Category: New Wood chassis

Fitted a few more pieces at the front of the car.

Made some progress at the rear of the car over the last few days. Don’t expect to get much more done before I return to work. Next time I’m on vacation I should be able to complete the rear of the car will and hopefully be getting to a point that I can fit the replacement wooden sills.

Well today got my uncle to come over and give me a hand for a couple of hours. My wood working skills are improving but I’m not up to planning a scarf joint on my own so asked him to give me some help. Took home an hour but he carefully planned a taper onto the end of the plywood sheet and another section to enable me to extend the ply wood floor to cover the boot of the car. Once he left I glued and clamped up the new section using nearly every clamp I own. Won’t know how successful it’s been till I remove all the clamps in the morning.

Have been slowly working away at car over last few days. Have manage to assemble the first wooden sill. Its not 100% perfect but not bad for my first attempt.

Its not been the best of days. discovered that when I glued the horizontal piece of wood that fits under the fuel tank that I failed to fix it in the correct place. Somehow I managed to not square it up correctly so each side of it is out by about 5 mm.  Didn’t release till I was test fitting another piece today and had a gap in the joint. I know this section is square but it now doesn’t fit correctly. Spent an hour measuring and trying to decide best course of action. I could have tried to remove the sections that I had glued in the incorrect place but this would have put me back about 3 days and there would be a risk I would end up damaging the rest of the chassis.

In the end I have decided it will be quicker and easier to adjust or make new pieces or the items that don’t fit correctly. This does mean there could be as much as 10mm difference form one side of the car to the other in this section but I doubt it will make much difference in the end. Worst case is I will just need to make 3 of the radius rod arms that locate the axle adjustable instead of just the one (had to do the same on my steel chassis car) to align the wheels correctly.

After feeling quite depressed about that part of the car decided to start making the part that sit’s behind the dash.. Its amazing how quickly this can be copied by clamping a section of plywood against the original and 20 minutes with a router and you have a exact copy.