Back to Flyin' Miata
| Building our car | ||||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Finally! It's like Christmas here at FM. The giant crate shows up and is immediately torn apart by Keith, Bill and Brandon. entry 12 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Meet Mr Westie, our mascot! Hi kids! entry 13 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Everything you need for a lap record.
entry 14 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Another view of the chassis and body. Everything is made extremely well. entry 15 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - The level of finish on the body panels.
entry 16 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Control arms. The front arms are at the top of the picture. After seeing these, Keith plans to redo all the suspension on his own car. entry 17 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - The obligatory vroom vroom shot. One of these is required in every build diary. entry 18 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - So, all we do is put that engine in that chassis, then drop the body on top. Right then, let's get to it. entry 19 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - First step - start drilling holes for the aluminum panels.
entry 20 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - These fasteners are called Cleco fasteners. They're like temporary rivets and can easily be installed and removed with a plier-like tool. They're extremely useful for this sort of work. The panel in this case is the lowered floor. entry 21 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - The ends of a couple of panels have to be bent around frame rails. The blue finish is a protective sheet. entry 22 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Keith will not shut up about the rear suspension in this car. He really likes the design. entry 23 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Bill measures for a few more holes.
entry 24 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - A tip to keep from scarring aluminum panels when driling holes - a small piece of rubber at the base of the drill bit.
entry 25 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Deburring the holes can be done with a larger drill bit, either by hand or (for steel) mounted in a drill. If you use a power drill, don't run it any longer than you have to to remove the burrs. entry 26 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - All the holes are pre-drilled in the aluminum with the exception of the floorpans. This makes them excellent templates for drilling the steel tubes. As you can see from this narrow tube, they have to be accurate. entry 27 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Before installing the rivets, the holes are sealed with the supplied silicone.
entry 28 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Westfield does not mess around with rivets. These are not your typical hardware store jobs. entry 29 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Can you hear the frog? Rivet rivet rivet. Ha! Anyhow, Bill and Keith get squeezing to install some panels. We discovered our pneumatic gun had a tip for aircraft rivets installed, so we had to do this by hand. entry 30 | |||
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 | October 14, 2008 - Riveted.
entry 31 | |||
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