For fans of Vinyl

Saturday 7th July

As I plan on fitting the side panels soon, I thought it best I approach a few tasks that are easier to tackle with the side panels off the car, I have ensured all the holes in the tunnel are capable of taking the 4mm rivets that I am using, I have lined up the speedo sensor bracket with the differential and mounted the speedo magnets and 180 degrees apart of the differential flange, using some epoxy resin to help secure them in place.

I have started fitting the under dash panels, the drivers side panel is fully secured with rivets and has had some vinyl applied to provide a neater finish, the passenger side works on a hinge so the fuse box can be accessed, at present the panel is only held in place by some screws, this will be covered in vinyl and riveted later on in the build.

Saturday 21st July

I took the decision to get my side panels vinyl wrapped by a professional and I am glad I did because I don’t have the expertise (it would have taken me an age, not looked great and probably cost me a fortune in wasted material), the panels look great, I got them covered by a chap called Chris who runs a local company (www.wrapiton.co.uk) based in Southampton, he even collected and returned the panels for me.

 
I have placed the panels on the side of the car and secured them with a few screws for the time being, I am really pleased with how the panels look in place.

I have taken the opportunity to start fitting the front suspension set-up, the front suspension is quite different from many of other lotus 7 inspired cars which often run a double wishbone and coilover system, the striker utilizes roller rockers, inboard coilovers and a single lower wishbone set-up.



Vinyled side panel fitted to the car

I started by fitting the roller rockers and front coilovers, followed by the lower wishbone to which the lower ball joint is fitted and locked in place by knocking the locktabs back. The cycle wingstay holds the upper ball joint which is fitted to the roller rocker, the wingstay is secured in place by the clamp and pinch bolt on the rear of the sierra front upright (which would clamp the Sierra McPherson strut in place).

At present only the roller rocker bolts have been tightened, the rest will be done once the car is underload, the wishbones on the striker are adjustable, I will probably get the suspension set-up correctly by Raw once the car has been built.

Thursday 9th August

Well we have finally moved house, the bad news is there is much decorating ahead of me, the good news is the Striker has a home so my parents can have their garage back.

Saturday 1st September

 

Still decorating

 
Saturday 29th September

Still decorating
 
Saturday 13th October

Getting there, not too much more decorating.
 
Saturday 27th October
 
The garage seems to fill up with rubbish quicker then I can empty it. This isn’t what I wanted from a garage.     :(

Side-Tracked……

There has been some, but not much (due to putting out house on the market and going on the holiday) progress on the build since the last update.

Sunday 13th May

With the rear diff and driveshafts in place I have taken the opportunity to attached the rear discs, callipers and flexi hoses, I don’t see any need to remove any of this in the future so the brake pipes have been fully connected and tightened, overall I am pretty pleased with how this all looks.

Saturday 19th May

I have done a fair amount of work tidying up the wiring loom, with the loom in the tunnel now fully secured in place, once the loom exits the tunnel it runs along the chassis behind the seat back panel and then along the nearside to the rear of the car.

Speedo Sensor Bracket

With the diff in place I have taken the opportunity to fit the speedo sensor bracket, I enlisted the help of my parents neighbour to manufacture a suitable strength bracket. I now just need to fit the magnets and secure the bracket in place, I think I’ll give it a coat of paint before securing.

As the steering column is in place I needed to mark off and drill a hole where the column passes through the bulkhead, while not a difficult task it is one that is very easy to get wrong resulting in a new panel, thankfully this went with any problems.

Sunday 17th June
I managed to get a couple of hours working on the, I had a couple of things I wanted to attack today, 1st up was wiring in the fuel pump, I have only completed half this task as I need to decide where to mount the earth, the next task was the handbrake.

I have mounted the handbrake and started connecting up the cables, I will adjust to get the required tension once the car is on the ground. 

Progress.....And not some Take That Album.....Thankfully

Saturday 17th March
My next batch of components for the build were ready for collection so I made the trip to Hereford where I was greeted by Jeremy from Raw. I took the opportunity to take another look at the demo striker to make sure I had a few things relating to the build clear in my head.

Once I got home I spent a little while going through the box of parts identifying how various parts fitted into the kit and took the opportunity to place the Steering rack and clamps into the Kit, I'll bolt this up later.

Steering rack clamped in by alloy brackets

Saturday 24th March
My 1st task of the day was to get the differential into the chassis, fitting was is harder than it 1st appeared but this was down to the weight of the differential, after a little bit of jiggling all the securing bolts were in place.

I decided I would attached the rear nearside suspension and driveshaft assembly, with the coilover and lower wishbone in, the driveshaft pushed into the differential and allowed me to connect the upright, hub and upper wishbone, I even placed the disc and loosely bolted up the calliper for effect.

Rear nearside

At this point it was time to call it a day.


Saturday 31st March
I started the day with a list of task that I wanted to make headway on, not expecting to make much of an impact on them.

I thought I would start the day with a nice easy task by bolting in the steering rack and alloy clamps, job done, nice and easy as I had hoped it would be.

Brake Pedal clevis-pin / push rod set-up

Next up, the pedals, I removed the previously fitted pedal box cover and set about fitting the pedals, the pedals simply swing on a spindle bar which pushes through the pedal box. I started by lining up the brake pedal with the master cylinder and fitting the clevis-pin and push rod, The clutch pedal was quite a tight fit so required a little filing to allow the pedal to move freely. In order to fit the accelerator pedal I needed to fit a spacer to stop the pedal sliding along the spindle.

After lunch I moved on the offside rear suspension set-up, this went together as per the nearside without any issues, I now need to tighten the hubs bolts then I can fit the callipers and flexi brake hoses.

