Bodger Locost Build

Car so far

2010-05-03T11:57:00.000+02:00

Pictures of the car taken on Saturday. I only got round to putting the hadbrake on with a very basic mount for the cables.

Oh and I got the extreme toe in on the front wheels sorted.

Back in the game

2010-04-30T00:45:00.000+02:00

Its been a long time since we last went into the build shop with the intention of working on the car. I think we are finally ready to make the final push and get it done.

I've been married nearly two years now and since before the wedding nothing has been done.

Can't wait to get started again there are some pics that need to be posted to see where we currently are and I'll have them up by Sunday.

Episode V - The Flywheel Strikes Back

2008-05-08T15:29:00.005+02:00

Last night while endeavouring to mate the gearbox to the motor I sheared off one of the bolts.

The whole evening was plain frustration from start to finish. The night before (Tuesday) we had tightened the friction plate to the flywheel. In the process we managed to get the friction plate off centre so when it came to getting the shaft to go all the way home it just wouldn't.

So eventually I decided to slack the pressure plate off and jiggle (that's a technical term) the friction plate around to centre it. I succeeded in aligning it correctly but then when I torqued the bolts joining the pressure plate to the flywheel one snapped right off. In hindsight I guess it was better then stripping the flywheel thread.

Today I took the flywheel off to an engineering shop and they fixed it while I went looking for new bolts. All sorted and ready to continue.

Right now I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself.

Oily mess !@#$

2008-05-07T09:31:00.007+02:00

In my infinite wisdom I tried to fill the gearbox with oil without checking for any possible hole first. So of course oil started pouring out of the speedo hole.

Last night on Brad's recommendation I blocked it up with a nylon plug, a washer, a circlip and plenty of silicon.

Then the real fun started and we went about putting the engine in. Unfortunately we ran out of time and at 12:30 last night this is as far as we had got.

The gear box is too far forward to get the clutch cover past the bell housing, so we need to take the prop out and temporarily move the gearbox back a tad to get the engine home.

Random Photo of the day. I took it this morning outside my door. I often forget to look at how beautiful the mountains are.

Well I don't know what to say... Its been a while!

2008-05-05T15:27:00.008+02:00

So 3 months on and at last I'm back in the garage. Wedding plans are almost complete and Yimmy (my Ford Ka) got a new set of shoes as well as a branch and free flow exhaust.

His old wheels got passed onto the build temporarily.

Meanwhile I have finished fitting the Steering, Diff and all number of shafts. The basic wiring layout is done, thanks to Andre it was more like making to minute noodles then wiring up a car.

For my Dad's Birthday I got him this rather cool looking "Racing" jack its almost completely Aluminium so it weighs very little and has a fast lift action for up to 1.5tons. Needless to say it lifts the car a treat.

Skew Rail Explanation

2008-02-27T12:05:00.004+02:00

Quote:

Hi Bodger
what happen to the rail?

Cheers
Murray

The chassis came welded incorrectly. It was out by 6mm at the gusseted end but because there is a knock on effect to the wishbone by the time you try to fit the upright it is more like ±30mm out. I found a way to make it fit by turning the top wishbone upside down but it was still out by 5mm and caused the wheel to have a bad Toe-out.

In the end the only thing to do was cut and re weld it.

Suspended-sion

2008-02-27T09:53:00.005+02:00

Last Night I reassembled the rear hubs with new seals and grease. They were taken apart because of a problem with the rear bearings being crushed when tightened up to 200nm+. To fix this we had some spacer washers made so that the pressure was on the splined parts of the hub instead of the bearings, this is how it is designed to work on the sierra.

The reason for this problem was the rear uprights from Locost SA had a larger flange in between the bearing cups then the original sierra part. All new uprights bought from Locost SA do not have this problem anymore.

I then put the rear suspension together and test fitted the shocks for good measure.

I have forgotten up till now that the front uprights need to be modified. The lower ball joint hole does not have the correct taper so it will need to be machined.

There is also still a bit of work to be done on the braking system (flexible hoses), then we can have it on its wheels.

Painting r us

2008-02-23T00:20:00.003+02:00

Right the re-welded bits have been painted. Also painted are the drive shafts, steering rack extenders, steering rack mounts, engine mounts and the second diff. Who knows when I will get another chance to work on the car :( but I'm glad that the chassis is fixed.

Cut and Welded

2008-02-22T13:56:00.004+02:00

Right, so we had a friend round last night who was able to correct the skew rear suspension mounting rail. He took the long way round and decided to cut the gussets off and move the rail 6 mm outwards. The whole job 2 and a half hours and he used a Arc welder to do it.

