Front end of the car

Some images of our progress on the front of the car.

As you can see like the back we have had our callipers painted. For the front disks we decided to out source and get some cross drilled disks. In real world situations the holes are meant to let the heat dissipate from the disks so that they can cool down faster. They are usually seen on Porsches and big Bentleys, these big heavy high performance vehicles have a lot of weight to stop therefore the brakes will be under more strain. The Zero is by design very light, so the only reasoning behind having them is that they awesome!

They were fitted in turn with the yellow callipers and top wing bracket. These fit together quite nicely, One thing to note is that the top of the wishbone has to be tapped out as it is full of powder coat. We did have a tap and die set but it wasn't big enough for the thread, In the end we took it back to GBS for one of the guys in the workshop to clean it out.

Nothing too tricky to fit at this point, We bought a braided hose for the front brake calliper and the fit straight into place. The hub in which the cycle bracket sits in was a little stiff to fit in. Because the hub had a thread in it we screwed a bolt in and placed an offset washer on the other side so that when the bolt pushed against it it prised it open in order for the cycle wing to sit inside it. The Track rod ends and suspension were also assembled at this point but I will go through these two separate elements in more detail in another post.

Its been a long time, how have you been?

In the words of Glados it has been a long time!

Welcome 2016

Hi all I know this page has been pretty stagnant over the previous year so I give you a little update.

Last year was quite a difficult one for me (Tom) my final year at university and my dad being too and from work brought the car to a bit of a standstill. Between end of 2014 and 2015 the car didn't really progress much. A few bits and bobs got done on it but I was trying to cram work in for my final year.

All that gone and done with we started up again in summer 2015 and are back hard at work in 2016. 

There are bits of bits we have got on with so Il try and update you guys to where about we are at.

We are now at at point where the rear of the car is nearing completion. We have the back panel and rear wheel arches on and finalised.

The engine most of the running gear on the car is on and complete, we have just fit the exhaust bracket and the infill panels.

Will post up some more content to show some progress.

  

Engine Part 1

Choosing an engine for our car was not difficult. Because we were going with all ford running gear it made sense to go for the 2 liter zetec out of the focus. Out the box stock this power plant only gives out something around 136 bhp which isn't a small number considering how light the car is. However by the time we have finished fettling with it it should give out somewhere between 170 and 180 supported by throttle bodies.

Once we had the crated engine in the garage there were a few important bits that had to be dissembled. 

Tools you may need for this job;

IMPORTANT ENGINE CRANE

Luckily we borrowed an engine crane on a long term basis from a good friend of ours. It had saved our necks numerous amounts of times and is a brilliant tool. If you do not already own one I highly suggest you buy one they are only about £150.

Series of spanners and ratchets

lots of socket heads and extender bars

Allen key socket heads

Filter strap

The first job was to get the engine up in the air and gut it of its dignity. It turns out that the only thing you will end up keeping on the engine is the water pump!

First thing to come off is the inlet manifold and fuel rail. Simple job that only required taking a few bolts off. Connected to this is a hose which leads to a small peto tube which runs across the front of the engine to a black box mounted on the exhaust side. All of this also needs coming off and where the black box sat a blanking plate needs to be put on. This also may require some new bolts as the originals are very long.  

Second job is to remove the exhaust manifold. Again this this a very simple job its just connected with a few bolts. One thing you need to also make sure you do is to tape up any holes you expose. If you drop  a nut or bolt into the engine its pretty much game over. 

The brand new oil filter also has to come off as its too large to fit into the engine bay. To get this off use a filter strap tool. Its a bit of a hassle to get off but its better to get it off before the engine goes into the bay.

Another thing that has to come off the engine is the thermostat but we removed it later on in the process when we fit the raceline water rail. 

Side Panel Fitment

Im really not sure how I forgot to add this to the blog and I think I have lost the photographs. I will post them up when I find them.

