Building a Special Body

[Ian Williams]

I made mine by cutting a section out of a nylon kitchen chopping board!
You can custom make them any shape you wish, they certainly help reduce how much you bruise the Aluminium, Hardwood would work just as well.

[Charles P]

I made mine by cutting a section out of a nylon kitchen chopping board!
You can custom make them any shape you wish, they certainly help reduce how much you bruise the Aluminium, Hardwood would work just as well.

Nylon chopping board is useful for so many workshop tasks. Always have one to hand. Great for clamping thin stuff onto the milling machine and having a sacrificial bed than you can mill into!

Charles

[Ian Williams]

More details; In the past to remove the gearbox form my car I needed to take the engine out first, a highly unsatisfactory arrangement on a hard used special. This time I wanted to ensure the gearbox came out through the car, this required a cover over the necessary aperture in the fire wall, the attached series of pictures shows the cover panel, the jig I formed it over and the panel in-situ. 


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Another annoying thing when racing the old special was the tendency of me to bruise my right hand knee against the inside of the scuttle. Being somewhat delicate in my old age I decided the new body would have a padded leather knee pad to reduce this tendency. The mounting for the pad needs to be removable, not only so the pad can be affixed, but also to allow access for wiring to be routed up and down between instrument panel and floor void. Being a bit anal about aesthetic appearances I wanted the fixing screws to be Raised CSK head so the panel needed to be dimpled to accept them, for this I turned up a simple punch and die. 


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[John Bonnett]

Very nicely done and great attention to detail. I imagine you had to use the press tool for the panel underneath as well.

What is the origin of the remote gear linkage?
John

[Ian Williams]

Remote gear change is a Reproduction Eltos purchased in the 80's John, I believe Tony Betts sometimes produces a few these days

[Ian Williams]

In answer to questions raised by Jamie about lengthening steering column's this is my solution; Take a Ruby and a Big seven column, once you dismantle them you will see the worm on both is identical but the big seven is 4 1/2" longer. You will also notice that the outer tube of both the column's is soft soldered into the steering box, heat the boxes swap over the tubes and rebuild the Ruby one with the Big seven inner fitted, job done! Well almost, I lowered mine considerably so the keyway in the drop arm needs to be recut to prevent the quadrant from coming out of mesh with the worm, a simple job for someone with a broach.


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A further refinement was to make an advance retard lever, I used the Big Seven horn tube, found a bit of 5/16" tube which fitted nicely up the centre of this soft soldered an Austin gas lever onto the tube, I turned an advance quadrant to fit on top of the Big seven horn tube. I then tidied everything up by taking a Ruby/Big seven bakelite steering wheel centre, turning it to a slightly nicer shape, fitting an Austin motif in the centre and bolting that to the quadrant, the result is rather pleasing and quite authentic in appearance.


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Another job done recently was to make the boot liid, once the panel was shaped to fit the curve of the tail it was trimmed to size making allowance for the wired edge. I then started creating a flange all the way around the edge, this was done in stages annealing the edge as it work hardened. Once it was up to 90 degrees I could clamp the wire in place and close the flange over the wire working in short sections and moving the clamps as I went, sorry about the pictures it is hard to hold a camera, hammer, dolly and work piece all at the same time!

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[Jamie]

Ian,

Thank you. This will be a great help.

Jamie.

[jansens]

Hi Ian, what are you using to seal between the fuel filler pipe and body? Just a large rubber grommet? Have that same issue on mine. I was thinking of brazing a flat circular disc to the filler tube then using it as a mounting flange with a gasket between it and the body.

Simon

[Duncan Grimmond]

        I used a brass filler tube with a large brass washer silver soldered to it and this penetrates the skin with  a neoprene gasket inboard, an ali escutcheon and rubber washer outboard with 6 S/S button head Allen screws.

If dismantling is required the Monza cap unscrews, the ali escutcheon comes off and the filler neck comes out of the fuel-proof flexible filler tube to the tank. The brass tube showing has been nickel plated since the pic.

[jansens]

Thank's Duncan, was hoping others would have suggestions on this too. Am trying to work out the best thing to do on mine. If the filler goes on the centre line it's tricky since it isn't flat (has a slight peak).It's why I was thinking a shaped flange with the filler tube attached just as you've done.

Simon