Oh one other thing, I have named my Ka Yimmy!

A whole festive season and only a ring and a car to show for it.

2008-01-28T02:31:00.000+02:00

Nothing done on the car in ages due to holidays and laziness and being demotivated and blah blah blah. But there is some good news, there shall soon be a Mrs Bodger!

On the car front there are a few pictures to show of parts that arrived round about the 14th of Dec last year.

This is a spacer made up by a friend its solid Ali and is really well finished.

The same friend is making our fuel tank. its made from marine grade Ali, he brought it round to test fit before he puts the baffles and sides on. Its capacity should be around 37l. Then there is the old diff I have started cleaning it off but stopped due to the oil spill when I drained it (smells really interesting in the garage.)

Then lastly I bought a car:

There are lots of plans for the car. Engine conversion to 1600 rocam, new wheels and stiffer suspension.

2007-12-04T00:07:00.000+02:00

New Diff and half shafts on the way

2007-11-16T00:47:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow I'm going to get a new diff and half shafts. The ones we bought first time round had the wrong size hub bearing. Pity about the cash but I think its the right decision. We will now be able to move forward quite a bit. Besides not having shocks we should have a rolling chassis by the end of the weekend. Pics to follow (My SWMBO has the camera)

I'm really excited about the project at the moment hopefully we will get alot done this weekend.

I'm still alive

2007-11-12T02:31:00.000+02:00

Firstly, I bought me a new camera so from now on the pictures will all be of greater quality. For those who are interested its a Canon 350D SLR with standard kit lens of 18-55mm. I'm amazed at how good the image quality is and even in low light its still crystal clear. Pictures I've taken so far can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bodg3r/

Ok back to business, so this weekend I finally got back to working on the car. I have now put it the steering column, extended bottom link and rack. I've also done the front suspension.

There was quite alot of work involved getting the front wishbones backed out properly with washers, oh and before anyone freaks out the nuts we are using are temporary we will change them for nylock nuts as soon as we are happy with everything.

Its starting to come together at the front at last

Our pimping steering wheel that cost a cool R200

I'm just wondering about the seals on our diff, are they meant to be right on the edge of the drive shaft hole?

At last we have an oil pickup, this one came from Toyota and cost a small fortune but I was fed up with trying to find one. So now the sump can go back on.

More Panels

2007-10-08T11:48:00.000+02:00

The weekend was very busy so not alot got done but we did some good work tonight.

Both side panels are now finished. The front bulkhead panel is also fitted but not yet held by riv nuts.

I put the tunnel and rear panels in and after some encouragement by Andre (he thinks it will be easy enough to put the wiring loom in after the panels are on) I think they will be the next ones to be riveted.

Still waiting for the correct rear uprights and the wiring loom.

Lots of progress :)

2007-10-04T11:11:00.000+02:00

Alot of rivets put in tonight and amazingly I don't feel too sore. I do have metal shavings inside my top from drilling under the car, bloody ichy.

I'm not looking forward to the other side, its such a mission to get it fitting nicely. Maybe it will be easier second time round.

Who says sidies are out of fashion

2007-10-03T10:50:00.000+02:00

Getting ready to rivet on the side panels, unfortunately I have to skip the transmission and rear bulkhead panels for now since I do not have the wiring loom yet. Both sides have a good fit with very little alteration needed.

Upsidedown and rivet it insideout!

2007-10-02T11:33:00.000+02:00

I forgot to mention that a friend from work lent us some bantam wheels. I kinda like them, only trouble is they are 185 and 14" and I wanted 195/15" but beggars can't be choosers and at least we have something to get the rolling chassis going.

Tonight's work,

The before:

the fuel inlet pipe has already been done but I was worried about the floor panel when it came to the return pipe. So we flipped the car over and I had a bash at drilling and riveting the floor and return pipe (Dad was helping my brother move house, I got away with just carrying the bed).

After:

I hope its not too serious that the pipe runs slightly bellow the chassis, I can't imagine it could be as long as the middle of the car doesn't get wedged on something

TooBusyToBuild

2007-10-02T11:16:00.000+02:00

You may be able to tell from the long absence that things are going quite slowly. I did do some good work on the steering and more on the fuel lines. Hopefully we can put them to bed by the end of the week and get started on some ali panels.

Fuel lines

2007-09-10T11:49:00.000+02:00

We have acquired fuel lines and also the various bits to connect them to the engine. Also got Riv nuts and a riv nut tool that cost us R400 but at least we can do a proper job now.

