Donor car

In a previous post, I mentioned how hard it had been to find a donor. Well I did it and this is the result - a 1991 Ford Sierra 1.8 Sapphire. A nice car having done 90k miles and was taxed and tested when I bought it. My plan is to use the CVH engine to build the first incarnation of the Roadster and then maybe change it to a Zetec at a later date. The CVH with its single carb configuration should make life easier for the IVA test and also means that I'll maintain an age related plate rather than a Q plate.

Chassis compete

Okay, okay - so this has been a long time coming without any sort of post. I've finally finished the chassis. There are still a few plates to be welded on but that will be done when I have the engine out of the donor to use as a reference and make sure they're in the right place.

The chassis is currently in primer having been cleaned with white spirit, treated with Kurust rust converter (to remove an small traces of rust) and then a coat of primer. Looks very nice if I do say so myself.

Chassis plates

No welding progress today but I've just ordered the chassis plate kit from 3GE Components. This contains all of the plates needed in the chassis build such as the differential plates and engine mounting plates. Looks like I'll have a fun Bank Holiday weekend :)

Latest on the chassis

Here's the progress so far. The front part of the section of the chassis is now tack welded together (with a few diagonals missing) but it gives the basic ideas of what it's going to be like. Interesting the Haynes Roadster is bigger than the original Ron Champion Locost but even so, it steel seems pretty small!

Everything has gone together nicely. A few tips if you're thinking of building. Make sure the base is flat and level - if it is, it makes everything more simple. I found that I need to shim one or two of my bottom tubes to get perfect level. Second, I found I needed to fettle diagonals D7 and D8 so that they sat flush with the SB1 rails and SB2 rails - this is mentioned in the cutting list for the diagonal parts. Finally, I'd say you really don't want to "force" any rails to fit, if they're out of line it means somethings wrong and putting tension in the chassis will result in it twisting.

Finding a Sierra

I used the phrase "Hen's teeth" in my first post about finding early Escorts and Cortinas which are required to build a Ron Champion Locost. I thought Sierras would be easy to find and as cheap as chips.

Sadly not true, after several weeks of stalking eBay, looking at Freeads, Gumtree and anything else I could look at I finally managed to lay my hands on one for about £300. It's a 90,000 miler with a 1.8 CVH engine in it. I'd originally planned to go for a Zetec engine and ditch the CVH but I was so impressed driving the Sierra that I've decided I'm going to try and stick with the CVH and make this a really low cost build.

Let the fun begin!

The first part of the build (well second - I'll come back to the Sierra in another post) is to build the chassis. This requires that you have a large flat surface (about 8' by 4') that's completely flat and level. Onto this, you draw your plan and you're off.

Here's my building board which is basicaly 18mm MDF glued and screwed to two 3 by 2 lengths. You'll see that I've laid out the basic metal piece and secured them with white fixing blocks (available from most DIY places) to stop them moving about.

The book by Chris includes measurements for all of the steel box section you need. To make life easier, there are 2 or 3 suppliers who supply ready cut steel packs where the box section has been cut and mitred according to the book. I took this approach and bought mine from a company called Armoto where a very helpful chap called Jason can supply them at a very reasonable price.

What is this all about???

Many years ago, a chap called Ron Champion wrote a book called "How to build a sportscar for £250". This book became the basis of the Locost scene from which many Lotus 7-esque sportscars have been built. One of the challenges now is that the book was based on old Escort and Cortina bits to build it which, let's be honest, are like hen's teeth now...

To bring things up to date, Chris Gibbs has written a new book called "Build your own Sports Car" which alows you to build a Lotus-7-esque car from a Ford Sierra, a pile of steel tube and some metal tube... doesn't this sound like fun!

This is the book here - available for under £20 and a great read.