Mid winter has not slowed things down in the shop this month and our projects have all made great progress.
Rodney’s 1989 Ford F150 has had the airbox, battery cover box and the radiator fan shroud all fabricated up and the engine bay fabrication is nearly complete, just some cooling pipes to make up before it can all go off for powder coating and painting. Bruce has made some recessing in the front panel to accept some new LED daytime running lights. Once the engine bay is back together, we can start to focus on the interior of the car with big dash modifications just around the corner!
Alun’s Cobra replica is now at the painters getting a full repaint to remedy some fairly wobbly fibreglass patches. Towards the end of last year we did a conversion to throttle bodies on this car and got it looking pretty good but Alun wanted to use it over summer so we never quite finished it to the level we wanted. Come winter this year he gave it back to us to finish what we started. This meant removing a lot of the modern looking fittings and catch cans then fabricating a radiator shroud to hide the electric fan and machining up some beautiful steel reservoirs that look a bit more period, we hid as much of the modern powersteering components and then stripped the car down for paint. Once we get it back, we can fit all the new parts and the final result should be an engine bay to be proud of and all ready for summer.
Geoff’s BMW 2002 restomod has continued its long slog to completion. A big milestone is the shiny new custom made KW shocks finally arriving after months of waiting. This means we can continue with the suspension design which then allows us to complete the steering, pedals, seat mounting, half cage and so on and so on. Better get a wriggle on then!
Greg’s Studebaker Hawk GT is coming close to completion with the new powersteering system just being installed. Unfortunately the further into this car we got, the more atrocities we found and the steering topped the lot. With lots of modified and welded parts, the previous conversion was never really safe so the call was to throw the whole lot in the bin and start again. We fitted a Chevy C10 powersteering box in with custom brackets and lots of work mating the original steering column up to the new box. It has been a head scratcher but we got there in the end and Greg can now confidently use his car knowing it is safe.
Callan’s BMW E30 rotary is coming along nicely with big brakes fitted front and rear. Luke has been assembling the fuel system and the pedal box and the focus has now shifted to the interior with seat fitting and dash layout on the cards next.
Ben’s 61 ford F100 is back together and driving after extensive work to get it through the LV process. One of the final hurdles was the front windscreen – Having a roof chop meant that the front screen had been cut down and was cracked so we had to find someone to either produce a custom screen or someone who was willing to cut an original one down to suit the aperture. Long story short, this someone didn’t exist and the closest we came involved sending a mould to Finland to make a screen off! Ben took it like a chap and said “I’ll give it a crack” -no pun intended! He proceeded to buy four standard screens and went about learning to cut them down! After a couple of failures he made one minter and we could carry on with the project. All that is left is to get the final LV inspection done and he can get out and use it!
Fraser Cars has recently invested in a 3d Scanner and a 3d printer which is something we have been debating for a long time. The scanner allows us to measure things in 3d which we can then use to fabricate from and the 3d printer gives us the ability to manufacture prototypes before progressing to fabrication or CNC machining. It also allows us to make non structural parts that are not uniform shaped and the possibilities are endless. It’s a big learning curve but ultimately will be a big step forward for us.
Until next month, happy motoring!