Then on Saturday the old man managed to find an alternator for R200 although the mounting bracket is wrong, still to go is the oil pickup, dizzy and about a million rubber pipes for the vacuum sensors and cooling system.

I still get very scared when I think of all that needs to be done and how little I know about any of it. So far we have managed, so the aim of the game is slow but steady!

RWC - Its on like donkey kong!

2007-09-07T11:57:00.000+02:00

So here are the two types of Sierra Prop shaft. (A) being the correct one and (B) being the one I got from the scrappy. (B) is unsuitable because it has the rubber doughnut attached to the spline part, which is too wide to fit in the transmission tunnel.

There are a number of different ways to shorten the prop but we have chosen to remove the centre bearing and just have a UJ at each end.

This is what we are aiming for

Then in other news we trial fitted the front suspension for a bit of fun.

Front brake lines done.

Engine in

2007-08-28T09:55:00.000+02:00

Lots of fun was had putting the engine in since we had a chain hoist but nothing to fasten it to. We happened to have a nice piece of 2m long square tubing which was 750mm x 750mm. So our great plan was to slide it between two of the joists to create a place to hang the chain hoist. Come to think of it I should have taken a picture to explain better.

To cut a long story short we sweated atop stepladders for a good 45 minutes to get it right.
Next mission was that the engine was on the other side of the garage from the front of the car. I don’t know how much the engine actually weighs but I was surprised to find that a 56 year old man and I could pick the whole thing up and move it into position.

A guest appearance by my mom

The engine Finally in, we had to fasten the gearbox mid way but since Brad made such nice engine mounts it made the whole exercise rather easy.

We found that the sump was only fastened on with about half the bolts it should have been and since it was dented we decided to take it off to get it repaired, upon doing so we found that the oil pickup was missing.

Now that we have the engine in temporarily we can look at routing the front brake pipes and fuel lines.

On Saturday I got a prop shaft, handbrake cable and steering rack mounts. I have no clue as what to do with the prop shaft I just know its got to get shorter by quite a lot.

Rear Brakes

2007-08-23T06:25:00.000+02:00

More work done on the braking system.

N/S internal transmission tunnel panel (drilled)

2007-08-20T11:31:00.000+02:00

I nearly forgot we also drilled the other footwell panel
but have not fitted it yet. We decided to wait a bit incase
we need access to something there later on.

Gerrie thank you for your comment
and any other comments are welcome.

Ah another thing the video is coming along nicely but I
thought I would wait for more progress before updating it.

No pictures I'm a dummy I know!

2007-08-20T10:15:00.000+02:00

So on the weekend we picked up all our nuts, bolts and washers
and then proceeded to get nothing else done because of a
lovely drive in the countryside with some friends.

But on Sunday after church/lunch we got to work on the pedal box.
We finished it by late afternoon and then it was time to start bending
brake pipes, at which point my dad chickened out.

We did find that there was a mismatch in thread sizes
of the rear MC and its brake pipe fitting. So the pipe
and the MC are at Brake Super Service today to sort that out.

1) Fit front O/S internal transmission tunnel panel

2007-08-14T03:42:00.000+02:00

We shaved a bit off the panel here and there (for the perfect fit)
and also bent the flange 180 degrees because we had two N/S panels.

Siliconed, riveted and clamped!

You Tube Test

2007-08-13T00:44:00.000+02:00

The first atempt at making a video.

Ahh there's a hole in my chassis

2007-08-12T10:00:00.000+02:00

This weekend we tried to do a lot but ended up with less progress
then we had hoped. At least we have officially started.
We have riveted the driver side floor panel on
and all the calipers have had their second coat of red hammerite.

The old man making a few adjustments

We are getting a quote for all the bolts that are needed
from a local guy Fastfix (local is lekker).
He also happens to do upholstery
so it looks like we have our seats sorted.

A visit to the Auto spares place only ended up yielding
a new pop riveter and brake kits for the front,
oh and some rubber bushes for the steering rack
but the front ball joints have managed to elude us.

Let’s hope things will rev up next week with the
pedal box and a whole lot of bolts.

With the beginning of the build came the first video recording.
The plan is to make an archive of all the stuff we assemble on the car
and then compile it at the end of the build to a 10min build video.
Should look good or maybe I’ll make episodes as we go along.

9th Aug - Womans Day (Some extra time to get stuff done)

2007-08-10T10:36:00.000+02:00

We now have some brake lines and rear callipers
and since we have all the calipers I felt it was time to paint them.
So I whipped out the red hammerite and got stroking.
They already look good with just one coat.