Steering column assembly

My last task for the day was the steering column assembly, this comprised of a number of parts, the columns itself, some UV joints, bearings and a bush, again this was a pretty easy, the good news being that the rack moves when I turn the steering column.

All Tanked Up!!

December 2011 - February 2012
In the last two months I have not spent a great deal of time working on the car, a few odd hours here and there, but progress is being made in the right direction.

I have continued to work on the brake lines, the front brake lines and the line running down the tunnel are all complete. I will complete the rear lines once I have the differential / driveshafts fitted so I can ensure adequate clearance from any moving parts.

Once I have differential and driveshafts in place I will be in a position to construct the wishbones, coilovers, hubs and brakes.

I have managed to work through the wiring loom identifying which wires I do / don't need, separating the wires I don't require capping and securing them out of the way. The loom is routed from behind the dash where the fuse box and relays are mounted, down through the tunnel top, into the engine bay or along the tunnel to the rear of the car.

Tank in place secured by two retaining straps,
routed fuel return pipe at the top of the picture 

There has been some good progress on the fuel side of things, the fuel pipes are routed down the tunnel with the return pipe bent and routed up to the the fuel tank return. The feed pipe is routed and ready for the fuel filter and pump to be be mounted, again I want to fit the diff / driveshafts before undertaking this so I can ensure adequate clearance from moving parts.


The fuel tank has been trial fitted, the tank is secured by brackets and straps. The tank sits on a bracket that runs between two wishbone mounts with two straps running over the top of the tank to hold it in place.



I have cut a hole in the top of the tank read for the sender unit which has to be shortened to read empty due to the depth of the tank. The sender will be secured in place using a retaining bracket with captive nuts which is fitted inside the tank.

Fuel Sender securing plate (fits inside the tank)

P-Clip to secure Fuel Pump

5 Steps Forward, 4 Steps Back

Tuesday 22nd November
Today started with me drilling the bulkhead base holes and fixing in place with some self tapers, once this was complete I moved back to the side panels, I needed to finish folding the panel top over the chassis rail, make a couple of brackets for the nose cone and drill the holes for the front flexi brake pipes.

So I have now fitted the floor, side panels, tunnel, seat back panel and the bulkhead base, sounds quite good progress, anyway this is where the build takes 4 steps back, as out came the side panels, seat back tunnel and bulkhead base.


Front brake lines routed

I spent the remainder of the day drilling various holes and clipping in various pieces of fuel or brake pipe and trying to fathom out the loom.

For the front brake pipes I decided to work from the flexi pipes back towards the master cylinder, securing the pipes every 100mm, this proved to be pretty successful, with only a small adjustment required to allow the pipes to reach the master cylinder.

fuel and brake lines routed down the tunnel, loom sprawled across drivers floor

For the rear brake pipes I decided to work from the master cylinder towards the back of the vehicle approaching the tricky bend into the tunnel before running down the inside of the passenger side of the tunnel, again securing the brake pipes every 100mm.

As I am fitting a zetec engine I am running the fuel feed and return lines down the drivers side of the tunnel, again securing every 100mm.

I have decided to run the loom down the passenger side of the tunnel along with the brake line, but before I can clip the loom in place I need to drill and 50mm hole in the tunnel top so feed the loom through, the fuse box will be fitted on the rear of the bulkhead (under the dash) where it is safest from the elements.

Panels Panels Everywhere.....Cont......

Saturday 12th November

Since the last update the car has progressed along, the floor has been fully marked up and drilled with a layer of vinyl applied to the interior facing side. The floor has been riveted to the chassis around 3 sides of the floor (the 4th side will include the side panels) and the chassis turned the right way up.

Vinyled Floor

Riveting Stuff

Monday 21st November
Today my plan was to attack the seat back panel and continue with the fitting of the side panels.

The seat back panel required some fettling before I was happy with its fitment, unfortunately due to the tight fit I have managed to chip the powder coating on the chassis, nothing that can't be fixed though. The seat back panel is currently held in place by a few temporary fixings, the final fit will be much later in the build.

For the side panels I had to remove a section of material as the side panels fit both the aero-screen and classic striker, once the access material was removed attached the side panels (using the previously drilled underside fixings and a couple of clamps and set to work bending over the top of the panel over the chassis, temporarily securing with a couple of self tapping screws.

Seat pack panel, side panels and bulkhead base in place

The final job of the day was trimming and the bulkhead base panel and clamping in place along with a section of angle for the scuttle upright, I will mark up and drill these at a later date.

Panels, Panels Everywhere!

Saturday 29th October
So 1st task, fit the tunnel, this will be fitted temporarily for the time being, as the fuel and brake lines along with the loom need to be secured before the panels can be riveted in place, it is much easier to fit the tunnel while no other panels are fitted to the car.



Floor in Progress, tunnel panel can be seen

After a small bit of fettling of the panels I was happy with the fit of the tunnel, time to mark up and drill, I have held the tunnel in place for the time being with a few self taping screws.

With the tunnel in place the chassis had to be turned upside down so the floor could be fitted, the floor comes in two pieces, passenger and driver side, the floor did not require and trimming, so I held in place with a few clamps and marked it up, drilled and held secured with a few self tapers, I will rivet the floor once I have applied some black vinyl to the interior side of the floor to give it a nice finish.

With 50% of the drivers floor fitted and the passenger floor still to mark an and drill I thought I would take a look at another stage of the build.


Side Panel clamped in place





I decided to line up the side panel to get an idea of how it fits to the car and understand its fixing points and what lies ahead, the panel supplied is designed to fit both the classic striker and the the aeroscreen model (which I have) so a small amount of triming is required but nothing to major, fitting the side will be a task for another day