Great news. We've made
what we think will be the last major changes to our build plan. The changes are substantial, and we just
hope they're accurate. The changes moved our estimated completion date—a date that's been hovering
around the end of December, 2013 for as long as we can remember—up to the middle of October. Which
is outstanding. It's also bumped our completion percent from 76 to 80. Very cool.
Ever since we painted the frame and started reassembling all the bits and pieces, we've had
a feeling that our build plan was off. Every ballpark estimate we subsequently made for the remaining
work had us finishing up by the end of summer. But our original two-year build plan had been
marginally accurate for a long time, so we stuck with it. Now it's pretty obvious we were wrong,
at least about the final steps. Of course in our defense it's been well established that we don't know
what we're doing, so I think we can be excused.
Body parts mostly small and manageable
When we first started out on this project, back in the summer of 2011, we thought we'd spend
the next year or two getting the car built and assembled, and then pull it all apart again for the
final paint job. Our last task in the build plan, appropriately titled Paint and Final Assembly, was
estimated at 178 hours. But here's the deal. It turns out we don't have to paint the car all at once. The bodywork
comes apart in several pieces, and each piece can be painted in its own time, before it's attached
to the car.
So that's what we're doing, and we added a few hours to the Exterior part of the plan to cover
the additional painting, which allowed us to take away many, many hours from Paint and Final
Assembly. And rename it just Final Assembly. The time difference is more than 100 hours, which
reduces our total plan to just over 2250 hours. Since we've got more than 1800 hours into the build
already, we're looking at just a little over 400 hours before we have a registered Locost licensed for
the street. Pretty amazing.
There's one downside to this change, because there's always a downside. Accelerating the build
schedule also accelerates the budget. We've been carefully watching our Locost dollars for
several months now so we could afford springs and shocks, because springs and shocks are the only
things keeping us from driving the car. But springs and shocks are a big-ticket item. In order to
get the car done sooner, we're going to take our shock money and use it to buy bodywork, lights,
and interior bits.
Which means we're not going to be driving the car for a while, which obviously isn't fun, but in
the end it's all going to be worth it. We'll get the car finished a lot faster, and it'll be much
more roadworthy when we take that first historic drive. Over the next couple of months we'll start the engine and
let it warm up every week or so, just to make sure we still can, and the day the shocks arrive
we'll install them in the car, break out the video camera, or actually the iPhone, and motor away
smartly down the street.
Should look more like wood when we're done
In the meantime we still have work to do. The glove box and dashboard are almost done, and we're
about ready to try covering the dash with veneer. We have a 2x8 foot sheet of it, which means there's
plenty of extra in case we mess up, so long as we don't mess up too many times. We'll practice on
the console covers and let you know how it goes. We don't expect the pieces to look like real wood
when we're done because for one thing they're only 0.10" thick, but we hope once they're stained and
varnished they'll look nice overall. From a distance.
Unattractive cutaway for the glove box
As promised, we did some major cutting on our scuttle in order to provide clearance for the glove
box. As expected, it looks horrible. Of course no one will ever see it unless they remove the
dashboard, and by the time they've managed to figure out how to do that, nothing odd or unusual
about the car is likely to surprise them. We actually did describe how to remove the dashboard in our
workshop manual, but if we succeeded in making our workshop manual read like most other British
workshop manuals, it's not going to do them much good.
Spliced light switch wires appear to work
Before we installed the dash we needed to make sure all the wires under the dash could reach their
respective components. We moved the light switch and fuel gauge in the Locost from their original
location in the MGB, so the wires for those items had to be lengthened. Risky, but we tested the
light switch after our modifications, and not only did we get power to the headlights and tail lights,
but we left the switch on for several minutes and nothing burst into flames. So it's all
very encouraging.
Despite the major schedule changes, we think we're still on track for completing the coachwork
and the interior by the end of July. We've completed eight of our original 61 tasks, and added twelve more,
which may sound like we're not making good progress, and of course we're not, but the good news is,
the number of hours didn't increase that much, going from 273 to 280. And we still think we'll
beat most of those estimates, or if not most then at least a couple. Or maybe none. But we'll
keep at it.