Lots of small preparatory jobs completed since the last blog ready to put thye new radiator and fan in. Picked up a hardtop from Dave Carr at Elise-Spares during the week. It's a single grp skin motorsport version in black which seemed a good fit when it was offered up. Need to work out how to fix it in place. Concensus seems to be sikalex to the roll bar cover at the rear and either sikaflex along the windscreen surround at the front. May try a removeable fixing so that the roof can be removed.
It was good to see a piece of the body fitted to the car after so many months staring at a bare chassis. The roof was only trial fitted but it did look a little more like a car for an evening.
The major job for the week was to get the new uprated cooling fan fixed to the Pro-alloy rad and the rad into the car. There were 2 issues to resolve, firstly the new Spal fan didn't come with mounting feet. Why they would sell a fan without it's mounting feet is beyond me. Onto the net and soon got hold of 4 new bits of plastic at 85p each from Spal. Second problem was that one of the fan mounting brackets was missing from the old rad. After a few phonecalls to junks and some scrappies with no success, I resorted to fabricating a new one from 1.5mm steel plate. Didn't take to long and looks just as good as the original. See pic below.
The other 3 brackets were in need of TLC, so they were treated to an emery cloth de-rust followed by a POR15 treatment and gloss balck paint finish. After a 24hr cure, the brackets were riveted to the pre-drilled hole in the rad, plastic feet clipped onto the fan and a new set of stainless bolts finished the job off. The pic below shows the fan fitted to the new rad sat on the bench ready to go into the car.
The next job was to fit the rad to the rad housing, fit the housing onto the crashbox and the new Eliseparts red silicone hoses fitted and clamped up. New bolts, washers and nylocs wree fitted all round and stainless hose jubilee clips fitted on both hoses. The new hoses are not cheap, mostly due to the n/s hose having a bleed screw, but they do look good. I was going to fit double clips at each end of the hose, buit the fit was so good and the silicone so supple, I only fitted one stainless clip in the end.
Here is a view of the n/s hose fitted to thge radiator
This is the o/s hose fitted
Other jobs completed during the past week were to finish the install of the safety devices cage. Previously the A frame had been loose fitted whilst I was waiting for the petty bar and footwell bracket to come back from Steve Williams. Picked them up from Steve at Brands the previous weekend. Had to use a tension strap in order to get all the A frame fixings to line up. Then offered up the footwell bracket and petty bar in order to mark the holes to be drilled in the ally floor and footwell side panel. Then it was out with the bracket and petty whilst I climbed into the footwell to drill the 8mm holes for the fixings. Then it was back in with the corner bracket and petty and the 8mm bolts fitted and loosely tightened. Fitting the top bracket on the A frame was a real pig requiring the tension straps again. Finally it went on then had to use a combination of the straps and clamps to line up the bolt that fixes the top clamp. Eventually it all went in and all the fixings were torqued up. Still have to drill an access hole in the bottom side of the n/s sill in order to get to the petty bar footwell bracket fixings.
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