Leaderboard

To be one of the first to post on the new forum

RING THE BELLS!!!!!! Christmas has come early for me.... Personal Circumstances have changed dramatically overnight, which means I don't have to now, part with the car. Dave.

Can I hide a few presents in the garage? said Swmbo.

Roll up, roll up for the new and exciting adventure that is the RhoCar treasure hunt! What’s it all about? You will get sent a list of 90+ landmarks dotted round the country (between 1 and 3 per. county). Starting in March and running until the end of October, you need to find as many of the landmarks as you can and take a picture of it and your kit (or tin top if you’re a non-kit owner) in view. Landmarks are worth a differing amount of points depending on how difficult they are to find or get to. In November, you send all the pictures (preferably in a link to Dropbox/Google photos etc) to us, we tot up the scores and a winner is announced. An example landmark: County / Region Landmark Location Points 44 Worcestershire Earl Beauchamp's Fountain Cowleigh 20 Why? To get you out in your kits. The landmarks are designed to be in scenic parts of the country (not motorway services etc) which are worth a drive anyway. Go on a long weekend, plan a route via. a few landmarks on the list and you’ll have a great time. What’s it cost? Free to members, £10 to non-members (entry is per car). Where do I sign up? Follow this link to purchase your entry through our club store - Rules? 1. Please do not give the list to other people – the club relies on these sort of events to keep running and it’s not an excessive amount of money for non-members to pay. 2. This is a non-competitve, fun event on public roads, so all normal laws of speeding, insurance, roadworthiness etc, etc apply – the club is not be responsible for any accidents/incidents/divorces caused by your involvement (legal waffle out the way). 3. Use of sat-navs is fine. 4. Event starts on March 1st and ends on October 31st. Lists will be emailed to entrants in late February. 5. …er, I think that’s it! Acknowledgement: I have shamelessly stolen this idea from Dave Hancock who runs the Round Britain Rally for bikers. I have done his event a couple of times on my bike and it’s really good fun, hence why I want to do it in my kit as well. I’d like to thank Dave for letting us use last year’s landmark list (which he has spent many, many hours compiling) and I urge you to visit his website and consider joining in the full event (if you’re a biker). Any questions, please ask away – hopefully, we can have a great driving season getting lost looking for little bits of stone!

The front side window comes very close to the awning rail, so the support bracket needed to be positioned above the window top rail, some distance away from the curve in the awning rail. This may not be the ideal position for the awning and we may have to move it forwards and down, on to the more vertical part of the rail. The next thing is the end legs are too widely spaced relative to the side profile of the caravan and need to be more vertical in the bottom half. Luckily the end legs were just the right size for a piece of 22mm copper pipe to slide inside so we used a pipe bender to make a couple of joining pieces around 200mm long that were drilled and rivetted in to the legs. This make the basic frame look like this, a lot closer to what we wanted.

Hi Everyone, Moog6 is progressing to the finishing line!!! Working on this car every spare moment I have, enjoy. Dave,

