The Final Countdown

It’s nearly bl**dy Christmas again! It feels like 2022 is gone in the blink of an eye, but then if we look back on all the cool cars and projects that Fraser Cars have achieved in the last year it’s something we can all be proud of. Bruce has been head down, bum up, replacing both A pillars in Rob’s 1973 BMW 2002 Baur. Unfortunately the further we looked, the more rust we found. Most of it was due to some pretty horrendous previous repairs – the general idea appears to have been to leave the original rusty section in place and weld a patch on either side over the top of the rusty section, then lay down at least at 15mm of underseal to cover it all up. Unfortunately rust never sleeps and over time the original rust migrates out through the new patches and we are left with what we have now. Fortunately there are quite a lot of repair panels available for this model but we have still had to make some of it from scratch.

Our mechanic Fester has been beavering away on a really tidy 1966 Ford Falcon Futura. Although almost finished, it came to us with an aftermarket steering rack and Macpherson strut conversion installed which was giving all sorts of issues. These steering racks are what is known as a centre steer rack, meaning the tie rods attach to a separate bar which sits in front of the steering rack itself. In theory it’s a good idea and some high volume companies like Audi and Honda use it very successfully, however due to the fact that all the forces are offset from the main rack bar, they are prone to developing play in all sorts of places, which in turn affects wheel alignment and bumpsteer. We have spent some time sorting all of this out however we are still not really happy with the way that it is driving so we will likely be throwing it in the bin and starting again using either a more conventional rack design or maybe even reverting it back to a steering box – time will tell!

Our fabricator Ben has been working hard on Harold’s Jaguar SS100 Jaguar replica. This is a timber bodied car mounted on a Mark 7 Jaguar chassis. Having completed a steering rack conversion, work has progressed onto mounting the engine and gearbox, mounting the fuel tank, mounting the seats, seatbelts and seatbelt support frame back to the chassis. Next on the chopping block is reinstigating the strength back into the chassis where we have cut bits out to make way for the drivetrain. Then we can move onto mounting the pedals and steering column.

We thank you for all your support and looking forward to another successful year to come.