Making the Engineer happy

The following pictures are all about the little things that I have had to do to satisfy the Dept of Transport according to the list that I got from Earl after the previous tests.

Starting with the decals that I had to create and fix to the car

Tyres pressures and specs have to be appropriate for the individual car John Bosci from the Australian Westfield people was kind enough to send me a copy of all of the notices required and I edited this one to show the right tyre sizes and pressures for my car.

I bought an emissions sticker for a N16 Nissan

This one would not be necessary had I decided to fit a windscreen. But if you fit a windscreen you also need wipers and a demister, so instead I got out my old motorcycle helmet that has a drop down Visor and treated it to a coat of the same red paint that I used on the nose cone of the car. Mostly I expect to use either Sunglasses or Safety Glases now If I can just find a hat that will stay on at speed I will be stoked.

Some of the warnings sound rather dire but that is what is required.

I had designed the steering rack extensions to lock into the tie rods by virtue of their bottoming out in the hole but Earl wanted lock nuts added. The problem was that there was not much thread left so I bought one M14 stainless steel nut and split it in two to make the two locknuts I required. Sadly the extensions that I had made out of 4140 grade steel are not immune to rusting, hence the black paint.

I had originally believed that it was not acceptable to use tape to bind the wiring harness but Earl told me otherwise. In any case I found some really good stuff called “self amalgamating tape ” which fuses to it’s self forming an impenetrable sheaf over the wires but without sticking to them. Damn good stuff it is even though it costs $11 per 5m roll from a Marine Chandler.

I also had to enclose the tag strips that I am using for the lighting connections in two neat little project boxes from Dick Smith’s

Catalytic Converters get very hot in operation and require a suitable heat shield the original one from it was not suitable. As I did not have any more of the stainless stuff I used over the muffler I decided to make one from alloy Check plate. I made a model of what I wanted out of a cornflakes packet and then transferred the design to some metal that was then folded as you see in the photo. It uses the original heat shield mounts on the Cat and extends forward to cover the short piece of the header pipe that was previously exposed.

I am very happy with how this heat shield looks despite the rivets that I had to use in the absence of the facilities to weld alloy.

To ensure that the front flexible brake lines can’t chafe on the front suspension a small spring has been added to each one.

I was very happy with the original middle brake light that I had made but it turns out that it was not high enough from the ground (has to be 850mm) so I made a new housing for it that mounts on the roll bar and ran the wires through the tube of the roll Bar.

The positioning of the front indicators was wrong because they were not visible from the entirety of the required angles so I moved them forward onto bumper bar mounts.

I have mounted some very nice vintage side lights on the front mudguards but Earl thought it better to have park lights in the headlights so I added them in addition to the ones on the Guards.

That just about completes my list so apart from the problem of getting “certificates” for the fibreglass parts and making the lower coolant pipe a bit prettier I am almost there. The only fly in the ointment at the moment is how long it is taking the Queensland Police to supply me with a surrogate VIN number. I have had to have three visits from a policeman to check the engine number and for me to sign forms so something that should only take a few days has this far taken weeks. Oh the joy of dealing with the bureaucrats!!

About Iain

I am married with two children and we all live in rural Queensland. My interests include politics, ethics, art, religion, architecture, engineering and science. I am largely self-educated but I hold an Arts degree from the University of Queensland.
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