February 21, 2021. More fiberglass.

Firewall covers.

After the excitement of getting the engine to run it was back to making fiberglass parts. One of the firewall cover I’d made previously I decided was just to horrible to use so I made another. which was better.

These then needed to be covered in the heat shield and Nomex materials. These are held on with headliner contact adhesive, and getting right first time didn’t happen. Thankfully its nearly all hidden when installed.

Installed they look like this…

The overs were sealed to the fire wall with fire resistant sealant, more as I had it rather than to much hope it’d slow a fire down.

Cam Belt Cover

The next thing to make was the timing belt cover, like the fire wall parts this had to be done before I can connect up the cooling system. The first step was to print of molds. These were done in glow in the dark ABS, as I got it cheap. This was a bit of a mistake as the surface finish is nowhere near as good as normal ABS.

Due to some splitting in the parts I had to put some effort into filling the cracks, I didn’t bother wasting too much time on getting the surface finish pretty though.

The prototype parts were used to help mark out the different parts to cut out from the glass material, this stuff I have falls apart quickly with handling which makes it difficult. The patterns were marked out with a sharpie. This was a mistake as we’ll see later.

Here’s one part before the starting to stuff it in the mold. Much more organised that my first go with the previous parts.

And afterwards, not a disaster zone so a big improvement in the processes.

Here’s the problem withe sharpie, its still there.

These are the parts straight out of the molds, if it were not for the sharpie lines I would not have had to pain them, they could have been cleaned up and used as is.

Here’s the painted parts in front of the prototype parts, nearly all of this is hidden when installed. The hole is for the cam sensor wiring to come through, only one cam sensor is needed. A rubber grommet fills the hole and the plug passes through that.

I’d tried initially to use speed nuts to join the two parts, but that was a fail so I made a couple of pads bonded in to hold some M4 screws which would come through as studs to the outside. A reinforcement was also added to the lower point where it bolts to the engine.

Installed we get this…

And from the other side…

From this angle you can see that there’s very little room to work in and hence the need for the effort to reduce the size of the cam belt cover.

Brakes n’stuff.

Whilst trying to avoid doing the fiberglass parts, I made the remaining brake tubing and bled the brakes. I also had a clutch hose made.

In the picture above you can see the first of the 3D printed supports to keep the lines in place. There’s several more supports to be made yet. Also there is one of the brake pressure sensors, there one each for the front and rear circuits. What they’ll connect to is not yet properly decided.

Aside from the clutch hose, I’ve had a hand brake cable made and a throttle cable. Normally you’d get a cable made to fit the bits at the either end, but I don’t have those so I’m going to make those bits to fit the cables I have. This leads frustrating conversations as people try valiantly to not sell you what you asked for as they’re confident you have to be mad. I bought the clutch hose at 5m long with one end still lose, so I could trial fit it and cut it to the right length then have the second end crimped on. The shop guy I think was convinced that I’d come back with a couple of metres cut off not the little bit I went back with.

I also go lucky and acquired a A0 plotter in good order for $0

The picture below is one of the first things I printed off big, no more A4 patchwork quilt drawings from now on!