Locost glove box, still need to work out a few bugs
The glove box has become
a major project. We finished welding the mounting flange and got the door hinged, but there's no way
the MGB latch mechanism is going to work. We spent a couple of hours shimming the hinges and the
catch plate with no success, until it was clear even to us that the angles were all wrong. The latch
is designed for a door that moves up and forward, and our door moves down and forward. I realize
that's not entirely clear but the details aren't important. What's important is, we need a different
latch.
Universal German glove box latch
After an exhaustive online search, or maybe not exhaustive but good enough, we found a glove box
latch from a 1977 VW Beetle. Actually we just found a picture of one, but it looks like it should
work. It's an incredibly simple design, which is no doubt why it never would have occurred to the British to
make anything like it. The only downside is that it's not an M.G. part. Hopefully, we'll get over
it. The latch is operated by a black knob with no markings on it, so we could put a little M.G. logo
on there, or maybe a British flag decal. But probably not.
Fuel cell fits with room to spare
In better news, our fuel tank arrived. The tank looks a little more high-tech than we expected, with AN
fittings and a racing filler cap, and it also doesn't seem to have any provision for a fuel level
sender. So we're probably going to have to work something out there. We're actually not too
concerned about having a fuel gauge, since we don't really pay attention to it anyway, but we need
gauges to fill some of those holes in the dashboard. Of course there's no rule that says those gauges have
to be working. Although it wouldn't look good if the fuel gauge was on empty all the time.
Locost fuel cell with custom mounting straps
We made a pair of steel straps to secure the tank to the chassis. We built the
tank mount based on careful third-party measurements, since we didn't have an actual tank on hand to
measure ourselves, but it still appears as if the tank will fit. One thing we never did figure
out was how the straps would attach at the back of the tank, because the chassis ends there
rather abruptly, and there's not a lot of metal left for the straps. We hoped, as we so often
do, that the problem would either magically reveal itself or disappear when the time came to
mount the tank.
Might be better to rivet these in place
As usual, the problem didn't go away, so we had to build some little tiny brackets that would let us bolt
the straps to the last 1/2" of metal behind the tank, and then weld the brackets to the end of the straps.
So now we think we can just manage to get a 1/4" bolt in there to secure the strap, but only because we don't
have any of the aluminum bodywork in place yet. Once the bodywork is done, it should be just about
impossible to remove or install the tank. We will of course have options, since we always do, but we
can't think of what they are just now.
In the meantime we have to figure out how to attach fuel and vent lines to the tank. The tank fittings
are both AN8, which is way too big for anything we're doing, so we ordered a bunch of adapter
fittings. We'll start out at the tank by converting the AN8 fittings to AN6, and then run braided AN6 lines to the
fuel pump and overflow canister. We'll then use still more adapters to convert the AN6 to AN4 for the vent,
and to a rubber hose for the fuel pump. We expect it all to work, but not necessarily to be entirely free of leaks.
Crude but effective throttle stop bracket
Besides the glove box and fuel tank, we also finished building the throttle bracket for our new
throttle cable. We welded it up from some 1/8" and 16 gauge sheet metal, plus a short length of 3/4"
tubing. It looks kind of crude compared to the nicely machined M.G. throttle bracket, but not
compared to the rest of our work. Still, we thought it would look better with paint, as most things
do, so we painted it and we'll wait a week or two for it to dry before we attempt to install the
throttle cable.
YOUR BUILD LOG HERE HAS BEEN A GREAT READ THUS FAR, THANKS! ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT IT KEEPS TAKING TIME FROM MY BUILD TO READ IT. I GUESS NOW THAT I HAVE CAUGHT UP WITH YOU, I CAN GO BACK TO THE GARAGE. YOU ARE AN INSPIRATION FOR SURE. THANKS FOR SHARING.
Home
Previous Entry
