Stu & Mikey's Sonic7 1.6 Build Thread

[buildityourself]

Jul 3, 2022 12:45:39 GMT wishful4444 said:

I think it's poor that the panels were sent to you like that. Why didn't you reject them?

Building the car is difficult enough without having to rectify poor parts.

Checking every square inch of all the panels when collecting isn't practical so I missed them. To be honest after hiring a van and travelling 2.5 hours each way I wouldn't have come home without them. I did request a pot of gel coats so any minor perfections could be sorted and received this without issue.

[buildityourself]

Steering Wheel & Mirror Bracket IVA preparation

Although the steering wheel boss/spokes are recessed below the rim so don't need padding, the spokes had edges that the IVA inspector would not like. Luckily the spokes are made of aluminium which is soft so not only good from an accident point of view, but also easy to add a radius to, by hand. 

Early steps


Outside filing finished, holes underway


Coat of paint to tidy up


Finished


Could still be a gamble but at least I've tried to make it safer but not try to hide it in foam that would come off the day after. May have to cover it with some edge trim if anyone thinks it could still be a problem.

One downside of having a roll cage is that we can't take advantage of Note 3, so an interior mirror is required.



A mirror with a rollcage clamp was purchased. It was stupidly big but works. This had a sharp edge too proving that you can buy parts that don't conform to the safety rules IVA is trying to apply.

[buildityourself]

Fly Screen

Whilst waiting for IVA (delayed by 1 month, to now 3 since application) as DVSA notification system failed and they didn't think to just email everyone to say if you are waiting contact us, decided to fit the fly screen. Originally wasn't going to fit this until after IVA however reading small print etc, it appears that later fitting is then classed a modification since type approval.

Started by adding a 2.5mm radius to the edges to make sure its compliant as the cut edges were just square cuts.



Made a slight error here as intended on leaving the bottom edge square where it joins the scuttle panel to keep a clean join. However it turns out the screen is not symetrical due to a poor original scuttle mold and I'd done the wrong side. Now have a radius on the bottom edge too, which is not great deal.

Then marked out the centre bolt hole on the screen and spaced out the others at 180mm hole centres 14mm from the edge to give 3 extra holes each side.



Drilled these out and then 2 of us held and flexed the screen over the scuttle edge. The wife then marked the holes onto masking paper on the scuttle.



As a final touch before fitting a strip of left over vinyl carbon wrap was stuck to the inside of the screen along the join. This creates a black finish on the inside of the plastic like car windscreens have round the edge.



Finally fitted into place. Really changes the look of car.

[mawdo81]

Hope your sight lines are ok. Normal practice is to wait till post IVA to fit the fly screen to be 100% sure it's not classed as a windscreen, requiring demise & wipers etc...should be ok but its just another thing...

[phaeton]

Jul 11, 2022 12:09:31 GMT mawdo81 said:

Hope your sight lines are ok. Normal practice is to wait till post IVA to fit the fly screen to be 100% sure it's not classed as a windscreen, requiring demise & wipers etc...should be ok but its just another thing...

Agreed I had this conversation at my last IVA with an Exocet, the Mevster has a full screen so that did need wipers & demisters, which failed as it did not have the word Laminated on it, although we both could see it was a laminated screen.

But talking to the inspector with the Exocet I mentioned that some people fit a flyscreen & that I had considered fitting them. His reaction was that he was glad I hadn't as it would make the test a whole lot harder for him. He would have to get the national average dummy 'Nigel' out place him in the driver's seat & then start to make lots of measurements.


If you are leaving it on make sure it complies with Section 32 Annex 1

[buildityourself]

Jul 11, 2022 13:12:57 GMT phaeton said:

Jul 11, 2022 12:09:31 GMT mawdo81 said:

Hope your sight lines are ok. Normal practice is to wait till post IVA to fit the fly screen to be 100% sure it's not classed as a windscreen, requiring demise & wipers etc...should be ok but its just another thing...

Agreed I had this conversation at my last IVA with an Exocet, the Mevster has a full screen so that did need wipers & demisters, which failed as it did not have the word Laminated on it, although we both could see it was a laminated screen.

But talking to the inspector with the Exocet I mentioned that some people fit a flyscreen & that I had considered fitting them. His reaction was that he was glad I hadn't as it would make the test a whole lot harder for him. He would have to get the national average dummy 'Nigel' out place him in the driver's seat & then start to make lots of measurements.


If you are leaving it on make sure it complies with Section 32 Annex 1

Thanks for the feedback. I will take a look again and reconsider whether I need a flyscreen or not, especially as I've previously read its not fully effective.

[buildityourself]

phaeton  mawdo81 You guys gave me something to keep me awake last night. So here's my homework which I believe passes so please mark critically for me.







As the seats are fixed I'm using A= 562.5mm B= 187.2mm. A is raised by a 93mm extension. C is 4 degrees from horizontal. 

