Bonnet Cutting Time!

[Guest The Modfather]

Oh s***! It is time to cut the hole in the bonnet for the Pipercross air filter. I have used a large piece of cardboard and made the cut-out and now transferred the template to the bonnet using the bonnet catches as datums. Suitably drawn, I am left with the outline. Now, I intend to cover the whole area with masking tape, and make ever increasingly larger cuts, and repeated fittings to check clearance. As the cardboard seemed to want to find it's own creases due to the corrugation and I can see that this is simply not just a case of draw and saw.

 

Before I attack it, is there anything else that I should bear in mind?

 

Daz

[chris n]

Hi Daz,

If I was going to tackle this job I would dump the corrugated cardboard in favour of a sheet of poster paper and then mark it out on that before grabbing the bull by the horns and cutting chunks out of the bonnet

[stevedohc2b]

I would dump the corrugated cardboard and try some thing like card used in cereal packets( folding box board )

If you can not find some thing big enofe I could bring some to stoneligh if you are going. Try a local printers waste bin

 

Stephen

[Guest The Modfather]

Cheers guys.

 

Well, I cut it, as I said, starting off small and gradually getting larger as I went, bit here, bit there.

 

And I think it looks good!

 

[chris n]

Looks good to me to Daz

[fry61]

Have you allowed the engine "rattle room"?

[ZeroKnowledge]

very neat

[Guest The Modfather]

Have you allowed the engine "rattle room"?

 

The engine is pretty much solid mounted, with a pair of very hard rubber mounts. I will probably just increase the gap a tad more as it is tight on the back side of the filter.

 

Unfortunately I had a bit of an accident the other week when I pushed the garage door down, and forgot to move the bonnet first, so I have a nice deep scratch on the other side! I think I'll tap it out and stick a big race number over it

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

Daz

[megadodo]

It took me several days to build up the courage to cut my bonnet for the injection bulge! Good job Daz, well done! Bad luck on the dents, its so easy to do! When I peeled my white protective tape off for the first time I found 3 nasty scratches (not made by me I hope). Hopefully they'll be partially hidden by the screen supports!

[fry61]

It took me several days to build up the courage to cut my bonnet for the injection bulge! Good job Daz, well done! Bad luck on the dents, its so easy to do! When I peeled my white protective tape off for the first time I found 3 nasty scratches (not made by me I hope). Hopefully they'll be partially hidden by the screen supports!

 

It's why our car has a brushed finish,inherited scratches & home grown appearing after every operation; how,no idea;some body must of spilt a bagful (scratches) in my workshop when I wasn't looking,probably the pixies who don't do any work when you're sleeping.

[Guest The Modfather]

Absolutely Bob. I have 3 new scratches that weren't there before. I'm just glad mine isn't a new build, otherwise I would be upset.

 

Malcolm, LOL mate yes I too had to build up the courage to cut it. But I'm glad it's done now, just a little fettling to finish.

 

Daz

[Jamiep]

daft question but if you get caught in a down pour is there a risk of getting water sucked into the engine? the reason I ask is many people I know had there cars wrecked in 2007 when we had major flooding in hull. much of the damage was done from water being sucked into the air intake.

 

not trying to worry you btw just interested As I want to go bike carb route and will defiantly need to cut and hole in the bonnet.

[fry61]

No problem,Daz has got a boxful of cocktail umbrellas!!

[Guest matvic]

Have you had to strengthen the bonnet after cutting a hole?

[Guest The Modfather]

No need to strengthen as the cut extends from the horizontal plain to the vertical and keeps the strength from the original bend in the bonnet. I put a reinforced U channel edging all around the hole so this may help it a bit.

 

Good luck HTH

 

Daz