Thanks for the kind words, a few more updates to go...This one is a bit of a random "lots of bits" update. Lots are at very different times so things will jump forwards and backwards in how complete the car is!
Firstly, steering again. As I'd gone for the Agila column I needed a U-joint for it. After much searching finally picked up one, could only find the right size from the US though. Ridiculously expensive because of delivery and I'm not entirely happy with how it locks. It's secure, it's just not my favoured method. I would far rather a single bolt through clamp.
Second update, front suspension upper outer bearings. I'd discovered that with the very first version of my suspension that the bearings limited the travel as they'd hit long before I desired the travel to be limited. To get round that I made a second set only with a 12° angle on them. This means that the bearing is "flat" with respect to the mount when the car is at (planned) ride height. This then gives a good clear ~3" either way beyond ride height. More than plenty. To weld them up I used the 3D printer again to create some holding fixtures.
They only needed to last long enough to tack the bearing and then weld it up properly. I figured I'd get one use out of each so printed two, turns out that actually they survived with little more than a bit of singeing so I could have got away with one. Oh well, it was only a 4 hour print....while I was doing other stuff!
Next, spider clamps for the gulley. Welded on some flat plate to the back of the roll bar.
I think I'll probably need to lop ~30-40mm off them but it's easier to cut metal than add it back hence why they're longer at the moment than they need to be.
Next, a little bit of rough body fitment and alignment.
Still a massive way away from finalising the spider position let alone everything else but I'm happy enough with things at the moment.
Next we have another little thing. Radius arm rod end bearings. Now I wasn't
overly happy with the amount of misalignment on the front bearings.
They're pretty much at their limit, really it would be ideal to have the mount angled so their straight but I'm not going there. Instead I got some high misalignment rod ends. These basically have a ball instead of the toroid that a normal rod end has.
Again from the US and hideously expensive because of it. To ensure long life I've got rubber boots for them (although it is an utter arse to get them fitted!) and I'll fill them with appropriate grease as well.
Finally for this update we have panelling the bulkhead. Despite making some of these panels right at the start of the build have finally reached the point of "yeah I'm ready". Actually looking at my last updates I hadn't reported on any of these other than a brief mention so I'll save that for another update.