chassis rail was cut out and a 3mm plate welded back in with a couple of captive nuts. This was originally cut out when the Rover mounts were removed and had to wait until the proposed oil pan (Moroso) arrived from Summit Racing, As a couple of braces were also added around the revised transmission cross-member, as well as the sill-top braces to support the aluminum top skin.

I’ve also spend many noisy hours with the grinder doing this and dressing the welds on the suspension arms prior to powder-coating. All the spacers for the rear suspension rose joints have been re-manufactured in stainless steel. These replace the combination of washers and bits of copper tube the original builder had used!

Regards
Andy

[Andy Green]

The business trips do sometimes have there uses, especially when going to Detroit and parts are pre-ordered from Summit for hand-carry back. The trip over to have a chat with Fran at RCR produced an even emptier wallet

Regards
Andy

[Julian West]

Wow.. are they fuel caps or mirrors???

[Andy Green]

They are fairly Bling!

I cant bring myself to tone them them down a bit with a Scotchbrite pad. They're stay like this for a while, or until I fed up of polishing them.

Andy

[Andy Green]

The rear uprights have received a great deal of attention. Unfortunately the standard part from Tornado is leaves a lot to be desired, it may be light, but it’s no work of art. The previous owner hadn’t helped the matter by using an oxy-acetylene torch (gas-axe) to reposition the holes for a Scorpio bearing carrier. This had left a couple of mounting holes in virtually free space , so new metal had to be added around these.

The welds were also dressed back and well as the removal of unnecessary material (note the lower ‘ears’ have been cut back). Weld nuts have also been added to hold in the bearing retainers, making it much easier to strip down at a later date. I don’t believe that what I’ve done with affect their durability, but they are now aesthetically less hard on the eyes. Once I’ve finalised the rear brakes they can go for blasting & then powder-coating.

Regards
Andy

[Andy Green]

A battery tray frame has now been welded in on the near-side, which has then been clad with 20swg aluminum. I think I got carried away with the hole saw and it’s a shame I’ve got to put a battery in it when the cars finished!

Finally a bit of bling Rollbar down-stays back from being nickel plated

Regards
Andy

[Andy Green]

After buying a floor mounted pedal box from Rally Design a few months ago, I was disappointed to find that the master cylinders wanted to be where the steering rack is! I now realise this is a common problem, so I could eitherconvert it to a hanging pedal design or extend the push rods, so that the master cylinders are the other side of the steering rack.

Although I originally planned to cut/shut the pedal box, it was as quick to re-fabricate everything, with the exclusion of the balance-bar assembly. Longer pedals were also needed as I don’t plan to run with servos and 6.5:1 seemed to be a suitable pedal ratio.
I originally wanted to use a set of scrap Elise pedals in extruded aluminum, but they couldn’t be used as the ratio was wrong, although the pads and accelerator pedal was used in the end.

They still need to go for powder coating, I’m pretty pleased with the result, although it’s something else that won’t been seen once the car is finished. Next thing is to sort out the seats, so that I can set height of the pedals relative to my seating position.

Regards
Andy