We passed the 10,000 mile
mark in the Locost last week. We're not sure how far that is in real car miles. We're also not sure
how fast a Locost should wear out. Our Locost began its life both brand new and partly old, so it's
kind of like a new car except not really. Oddly enough, only the new parts are showing signs of wear.
Or maybe not so oddly. All of the parts are showing signs of dirt, however. Not that we're doing
anything about it, except of course where you can see it in photographs.
On the road with the NOBBC
If we compare pictures of the car from a year ago, the signs of wear and tear are noticeable. Few
things look brand new anymore. The chrome on the dashboard is a little tarnished, the carpets are
slightly faded, the vinyl is scuffed in a few places, and the windshield is no longer crystal
clear. Not that we mind. The car looks more vintage with each new blemish, and the new parts blend
in better with the old. From ten feet away the car looks immaculate, and yes, we do have our own
personal definition of immaculate, but it's close to the standard one.
Mostly clueless about what they're looking at
As promised, we are attending as many events as we can this summer. We participated in the Bay
Area Maker Faire again this year, and this time we had the only Locost. As always, we got a lot of
visitors, about half asking us what kind of car it is, which is a little annoying when you have all
kinds of signs and photos displayed around it, and the other half telling us what kind of
car it is, which is actually slightly more annoying. The M.G. badges throw off a lot of people, many of whom
insist that back in college they had an M.G. exactly like it, or maybe it was a Triumph.
Couldn't be much clearer than this
Most embarrassing is the guy telling his wife or girlfriend exactly what kind of car it is, when
it was built and where it was raced, sharing his vast automotive knowledge with the little lady in
a condescending voice that grates on our ears, and probably hers. Nothing you can do at that point
except let it go. Arguing would be futile, since the guy obviously knows more about your car
than you do. So the guessing continues, even though we added chrome (a.k.a. plastic) letters to the
back of the car spelling out LOCOST, although maybe everyone thinks it's a typo.
We haven't done much work on the Locost over the past few months, mostly because nothing broke.
We replaced our spare tire with one that looks a little more vintage, and we did the 9000-mile oil
change. We also hammered in a new steel intake manifold plug to replace the disintegrating rubber
one. In an effort to keep the new plug from exploding out the back and punching a hole in our
aluminum coolant expansion tank, we ran a bead of JB Weld around the plug, which doesn't look all
that good and probably won't stick very well either, but maybe we'll get lucky.
Crude and probably ineffective too
By far our best repair in the past two months was finally getting rid of that annoying 3000-RPM
rattle. On our very first test drive, way back in September of 2013, we detected a high-pitched
buzz coming from the engine compartment between 3000 and 3500 RPMs. Because the car continued down
the road under its own power without anything falling off, we pretty much ignored the buzz, and
have pretty much ignored it ever since. But it was always there, and even though we've always known
what caused it, we knew fixing it would be a major chore.
Our Locost pedal box design harkens back to the earliest days of our build, when we struggled to
come up with a design that would incorporate MGB parts and still position the pedals and steering
wheel in the center of the driver's compartment. We eventually figured it out, but we knew at the
time that clearances would be tight. And yet when we built the thing, it all seemed to go together
and everything seemed to fit, even the brake master cylinder, which could've easily been too big
for the pedal box recess in the engine bay firewall.
Pedal box recess could've been 1/4" wider
As it turns out, the brake master cylinder is too big for the pedal box recess in the engine bay
firewall. It fits, but the banjo for the rear hydraulic line is mashed up against the corner edge
of the recess. We were actually aware of this when we installed the brake master two yeas ago, but
we figured nothing would be damaged by the contact, and we wanted to get the car running. Not
worrying about it turned out to be the way to go. The banjo and pedal box recess are both fine.
What we didn't anticipate was that the pedal box might vibrate at certain engine RPMs.
You couldn't feel the vibration from the driver's seat. You couldn't even feel it in the pedals. But
you could hear it. It's the kind of sound you might expect when two chunks of metal are mashed up
against each other, and one of them starts to vibrate. We thought we might be able to reduce the
noise by jamming a piece of rubber between the banjo and the recess, but they were really mashed
together. We would've had to bend something, and while we wouldn't mind bending the pedal box
recess, I'm not sure we had a choice about which part would bend first.
Minor scratches will buff out
So we tried convincing ourselves that the noise wasn't all that bad, until a few weeks ago when
our friend and local Locost builder Matt Rogers came up with a fix that wouldn't be a major chore.
We originally thought we'd have to completely remove the pedal box, which would mean disconnecting
brake lines and pedals and all of the attendant work that implies, but Matt suggested we could just loosen the bolts on the
pedal box, and wiggle it around enough to slip some kind of file or grinding device between the
banjo and the firewall.
So that's what we did, and even though we didn't generate a ton of clearance with the file, and
kind of scratched up the firewall in the bargain, we were able to slip a short length of rubber
hose around the banjo before retightening all the bolts. And so the noise is gone, although you
don't really notice it because it's gone. Still, it's good not to be annoyed.
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