We also did all the polybushes and steel sleeves, all looking good.

All time classic

2007-08-07T11:06:00.000+02:00

Well it is my proud honour to present the classic build photo

with the bare chassis sitting on trestles of some kind.

I stacked all the bodywork in my special storage area

(to most people it may just look like a boat).

Then I did something silly, I thought of all the stuff that needs to be done,

this scared the pants off me so I thought it best to go to bed.

The lady friend helped me to try and mix red and gold

hammerite to make orange. This turned out rather badly,

in fact it just doesn't look orange because the gold is not yellow enough.

So we will just go with redish calipers with a hint of gold.

I'm busy working on getting the Locost bearing carriers to fit my drive shafts,

it's turning out to be a bit messy because my bearings are the smaller of the two

types and the locost ones are of the bigger size. so either I must get a special bearing

or I have to send them back to JHB to get the right size.

The eagle has landed!

2007-08-06T10:03:00.000+02:00

On Friday the kit finally arrived but as mentioned before I was away untill sunday.

I did manage to take a few quick pics before bed and apart from a small scuff

on the nose cone, it arrived intact.

5...4...3...2...1....

2007-07-31T16:49:00.001+02:00

So the chassis and engine are going to be on their way by tomorrow lunch.
Sadly the lady friend and I are going to be in Durban this weekend,
so I won't even be here when it all arrives :(
At least My Dad will be here to enjoy it.

Describing a crash

2007-07-03T16:40:00.000+02:00

UNDERSTEER is when you hit the wall with the front of the car.
OVERSTEER is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car.
HORSEPOWER is how fast you hit the wall.
TORQUE is how far you take the wall with you.

Location, Location, Location

2007-05-21T10:04:00.000+02:00

The weekend was amazingly cold but on Sunday,
I managed to drag myself outside and take some pictures,
before I got down to the business of cleaning parts.

Outside and interior of the garage.

View from the garden, I thought it looked nice with the clouds on top of the mountain.

While cleaning parts I was dismayed to find
that the part that the caliper floats on is of different size to the other one,
I guess the smaller one is for disks of 240.
I'll have to go back today and swap it out for another one,
pity I spent an hour cleaning it.

The offending part

Toyo Power

2007-05-18T15:07:00.000+02:00

Here is the exact engine we have bought. The picture was stolen from the LocostSA forum.
Link to original post: http://www.locost.co.za/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=520

Engine (4AG-E 20v), Clutch and Gearbox (Ford Type 9)

DIFFiculties

2007-05-18T14:26:00.000+02:00

Well today we went to visit our poor diff still stuck at the mechanic.
As we arrived we were informed that at last the seal had been delivered.
I thought I would add some pics of its internals since you don't often get to see inside.
Hopefully we will be able to bring it home tonight and get it painted!

I have absolutely no idea what all these bits are called.
They are just the big bits with angry, large looking teeth.

Its only 2 weeks till June, when all our parts from Locost SA arrive.
(for 7 year olds thats 14 sleeps, I found the sleeps method very useful when I was smaller.)

Anyway cheers for now and I'll get some picks up of our build lab (the garage) over the weekend and
Possibly even the painted diff.

Reconditioned Parts

2007-05-17T13:57:00.000+02:00

Thus far we have been removing rust

and painting our parts with Hammerite.

You can see the weapon of choice in the picture,

as well as our newly cleaned uprights.

Here we have a rebuilt caliper with a painted upright

and a brand new disk (Vented 260mm) to match

The front upright assembled,

I'm amazed how much fun I had playing with the parts

One of the half shafts, a Saphire rear caliper

and a new disk (Solid 253mm), to go with them.

The bottom link with steering column and ignition switch.

Also an Escort rack and sierra handbrake

We are hoping for our Diff (3.89) to be ready soon, its still at the mechanic waiting for a seal.
The chassis and engine will hopefully arrive in June some time
and then at last we can start building!

Plan of Action

2007-05-17T12:51:00.000+02:00

My Father and I have decided to build a locost. I aim to record our progress on this blog.
We have not attempted to build a car before so we are going the simple route of buying the chassis.
I spent a lot of time reading other pages with theme as this one,
to research what was going to be the best engine to use.

Our car:

Motor: Toyota 20valve 4AG-E (Silver top)
Chassis: Starter Kit Provided by Locost SA (http://www.locost.co.za/)
Donor: Sierra
Engine management: Perfect Power XMS-L
Body Work Colour: Bright Orange
Colour scheme: Orange and black