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum and new to the kit car scene but please let me introduce myself - my name is Kevin and I am from Belfast Our Car: This was a bit of an impulse buy from eBay - I won it for a cheeky bid of £250. The seller told me it was straight and I had to take his word for it until the courier delivered it to me. I checked it over when it arrived it was straight! It was built as per the Ron Champion book 'Build your own sports car for as little as £250' and therefore, a live axle setup. There was a MK2 Escort steering rack fitted and the steering column had been done. However, I will be redoing the steering column to comply with IVA requirements etc. The seller threw in some shocks, a nose cone, scuttle, front wishbones, some master cylinders, a steering wheel and a copy of the original Ron Champion book! I also picked up a copy of Chris Gibb's and used this to deviate from Ron Champions front wishbone setup - I used the plans from the wishbone plans from the Haynes book to give my car a couple of inches of extra front track. My plans and what I've got the for car to date: - 2004 1.8 MX5 Engine, gearbox and loom - Capri Atlas axle (I wanted the extra beef for as much power as I can throw at it) - GAZ shocks - Cortina Uprights - Wilwood brakes - Turbo kit + management (once it's running and driving perfectly etc) - Full roll cage - Quaife LSD So this is how it looked when it arrived: Gaz shocks: Cortina uprights The engine, gearbox, loom etc: Threw the box in to see how it would look/fit - seems ok so far: Checking everything was straight/level with the aid of some lasers: Nosecone on for a look: Cutting the brackets off as they definitely were not perfect. It also justified redoing the whole front end to suit the Haynes roadster suspension setup: Finalising the drawings to reflect the Haynes roadster setup but with proper caster to improve upon Ron's original design: Ordered some carbon seats: Some inspiration courtesy of 'Locost_Turbo' on Instagram - his car inspired my build with the wider-track front and rear (Atlas axle etc): Next, we started on the rear hoop: Some bits arrived in the post: Making the front wishbones: More work done on the rear hoop: Checking out the front suspension setup: Offered up the engine to see what kind of room we would have for the turbo etc - LOADS of room Ordering more bits and bobs: Atlas axle setup arrived: All brackets removed from the Atlas: Had to cut out the FU1+ FU2 bars to properly position the wishbone brackets with the aid of a jig: Compbrake hydraulic pedal box, master cylinders, brake lines etc arrived: Threw some bodywork on to keep us motivated - it actually began to look like a car lol Axle brackets fabricated and tack welded to the axle: Axle complete and fitted to the chassis - it's wide! lol As per the advice of Procomp, I spent quite some time trying to ensure correct angles at ride-height and droop to ensure the best handling possible: I now need to reposition the rear shock mounts down by 2 inches to make room for the larger rear shock: That pretty much brings us to where we are today. I will update as and when I do more work on the car. I would like to have this car rolling by tomorrow and the engine fitted by next week. The aim is to have it driving by end of Feb/mid March and then strip, off for powdercoat before final assembly for being road legal, IVA'd etc by June. It's optimistic but I am incredibly impatient, which I think will work in my favour here. lol

With the basic frame assembled, we could measure the overall sizes which will give a starting point for planning out the awning. The overall height at the awning rail is 1650mm which slopes down to 1600mm at the side frame. It’s only 50mm fall on the roof but hopefully this will be enough to shed any rain. If we make the fall bigger, it will reduce the internal height too much. The floor area is 1250mm x 2450mm, so pretty well doubles the footprint of the caravan body. We did a test fit of the current awning roof part to the awning rail. It didn’t prove much other than it fits the rail and it’s far too big. The grey material that’s visible is the existing roof, more than long enough to go the entire length of the awning rail. To make it a bit more manageable, we cut it down in the length and width but made sure we left a generous allowance of material just in case we needed it. This is one of the existing end panels laid out on the floor. It zips in to the main roof part all around the outside with a single zip. And here’s one of the two front panels. To give an idea of the size of the awning we’re making, it’s front panel will be a bit smaller than this. The plan is to use what we can from the original awning. We will be using the zips, windows and some of the red fabric, together with the grey vinyl skirt at the bottom that tucks inside the awning and goes under the groundsheet. We carefully unpicked the stitching from the zips. They will be too long but look like they can be shortened fairly easily. When we reuse the white fabric, we don’t want to use areas that have previously been sewn through as this will leave holes where water may get in. Instead we will cut out the panels close to the existing stitching to keep them as big as possible. With the white fabric removed, we decided to give it a run through the washing machine. Although the awning was very clean, there were a few marks on the white and it made sense to try and remove them now, rather than later when the whole thing was sewn together. Also, while the fabric was still damp from washing, we gave it a quick iron to remove the bigger creases which will make it easier to work with later. We will use new blue fabric as well on the awning, but the old red material won’t be wasted. We will carefully cut it out to usable pieces and keep it for possible use on other projects.

I’m all up to date on membership packs they will go out in the post on Monday so expect them around Friday any problems just message me thanks

Hoodie arrived, looks good and feels thicker than previous versions. So far very good I will let you how if it shrinks in the wash!