This process was completed many months ago and both side panels have now been fitted to the car. It is a lengthy process and takes lots of planning and lots of clamps.

For our car we decided to go with the stainless side panels instead of the dull aluminium ones. At the time GBS were not painting any of their panels so most of the cars coming out of the factory had either stainless or aluminium sides and hud. One example that stood out to us was a car that had been wrapped in vinyl. On further inspection we saw that it was a really nice job and looked professional. However I wanted to take it a step further and create a custom Decal that ran down the side of the car. My technical background allowed me to spend some time in Adobe Illustrator creating a custom Decals which incorporated both the Zero and Lotus 7 into one becoming Zero 7. Along with this some nice race flag squares were added.

We then approached a company called Beacon signs to get it printed out onto a yellow vinyl and wrapped onto the car. They did an excellent job and the print looked fantastic.

After it had been printed it was protected with a large covering of masking tape and offered up to the side of the car. We clamped the panel into place and marked on the back where the chassis cross members intersected the panel and marked it with a pencil. We also marked where rivet holes needed to be placed. We did three on the rear face (which are covered by the wheel arch) several on the bottom lip and some more one the edge of the large triangle section which overlaps the front section of the car.

The holes were marked and drilled with the panel on. It was then taken off and an entire tube of silicone was added on the panel. We both then carefully married the panel to the chassis making sure it placed on first time.

Once on it was held in place with hundreds of clamps, making sure that every cross member of the chassis was touching the panel. We used all sorts of daft techniques to accomplish this such as using brooms and bits of wood to push it in place.

Whilst everything was setting the rivets were then put in place.

Gearbox modifications

Our gearbox needed a few different modifications to allow it to mate with the Zetec engine. I will run through some critical steps you need to follow for it to offer up correctly.

One of the first things we did with the box was to remove the pivot pin which the clutch fork holds on to. As you can see the original black pin on the right is much shorter than the longer pin that GBS supply.

It was simply tapped out with a bit of strong wood from the opposite side. The new one fit nice and snug and is now in place.

The next job was to create a blanking plate for which I believe was the old connection for the mile counter. This was created with a very thin piece of aluminium and a screw with a flat washer underneath. It was glued and screwed into place with the black silicone sealant we used for the panels.

The second blanking plate is on the other side of the gearbox. It can be filled in perfectly with a 2 pence piece and a bit of silicone.

One piece of equipment that we didn't get with the gearbox was the clutch fork. I must warn you these are like goldust. We couldn't even find one at a scrap yard due to the fact that there were only 2 sierras in the entirety of motor hog. They wanted to sell us the entire gearbox when all we were after was the fork. In the end we managed to source one from a bloke over at donny gearboxes in car croft. He was a specialist and it took him about a month to find one of which we were incredibly grateful for.

UPDATE!!!

After the new sump had been fitted to our zetec engine the bottom of the gearbox needed cutting away. We coupled the box and engine together and marked where it needed to be cut. It was then split again where it met the wrath of the deadly grinder which easily chewed through the soft aluminium.

 

Fuel tank fitment

Hi guys, I have had this post in my drafts for more than a couple of months, suppose I just forgot to publish it.

OK the fuel tank fitment. This job wasn't too much effort but it was important to get right. 

Things you may need for this job...

Silicone sealant 

Masking tape

Silicone spatulas 

Masking tape

We made worked out were the chassis needed to be masked so none of the sealant could seep out and make a mess, if it did it would mark the tape which could be removed. The tank didn't sit completely flat against the chassis, we suspected that this was because the aluminium may have warped when it was welded. We made sure the top of the tank was pushed up against the horizontal bar. The gap that was now visible at the bottom was then just filled in with more glue.

After the tank had been set in place we used some plastic silicone spatulas to get a level edge while the sealant was still wet. This gave us a perfectly flat line instead of wobbly blobs along the chassis. After this we removed the tape with any excess spillage.

Suspension Photos