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Learning how to build Lotus Seven replicas...together!
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PostPosted: August 6, 2008, 8:13 am 
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Location: Charleston, WV
Blackbird wrote:
Congrats on the reg!
Your car looks fantastic and I think that the only thing that I would do if I were you is to spray paint the inside of the nose cone in flat black as well as the insides of the fenders where the orange of the fiberglass shows.
Might consider using spray on bed liner to prevent rocks from chipping the paint by hitting the inside.

Moti

Thanks gents. I plan on doing the bedliner thing on the fenders when it comes time to paint it, and a grille is in the works.

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PostPosted: August 7, 2008, 5:07 am 
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Location: West Virginia
Wow Chet! That's one awesome car! I just went through the whole thread and I'm impressed and inspired! I'd love to get started on one of these. Mine will have to wait until my new house is finished. We designed the house with a small shop, single car garage in the basement (mancave), so I'll have a place to build the car, when the time comes. A new MIG welder will be needed and I should have everything else as far as tools go. I'm going to make sure the basement floor is poured level when the contractors do that, for sure!

A few years ago, I built a 1977 Toyota FJ-40 Land Cruiser rockcrawler from the frame up. The truck had custom everything: Chevy V-8, 4 wheel disc brakes, aluminum body, full-cage, and a quarter elliptic rear suspension with about 40" of movement. The WV DMV made me remove the custom suspension, so I got bored with it and sold it. I've been looking for something else to build ever since.

Great build!

SamM


Last edited by SamM on September 8, 2008, 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: August 8, 2008, 10:44 pm 
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Location: Champion, Ohio
Chet, to hide the LED wiring, drill a third hole in the roll bar--thread the wires through there, and then drill a hole on the bar mounting bracket, so the wires run down the inside of the tubing. Perhaps use silicone or something to keep the inside water-tight, and then route the wiring the rest of the way to wherever you want it.

That's how I'll be doing it. I just haven't found a flat enough LED strip. Most of them are meant to mount flush with a spoiler, or they are .5" deep or more.


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PostPosted: August 10, 2008, 7:33 pm 
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Location: Charleston, WV
Bike rack! Makes driving to the trails more tolerable.


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PostPosted: August 10, 2008, 7:51 pm 
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My bike will fit in the egg if I take out the passenger seat. It's a little over 7 feet long. This is the newer version I haven't had time to finish.


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PostPosted: October 20, 2008, 2:41 am 
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Location: Lexington, KY
So how's it running these days?

-dave

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PostPosted: October 20, 2008, 8:10 am 
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dhempy wrote:
So how's it running these days?

-dave

Runs fine, I just don't drive it much. It's about to get shut down for the winter. I would like to tear it back down, strip the frame, inspect the parts for anything screwy and build it back in the spring. My frame coating didn't stick and is still peeling off in sheets. I also need to replace some aluminum bodywork and paint my fiberglass.

It's hard to get motivated to work on something when as it sits you can jump in it and go for a blat whenever.

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PostPosted: October 21, 2008, 2:57 am 
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If you are going to drill into the roll bar why not mount two of these?
http://www.superbrightleds.com/pdfs/XLamp7090XR.pdf

if you thermal grease them to a bare part of the tube then seal them on, it should provide plenty of heatsink and be almost unnoticeable.


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PostPosted: October 23, 2008, 5:16 pm 
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What was your final Budget by the way?


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PostPosted: October 23, 2008, 5:28 pm 
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milo wrote:
What was your final Budget by the way?


Probably around $5000, including the two extra engines and transmissions I had to buy. And the repairs to the engine that I eventually replaced. I think that if I had planned better I could have done it for under $3000 easy.

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PostPosted: October 23, 2008, 6:03 pm 
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So the savings that your "better planning" would have garnered were primarily in the engine and transmission, or were there other things that you'd save money by doing?


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PostPosted: October 23, 2008, 7:16 pm 
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milo wrote:
So the savings that your "better planning" would have garnered were primarily in the engine and transmission, or were there other things that you'd save money by doing?

Picking a donor that wasn't smashed to hell would have been a big help. I sold the Mirrors for $100 and the power window regulators and switch for $140, so I got half the cost of the car back, (not counting gas to NJ and back and the cost of a Uhaul trailer) but I'll never get back the hours spent chasing shorts in the wiring from it being pinched in the crash. I shudder to think how much I have spent at the local parts store buying bits and pieces here and there to substitute or replace all the broken crap from my donor. If I had bought a car with a proper LSD I wouldn't have had to spend $350 on '99 axles and a RX-7 LSD. Had I planned it out better and bought a better donor I could have recouped much more of the initial investment and had good reliable, running parts from the get go. I also bought the wrong springs and had to buy more later. Better planning and math could have likely prevented that.

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PostPosted: October 24, 2008, 11:57 am 
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Some folks scoff at my bravado of buying a $2500 running M-edition miata as my donor. But I've sold off $2450 worth of stuff I didn't need or use. $50 and a bunch of labor to guarantee a 1.8L LSD set up and KNOW that everything is present and accounted for is a good deal in my mind.

It's the best move I could have made.

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PostPosted: October 24, 2008, 2:55 pm 
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Hey Chet,

Looking good!

Are those the same forklift tail lights from McMaster Carr that I used on my car?

Mark


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PostPosted: October 24, 2008, 3:09 pm 
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mainlandboy wrote:
Hey Chet,

Looking good!

Are those the same forklift tail lights from McMaster Carr that I used on my car?

Mark

Thanks Mark,
I do believe they are the same ones, but I got them from Swift Forklift instead. I can't remember why.

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