The main roof panels were taken down and we used them as templates to mark out the new ones. The material we used was 3mm sign board which is a light, solid material that comes with a clear protective film on one side (the side that sign makers normally laser print on) and it can be cut with a sharp knife and also drilled. Being plastic, it’s impervious to water so if it does get condensation on the back, it won’t fall to bits like hardboard would. As well as the horizontal panels, we also replaced the vertical ones with the roof window openings. We had to remove this panel one side to re-seal the leaky window and when we did, we had to remove that plastic angle moldind we’d used on the corners. Unfortunately, the double-sided tape we used was a bit aggressive and it pulled the decorative trim of the caravan trim panels to the parts were scrap anyway. The new ones were easy to cut out as we had a template and the clear window panels on them were unscrewed and swapped over.The new panels were a simple swap and in place of the 15x15x1 plastic angle on the external corners, we used 15x3x1 with the log leg horizontal and the short leg vertical. The mean that the trim would easily conform to the curved part of the ceiling without needed to be heated up and formed. Once again the corner moldings were held in place with double sided tape – but a slightly weaker version. This is the finished ceiling, nice and bright and lighter and more durable than the hardboard.

Winter mod. Wash it

Here's my own designed Car Sticker, just for my car. I think it looks quite cool!!!

Yep dark theme it is then. Thanx to all who keep this club going

It's in the same area as all the other build threads. This was previously only visible to club members and was recently opened up as 'read only' in an attempt to try and show a bit more of the forum to non-members and try and encourage people to consider joining. Whilst I agree that non-members have useful input to the forum, there has to be some difference in the access given to members and non-members or there's even less reason for people to join. Our primary goal is to increase total membership and this can only come about in 2 ways. First to attract new members and second to retain the members that we currently have. We hoped that opening up read access to the build threads would attract the first group of people but it would be expecting a lot of current members if we asked them to continue to contribute financially towards the upkeep of the forum and then offered non-members exactly the same access rights.

Who was responsible for fitting those handles?

Hi Everyone, Well I have been very busy with the progression of Moog 6. The finishing line is within sight!!!! Just a few bits and bobs to finish hear and there. trimming, Spare wheel fitting, Exhaust Cover , Flooring with nice metal flooring trim etc. Here's the latest pics.......

There will be other day trips and if people want one, I'll do something with an overnight stay on a Saturday.

A nice shiny new toolbox as missus fed up of tools in every drawer in the house.

Next major job is to make some more outside space but adding an awning. While we were at the EOSB we were talking to Graham and Annette Jackson (Graham385) who have been following the build thread. They have very kindly given us the awning off their previous caravan and we are hoping to modify it and use parts of it to make our awning. It’s come complete with the lightweight fibreglass frame and should provide more that enough parts for what we need. We’re going to have to do quite a lot of sewing so we’ve decided to upgrade to a heavier dity sewing machine and so we recently bought this beauty. It’s basic on the controls but it’ll sew through pretty much anything and as it’s build in to a nice sturdy table, it won’t be moving around as we’re dragging heavy material through it.

Quick mock up of dash, gauges look OK but you can tell they aren't Smiths!! Maybe if funds are available later I may upgrade them (£800 for a set was a little steep at the moment). Going to get the surround Hydro dipped in a gold/black carbon fibre effect

Dont forget folks... We need to be at the table for 6pm.... We have been really busy the last month putting all our belongings into storage and so will probably not have the time to do any quizzes or games But if anyone wants to put something together, please feel free. There should be 34 of us so it will be cozy in that pub,,, Cant wait and see you all there. Details below The Leicestershire Kitmas meal will be held at The Manor House Quorn. Click on the link below for details https://www.themanorhouseatquorn.co.uk/ It will be held on Saturday 8th December 2018 at 6pm.

It's a matter of going through everything on the brakes methodically. First thing is you mention all the brakes are 9 years old now. Have you changed the brake fluid? This must be done at least every 3 years unless using 5.1 fluid, reason is that most brake fluids absorb water and this can convert to steam in hot brakes, resulting in air locks. Secondly at 9 years the brake discs/drums could have built up rust in the operating cylinders which you will not be able to see unless disassembled making the operation less than smooth and ultimately locking components. At 9 years I would personally give the whole system a full check up, removing brake pads, checking cylinders, checking pipe runs, reassembling with copper grease where required, fully bleeding through with new fluid. If all this fails you may have a failing wheel cylinder, however this usually shows up by having fluid leak from it. Lastly you mention that you have only done 6000 miles presumably in the 9 years, this low usage will often show up in moving parts seizing or getting stiff. An annual service for all motor vehicles is essential to maintain good reliability. Jim

Like it!! Very Modern! WELL DONE ALL Dave.