The Rocket ST159

[casesensitive]

Also, did anyone/everyone else have to grind quite a bit off the nearside pedal box mount to allow the clutch pedal to rotate freely without fouling?
Seems a shame to have to take a flapper to my expensive powder coat. Primed and awaiting painting in as close a colour as I can find in Halfrauds.

[airforceone]

No, I just spaced it away from the mount but using extra nuts between the pedal box an the mount.

Think I dropped it by 10mm or so, needed to be lowered anyway for the pedals to be at the correct height.

[deanohonda]

I also did the same just spaced it away from bracket

[rossco]

I also had to space to give the correct height.

[casesensitive]

Yeah, I spaced it too, based on reading other guides, but it doesn't look like it was by enough (~12mm I think).

[casesensitive]

Has anyone used diamond mesh in the front side panels rather than the aluminium that's normally used?
I quite like the grill at the front, and it seems to me that the cooling advantage would be plus.

Reading the IVA manual it seems like so long as the panels have gaps that are smaller than 40mm (they'd be no bigger than 6/7mm I'd imagine), the only requirement would be the 'cheese grater' effect.
I know at least one build (JimK) got in trouble at IVA for making the engine cover out of perf. Anyone able to confirm either way?

[casesensitive]

Pedal extension bracket thing


Little card template to get the shape of the extension bracket right



Cut up an old trailer hitch that was made of 6mm iron, flapper'd it somewhat rust-free.  worked around the existing holes.







Many drillbits were harmed in the production of this image.



I had to space the pedal a lot to vaguely align it with the other pedals, 2 washers between the extension bracket and chassis and two between the extension bracket and pedal bracket.  Why does the chassis bracket point in like that? There must be a reason, it's harder than having it straight.. Still got some spacing to do to make it straight.

[casesensitive]

Radiator bracket


I used the leftover bits of the trailer hitch, at a fairly excessive 6mm thick. One piece already had holes exactly where I wanted them, and already ~11mm. I drilled them out to M12 (the biggest drill bit I had) at both ends 70mm apart in two pieces, and widened one bit to ~13mm with a round file.  I ground down the radiator lugs to fit, as it's easier than filing the holes in the iron.



25mm M12 socket head bolts with penny washers either side.  I'll paint these and the extension bracket when I get paint that matches my chassis.




Rad pretty much upright in the end, should make for a decent cooling surface.

[casesensitive]

Side panels

Between cardboard and wood, I made 7 templates before I was completely happy.



Hmmm, don't know about anyone else, but my templates did not fit into the sheets provided.  





Had to buy 3sqm of aluminium for the front floor, so I had plenty to make new panels out of.



The IVA trim actually improves the appearance of the panels I think.   I ended up trimming the two areas where the side panels meet the front firewall as much for appearance as because a child's head might actually fit in there.

[casesensitive]

Hmm, Flickr eating my photos again. Looks to be a thing with iPhoto; it synchronises deletions! PITA. Will have to upload them again.


A few small jobs this weekend, the last of the donor tear down, choppy choppy!

Stripped the doors, boot, bonnet, and broke in the windows, collecting the glass on some tarps.
Made a Focus cabrio, briefly, can't seem to locate that one, shame.
Getting through the car with a 230mm grinder was made possible by flipping it over and cutting from the underside. Tough job to do solo.  Off to the scrappie with you!

[casesensitive]

Air vents

Bonnet and Engine cover vent grilles, spent most of the time sanding and levelling the edges.  



Engine cover was briefly hinged from the inside, with some vertical spacers, but it didn't work out, so I filled the holes and bought some piano hinge which I'll mount upside down for a smoother look.  



Cut out the grilles and put on a lot of Stixall black.




Contrast will be better when I paint the bonnet

[casesensitive]

Handbrake cable

Hmmm, issues. Its seems like these holes need to be bigger to accommodate the focus handbrake cable. I'm test fitting the donor ones, will replace with new ones once it's all sorted, and I'm sure they're right.





Which I'm not convinced they are. One appears much shorter than the other, as it, it has less travel from fully extended. Anyone notice this? Cannot get the one I have on the rear left, top in this picture to stretch.

[casesensitive]

Cooling pipes

And finally for this weekend, I eventually conceded and cut the pipes 85mm shorter. This will allow me to start the bend in my silicone pipes inside the tunnel and stop them from getting wedged on the the horizontal chassis bars. Awful shame to have to cut off the lovely flared end though.

[casesensitive]

Handbrake cable

Now question of it, the ST170 donor's handbrake cables are definitely uneven, there's 35mm in the difference in the extension of them! So I bought a new set, 1770mm.





Fitting it, I discarded the rectangular circlips (squareclips?), neither B&Q or local motor factors had one. I'll nylock it when the final fit is done. Loosened the M10 on the centre cable as far as I could, fitted the calliper end, then pulled the cables through the outers to the chassis bracket. Cut off the rubber grommet and then tightened the nut till it was FT.





Definitely pulling harder  on the upper (left) cable, to do with the placement of the lever.  It's 8mm less on the calliper end, probably have to do something with guides.  Bought a longer (343mm) centre cable for that.  

Very rough cut of the centre tunnel, broke my second jigsaw, ended up doing it with a 12" hacksaw blade and files, which took an age.  In its death rattle, the jigsaw managed to stamp a load of marks on rear of the tunnel which is a pain, looks much worse close up.  Definitely going to have tap out some of it or maybe cover it with vinyl or spray it with plasticoat.  Panel beating, another Rocket builder skill!

[Raj'sDad]

May 13, 2014 18:23:13 GMT casesensitive said:

Fitting the pedal box

I spent a good deal of time wondering how I'd go about marking the front bulkhead for the holes through which the pedal box threaded screws would go.
Particularly as most people put spacers between the mounting point on the chassis and the top of the pedal box. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I copied this idea, making 4x 13mm spacers out of some 8mm ID/12mm OD crush tube I had left over from the seat rail mounting.  Ground, flapped, deburred and a slight chamfer added to the inside edge to allow the bolts through easily.





Mounted temporarily with 50mm M8s, washers and nuts will be added later. I found that the back right one will have to be about 53mm to have enough thread to clear the balance bar, but that the others could be 60mm or so without any great difficulty.

That's all very well, but fitting this on with the bulkhead relies on having a bulkhead made of jelly and ideally, having 4 hands.  
So, after lots of consideration, I decided to guess.  The top centre bolt runs ~28mm below and ~8mm to the left of a rivnut I'd put in the chassis, so I marked that on the corresponding hole on my wooden bulkhead.  Not very scientific but it mostly worked.  Then taking off the pedal box and drawing around all 6 bolts with a pen, I started to drill the template. 



Of course it went through, but would everything line up first time?

Ah, sort of!  There was a bit of pushing and shoving, but it all seemed to go fine.  Obviously this pushing and shoving wasn't going to fly with the metal bulkhead, wouldn't be very useful if you could.

Hi
We are building the Sonic 7, reviewing through this thread, I wanted to verify whether these are required on the sonic 7 as I have not seen them used on any of the other Sonics?
Thanks