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Originally posted by MK1_Oz

Very nice work. What brand rad is that?

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It's just a Chinese radiator off eBay from a mob called X Speed. It arrived in six days with online tracking provided.

Hi John, thanks for that.

A good question and one I had considered. I have a 15kg roll of wire in the welder at the moment, so I would have to have a look at how much is left. It would be a very rough estimate as I have used it to weld up rust repair sections and make my sheet metal folder etc., but I don't think it will be a ridiculous amount.

The bonnet alone is 5kg lighter than a steel item and I suspect would more than make up for any additional steel welded in, plus the shell gets a supposed 10% increase in stiffness which is a plus.

The cage will be the killer, so I will just remove weight wherever I can, then compare the weight of the finished product to a standard Mk1. 850kg would be great.

Cool....I will stop eating so much [:I]

Hmm, O.K. so it's been a while since this was updated. Not a whole lot has happened as a few projects around the house have been a priority since selling my X Pack Mk2, but the sale did provide me with a bit of a cash injection and has allowed me to keep collecting bits and pieces for the car.

This was the last lot of work I did before the Mk1 was put on hold again. Radiator support panel trimmed some more and the holes in lower panel have been welded up.







Oil cooler and filter relocation kit. Yes, it's an eBay jobbie but I took the approach of, "how bad can it be?!" For the price, I was happy to just buy it for the cooler core (19 row) and relocation blocks, but the fittings and hoses don't look too bad. So we'll see.



I decided that I wanted to fit steel rear forest arches to the shell intstead of the fibreglass verisons I have. It wasn't going to be cost effective ordering a rear pair on their own from the U.K., so I took the option of buying a complete set locally.



The front pair are now for sale if anyone is interested, as my fibreglass front guards from Smith & Deakin turned up today...



At this point I must send out a big thank you to Paul Mk1. When I spotted in his thread that he had ordered a set recently, I immediately bombarded him with a whole host of questions which he has been kind enough to answer. It made ordering a set for myself very easy and I am really happy with them. So thank you Paul!

Grrrrr... I wasn'ted that heater...[}:)]

I better get onto Nigel before he sells of any other bits that I want.....

Shaun

It’s been a while, but finally another update.

Some time ago I dressed back the welds on the heater plenum panel, but as I’d butt welded the infill panel and there was a fair amount of heat distortion after welding, the panel became quite thin in places resulting in a few hairline cracks. Oh well, live and learn! [:I]

Given that I had some “reshaping” planned for the heater plenum area anyway, I decided to cut the whole lot out and re-weld it on the bench, this time overlapping the panels and welding on both sides.





Once I was happy with it I tacked it back in place, but because I’d also shortened it up and altered the mounting angle to suit my slimline heater bubble (see page 3 in this thread), the surrounding panels in the engine bay also needed to be altered and more infill panels welded in place. It’s looking like the changes will provide another two to three inches of space over standard.





Once I’ve finished the plenum area, the gearbox tunnel will need to be moved back and then I can weld in a new recessed panel under the plenum. It’s probably a lot of work for not a huge gain, but it’s all part of the challenge and maintaining the heater bubble to keep it looking “right” has been the number one priority.

So that’s about it for the moment, however last night I couldn’t help myself and trial fitted the front panel, front guards and steel rear bubbles...

No wonder you dont have any spare time!

To give you an idea on weight, referring back to an earlier post, my MK1 with full steel cage and double intrusion bars, no heater box and all steel panels weighs 900kg with a pinto. Your BP combo and glass panels should save 50kg easy.

Keep it coming, we need another track buddy!

G