Baby Steps

Spent a day on the weekend with Dad continuing on the car, which was great. The first task we tried was to install the handbrake – except I have the handbrake cable for a Live Axle car rather that the cables needed for the IRS. So that stopped that, and I need to get this in and the rear brake cables before the diff goes in, which has to happen before the rear suspension goes in. So the back-end of the car is on hold for now.

However, as with most things, there are other activities that can happen in the meantime. We moved to fitting the drivers seat. Because of the range of relative sizes of the two main drivers (Dad and I), we needed to put the adjustable runners into the car. In most vehicles that wouldn’t matter, it’s just that in this sort of car it’s all or nothing – if I can reach the pedals, Dad can’t. If Dad can reach the pedals, I can’t get my knees under the dash. So the movable seat is required.

The downside apparently is around the stability of the seat. As the runners are mobile, and the anchor points are brought inside the main runners, the stability suffers, by all account. Whilst the seat isn’t structural – it doesn’t hold you in, the belt does – it is important to feel secure, and to have all the messages from the chassis translated through the seat to your backside properly.


So there were a couple of things to do. Bolt the runners in – no problem. Cut a hole in the bottom of the seat to allow space for the runner – slight problem. The measurements in the book would have put a huge hole in completely the wrong place. And now this is where Dad comes into his own – measuring and measuring and measuring against to get it right, even if it doesn’t matter as you can’t see the holes. Did it all, and it turns out to be a really nice, neat job.




Dad also came up with a good idea to resolve the stability issue. We’re going to craft a simple metal frame that goes between the bottom of the seat and the squab. This will anchor the seat tightly to the frame, and spread the load a little wider than the underlying frame. Simple and cheap – gotta be a first for this build.


We also bolted the wiper motor on. No real excitement there.


So for a day’s effort, we put a seat in. This could take a while, especially as my work now takes me to Melbourne basically full-time until the middle of July, at which point I might take a few weeks off to focus on the car. Then the blog updates will come fast and furious, I promise.

You’ll also notice some photos of the car in this posting – what do ya’ll think of the colour?