The Rocket ST159

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Collected chassis today!

I have mixed feelings on it, in some light it looks much lighter than I'd planned, but in the main, I like it, and I'll finally be able to get building. Have to think of an excuse to sneak out tomorrow and get the floor on.
Colour is RAL5002 and it's had a metallic silver flake mixed through it. Was hoping for the same finish free's Rocket has, but this'll do just fine.
With shot-blasting, powder with silver metallic flake it came in at an eye-watering €640. Really wish I'd had RTR do it now, though it was great to get a few bits pre-made and powdered over.

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Finally attaching something permanently


Riveting vid. Not that interesting to experienced builders, just making sure I have a copy for my records.


Peeling off the blue skin took about half an hour..




Hmmm, bit lazy Mr Powdercoater!  Marks from the platform he dusted it on.  It'll be covered with a floor shortly though.




New caulking gun and stixall to make a seal between the floor and chassis and insulate.  The vinyl adds another layer, should help with vibrations.
Before laying down the glue, I test fitted the floor again, having vinyl-wrapped it, I had to push around 100 rivets through the thin barrier into the chassis.  Between the powdercoat, the sealant and the vinyl, there's a reasonable about of insulation between the two.







The obligatory rivet-forest picture!  And only 6 months in
I didn't install the first row of rivets, as I'll be adding a floor to the engine section, so those holes and the new ones to join them will be getting rivnuts instead.  



Nice.  Very satisfying popping these lads, one of the more enjoyable tasks.  The scissors riveter made light work of it.



All done. 



Flipped it over, vinyl looking alright, with the worst bunching to be under the fuel tank area.   You can see where the Powdercoaters exposed the VIN plate, nice touch. Also, they'd stuffed the threaded parts with tape to avoid getting them coated.

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Pressing in the bushes

Video of pressing in the bushes

Having chamfered the bushes in advance, pushing them in with the vice took about 20 minutes.

Greased up the insides of the arms with copper grease, I found the neatest way to avoid getting the stuff everywhere was to do all the suspension orifices (with a latex-gloved finger) first, then wipe clean and push with the vice.





Protected the suspension with folded over microfibre cloths in the vice jaws.




Completed set



I started to put an inner chamfer on one bush each to push in the crush tubes, liberal dollop of grease inside both bushes, but only got 2 done before I ran out of time. Update here when that's done. Tight beggars though.

[dgibson]

Great prep work, means you hard work so far has paid off. The silver flake looks great.

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Goodies

GLS delivered to my door just there, but what can it be?

<picture of box not as anticipatory as I initially thought>

Phoar! Them's nice looking' discs. MTEC ST170 rears €68 delivered to my door, which, for Ireland, is cheap.



Plan for the moment is to put them on the front, but if I can figure out how to get bigger discs on with some spacers, I'll stick them on the back instead, which is how come only one pair.

[deanohonda]

I am loveing the colour the metal flake gives it the 3rd dimension it needed ;-)
I used rubberlube with purflex bushes it sticks like sp##k to a blanket ;-)

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Quiet progress in the garage, and because the camera seems to have eaten all but the first 3 pictures, I'm shy on proof. Even ran a file recovery program over the SD card too, found every picture I've deleted from the card, but nothing after I turned off the flash. Bizarre. Probably going to have to chuck out the card.


Crush tubes
Used a grinding drillbit to put an chamfer on the inside edge of one bush per joint, and then performed 22 wet-willies with a copper greased-finger.
Used the vice to push them all in. Due to the compression of the bushes, I needed to bring them down to the local garage to have a go of their press, once I got the first one done I got the other 21 done in a few minutes. I left one crush tube out entirely, to push the others in.
To adjust, as inevitably some will stick out a little too much, or you'll push them through too far (as I did twice), use a 1/4" socket to push the crush tube in, and on the other side a 15mm 3/8" socket to hold the bush in place. The crush tube needs to fit in the 'hole' in the larger socket. This is much easier with a vertical press, but if you're really stuck, you can use a vice.



Steering column
I may have cut the length of steel RTR sent too short… Went hunting about the place for something appropriate, and lo-and-behold, the rear anti-roll bar of the Focus is 21mm, and is getting ground down to provide a second option.

Protect chassis
I cut up 1mm rubber sheeting I found in a skip into 20cm lengths and wrapped it around particularly vulnerable areas of the chassis. Used some other bits I found including a 'space blanket' that blew into the yard to cover other sections. I'll be rolling it again solo when I get the front floor section next week, so I don't want to scuff the finish any more.  Not as handy to remove as scaffolding covers, but also not €5 a metre.

