small steps

There was almost no time for the garage this week. I just managed to finish the modification for the brake mount brackets, got them painted and installed on the car now. The caliper is not completely centered with the disk yet – I just ordered 0.3mm shims to correct it. The instructions unfortunately do not mention the acceptable tolerance but I recon that it will be close enough. What I need to find is the right torque setting for the wheel hub castle nuts. I believe it is 125 lbft or 170nm. I just tighten the nut to 100nm so far but the front wheel hardly turn anymore.

I also worked on the panel for the driver side. The new catch and hinge post are slightly different and the old panel is about 8mm larger. The edge I turned over certainly could look better – but given the fact that this is the first time I tried this and that the Hidem banding and the wing piping will hide most of it – it must do as it is. To create the flanges I took the panel to the bench vise and used an dull old metal chisel to knock it in from the back. Stephan showed me this technique and it works really well.

Tomorrow the soft solder I ordered should arrive. Hopefully the repair on the offsite panel around the door catch will work out. Once this is done the panels will go to the paint shop. The final decision on which color the car will get has to be made by then. It will be British Racing Green (BRG) – the question which one? If someone has the color code suggestion for a really dark non-metallic BRG please post it in the comments 🙂