Last night I got a bit of work done. The dummy trans is an automatic so I spent some time measuring the 6 speed in my Locost. Then I made a nice wooden shifter to mock up the location.
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I also removed the Power Plant Frame and stored it in the attic for later. I had spent hours on the thing a few months ago and despite having all of the bolts out it just wouldn't budge. I even looked at the shop manual, no help there. I spent an hour or two on miata.net yesterday and found a post by Keith Tanner, two minutes with a pry bar and problem solved. Moving the bits around I now have a much more reasonable wheelbase of 96". I also set the tank back up and put the rear subframe back in to soak.
Today my project was replacing the broken light fixture on the ceiling fan. Step one, take wife shopping to pick out the replacement. Step two, take the universal fixture back to Home Depot and tell them that it is not universal. The clerk was a good guy about it and said that things that used to say "One size fits all" now say "One size fits most". Step three, have a long chat with the guy in the lighting department about which one would fit. We ended up deciding that my fan was too old and that none of the new fixtures would fit my old fan. He suggested I replace the fan with a new one saying that the new fans were much cheaper than my old one but there was a reason for that.
I decided that if I could build a car I should be able to fabricate a fixture that would fit my fan and use the old globe. One and a half episodes of Top Gear on the garage telly later I had a fully repaired fixture. Savings $40.
vroom wrote:
I'm not sure why you are interested in a steel body. It is more work and if you use the 19 ga. most custom fabricators use a lot heavier. But stronger and requiring less support.
I will cheat on the fenders, I have already ordered a set of fiberglass 36 Chevy fenders from Speedway. I like the basic shape and have no problem cutting and reglassing them back together. All of the fiberglass on my Locost was cut apart and widened, lengthened or raised. Why steel? I do want the extra strength, I intend on welding the frame, rollcage and body together. Also I am miserable at welding aluminum (but really great at melting it).