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Rewiring my loom for Omex 710

I picked up a cheap Omex 710 and second hand Omex 600 loom for an Opel Astra from Fleabag, and with the generous advice of Guy @ Omex, did some small rewiring to suit my ST170 lump and Omex 710 ECU.
It's over in the Technical Section.

Wifey wasn't that happy I did it on the dining room table.

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I put the pallet the kit came on on 6 axle stands, about as high as they'd go, and my brother helped me flip the chassis over onto it.  The gaps in the pallet will help me get at it from underneath, it's actually possible to pop right up into chassis.

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Front floor

Finally managed to source and collect some aluminium sheet. I had to buy a 3m x 1.5m x 1.5mm sheet, and they cut it in 3 for me so it'd fit in the car.



€100 for the sheet, €30 to cut it up, and I squirrelled about the place for some offcuts and scored some 2mm Al, some mild and some perforated sheet for fuse/relay box, and various IVA covers around the place for another €10, which I was very happy about.



Having flashbacks to a few months ago, outline in the same red marker, same table and jigsaw, but this time I won't be able to file it down with the rasp without destroying the powder.

Cut an 870 x 720mm bit of card, clamped it down on the chassis and drew around it.



Transferred it to one of the 1x1.5m sheets



Punchdown to mark the floor, 5mm cobalt through it, just till it scratches the chassis. i found that when I tried to go through both at once, the drill bit squirmed and widened the hole in the aluminium. Took off the floor when all 22 holes were done, widened them to 7mm, then lightly filed the holes to allow the 7.1mm diameter rivnuts through. Dropped small dollop of sealant in the hole before pushing in the rivnut.



Play was stopped AGAIN when I broke the mandrel nut on the Sealey rivnut gun. Total PITA. I've put down a 0.5mm layer of polymer sealant to insulate against vibration, but allowed it to dry with the floor off, I don't want to glue down my nice removable floor. Ended up buying two entire cheap rivnut guys from Fleabay, as the mandrel bits look identical, and I'm predicting another one breaking before I'm done.



Not sure what to do about the rivnut that's now stuck in the chassis. I don't want to drill it out because I'll likely have the bits bouncing around in the chassis and they're not going to pull out. May either leave a gap and do another next to it.

Also had to buy 500 M5 / 7.1mm OD rivnuts when I only needed 50 or so, so I'll probably have 3/400 to sell at the end!

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Engine area floor

I'm conflicted on whether or not to drill holes for a floor for the engine bay while its flipped over. Thoughts on this?
I'm sure it'd help with air flow under the car, but might it impede cooling?

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Floor roughly cut out and lined up.  Held in place with 4 uncompressed rivets.



M5 button head bolts with large diameter washer into the rivnuts, loosely with a cordless drill then tight with a screwdriver.  Laid down layers of thick duck tape and packing tape (when the duck tape ran out, doh) to protect chassis for the next bit. 
60 grit flap disc on the grinder to sort the edge out completely, and then 80 grit to get a nice chamfered and smooth bevel.



Finally, bashed it down with a rubber percussive adjuster, pretty happy with results, aside from busted rivnut mandrel which is now a permanent part of my build!
 

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Flipped it over (solo, no helper today), and because I was limited in terms of time, did a few little jobs.

Laid my Focus 1.8 gear selector lever over the mounting points to mark out the holes with that big red marker. The brass-coloured crush tubes in the Focus lever are about M11.5, so I took them out and drilled and tapped them out to M12 in the vice, which was a little hairy.



Drilled out the mounting plate 6, 8, 10 then 12mm holes, RTR-suppled M12 bolt handy for testing. I'll pop into AllMetalFasteners to get some 25mm M12 bolts during the week, want to ensure they don't snag the coolant pipes.

Interestingly, I spent quite a lot of yesterday looking for the handbrake lever, nowhere to be found!  Checked the donor twice, but I've clearly filed it away somewhere very carefully.   Had a spot of bother with stuff in the outside shed going missing during the week, but it's unlikely anyone would bother nicking that.

Going to have to borrow a shop-vac to suck up all the little bits of material before I close anything in!

[kiwicanfly]

Jeez you must be to give it some welly if you need M12s to hold the gear lever on, mine is on with M6's.

[bingo]

Mine is also on with M6, regarding the rivnut, drill a 3mm hole in the mandral and use stud extract

Sometnhing like this on fleabay
Item no 380820965777

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