I've tried to go for worst interpretation to be on the safe side, assuming I've made no errors. Therefore I have kept the board parallel to the backrest which is angled back more than the 25 degrees stated so the reference point is lower than specified. To do this I've had to trim the back and base of the upright board to the shape of the seat, but the IVA manual is just a line not a board so I think this is ok. If the distance had been higher up on the seat then this lifts the reference point moving back to 25 degrees giving more clearance so I'm sure this is worst case scenario. 

It all looks correct to me to leave in place?

[mawdo81]

Probably fine, the issue with removing it now would be the holes which would likely cause a fail on windows not fitted that are meant to be there (I forget the wording but the spirit is you can’t rock up without them to avoid being tested on the part).
Also the screen is effective. The Sonic (or at least mine) was undrivable without a helmet before I had the screen.

[wishful4444]

I have a screen on my Sonic and wear a helmet. The screen does not protect against stones or other debris coming over the top.
As an absolute minimum eye protection is required.

[buildityourself]

Thermostat Replacement

Recently had either an early warning or false alarm as the engine temps seemed hotter than normal. Anyway whilst looking into this and how easy it would be to replace I noticed traces of coolant around the thermostat housing. That explains why the coolant level had been going down slowly.



Ordered a new thermostat from Ford, asked if it came with a housing gasket to be told yes, but when it arrived saw that while it has a gasket for the thermostat it doesn't include a new seal for the heater/bypass port in the housing. It would be crazy not to replace this when going to the effort of changing the thermostat. Delayed whilst waiting for this to arrive.   

Removed the drive belt and the alternator for access. Drained the coolant down and removed the main hose to the housing. The original bypass hole would not come off easily so left this attached.

Here you can see the new seal in place in the housing.


Examining the old thermostat showed the seal around the shaft had seen better days, so this was good confirmation it was worth doing now before hitting the road. 



Fitted the new one and reattached the housing. Filled up the reservoir and ran up to temp. No leaks and no airlocks. How ever the engine recently had been making a rattling when reving or moving up/down the drive. First panic crank bearings or something nasty, but manged to narrow down the noise to the drive belt pulleys as with the belt removed the noise stopped.

Thought it might be the water pump, but then noticed that 2 of the pulley bolts had come slightly loose!. Tightened these up and the noise seems to have stopped. Glad this was spotted early.

[buildityourself]

Headlights

Checked the headlights for alignment as best as I could against the garage door. The beams were not quite level (higher on the right).



This was confirmed with a spirit level using the horizontal lines on the lens.



I'd read on other build threads this had also been an issue.The solutions offered involved adding an extra notch into the housing to allow the lens to be rotated. 

I identified another solution to this, that was to tweak the two bracket on the housing instead to effectively rotate the lens. It seems the bracket bending tolerance is not perfect. To to this, the headlight bracket was placed in the vice and pulled in the required direction. 



Then rechecked using the level.

Still need to understand the actual adjustment as the IVA talks about % horizontal and vertical lines. Hoping that like MOT this can be fine tuned during IVA?

[mawdo81]

Yes, well at least my tester allowed me to.

[phaeton]

Jul 26, 2022 11:22:54 GMT mawdo81 said:

Yes, well at least my tester allowed me to.

Mine too on both the last tests, last one didn't even mention it, just grabbed the headlight & made the adjustment

[stevew]

Jul 26, 2022 12:15:07 GMT phaeton said:

Jul 26, 2022 11:22:54 GMT mawdo81 said:

Yes, well at least my tester allowed me to.

Mine too on both the last tests, last one didn't even mention it, just grabbed the headlight & made the adjustment

Same here, he just moved the headlight to give the correct alignment. He then added "Please don't drive this at night"

[buildityourself]

Rear Wing

Also known as BGW (Big Gay Wing). Lets get this out of the way first. I know this will likely slow the car down and not add performance. We got it because it makes the car more visible in traffic/on the road. So you can see this is a necessary safety item and not because it suits the track look of the car ;-)

Firstly the supplied brackets are laser cut, so don't stand a chance of getting through IVA. Therefore it was necessary to file down a radius to all the edges to the brackets. 



Once these were ok, they were repowdercoated.

Drilled holes in the engine cover to mount the brackets. To spread the load on the back of the cover some aluminum scraps were cut/drilled/coated and placed over the bolts and secured with washers/nuts. 





To remove any risk of sharp edges the edges of the wing were also sanded. The gel coat was a little thin in a couple of spots so it went through to the gel underneath. In hindsight as this is GRP it would have been ok with less radius.



The wing was then mounted to the brackets on the car. 



The end plates were predrilled, but the holes didn't seem to be quite where the mold markers were meaning it was a bit messy. The bolts/washers will just cover this ok though. 



To deal with the edges on the end plates edge trim was added.



When the end plates were fitted to the wing they were not vertical. This was due to the upper/lower sides of the wing not being in line.



This can be just seen from above. 



Had to get the hack saw and files out to resolve this. 



Re fitted the end plates and now resolved. 



Final few tasks to do next.