Wiring and fuse box

Thomas and I spent an hour tidying up the race car wiring so it will hopefully all sit away behind a dashboard cover, yet to be fabricated. We also  mounted the fusebox and drilled a few drain holes in the floor to get rid of excess rainwater. The BIG RED SAFETY Cut off button will sit on a panel just in front of the gear lever. 
I'm waiting now on a quote for the rollcage parts, I might be able to get them ready bent and prepared to weld straight it, which will save a lot of measuring and fettling, although it will doubtless be more expensive than bending the tubes myself. Otherwise I have a choice to make - round tube which is preferred and stronger, but a pain to work with, or square tube, which is lighter, but not as strong, although easier to work with. 

The wiring may not look the prettiest, but it is functional. I dare say there is more I could do away with, but in the absence of a wiring diagram I dare not cut out any more. I don't want to damage the ECU or immobiliser circuits, and really don't know what is what out of what is left!

Ignition and wheel arch repair.

A little more done on the race car this morning. The wheelarch is now repaired with plate and weld, skim filled and sprayed to keep the water out. Not my usual perfect six/seven day body repair because it doesn't need to be flawless. And before anyone points out the colour match being off, yes I know, I haven't gone colour blind it was what I had on the shelf. The whole car will get a flash over once it's complete, so colour isn't important right now, just sealing it from the elements. The other pics show the new location of the ignition switch, with the new bracket welded to support it. Other jobs today included welding two additional anchors on the trailer for lashing the car down in transit. I have also cunningly recycled the old seatbelt mounting rails which will become the rear most anchor points on the trailer. Clever huh?

Ignition Lock and safety switches.

Back in the '80s smashing an ignition lock off a car and hot-wiring it proved a simple challenge, achieved with little more than a length of scaffold tube and a penknife. Not that I would know anything about that of course. Of course not. No not even a little bit. Well maybe a very little bit. Okay I wired a few cars - well more than a few. But all for legitimate reasons.
So why did it take me so long to get the lock off the Nissan Micra racecar? Well I didn't want to smash it, that's why I suppose. I needed it undamaged, so it was a lot of cautious grinding and levering to remove it intact. Regulations state that the steering lock must be removed so there is no risk of the wheel locking during a race. The Micra has an immobilizer as standard, and not knowing at the moment how to overcome this I have elected to keep the original ignition switch, but it needs to be relocated so that it is still within the reach of the driver when belted into the seat in a harness. My arms are longer than those of the boy child Thomas who will also be driving, but some careful re-routing of the existing wiring should allow it to mount on a bracket welded to the transmission tunnel by the handbrake for left handed operation. The BIG RED BUTTON will be fitted alongside - this is the kill switch for emergency engine stops. This isn't a requirement, however I think that it will be easier in the event of a problem, for Thomas to hit a big red button than to worry about shutting down fuel pumps, ignition circuits etc.
Regulations do however require a kill switch mounting outside of the car on the scuttle panel, so that the car can be shut off by the track marshalls in the event of a major crash or rollover, so one has been ordered off Ebay for the princely some of £3.49.
I have also ordered the petrol tank. This is a bespoke 5 litre aluminium tank, which at £65 has cost me almost as much as the car did, but worth every penny as it will bolt straight into the gap where the wiper motor used to sit, saving a lot of time and hassle.
Next job tidying up the wiring, then the old fuel tank can come out. Things are progressing nicely.

MOT failure restore - I doubt it would pass now though.....

I put another couple of hours in on the Micra Race Car. All the windows are now out and the wiring harness is half out but I need a wiring diagram before I dare chop any more - I've already lost the battery warning light system by cutting something I shouldn't have done, fairly confident I can put that right though. So tonight was a chance to do the structural repair that caused the car to be an MOT failure, the holed inner wing close to the rear seat belt mounting. The repair ain't pretty but it should be structurally sound, the original metal was like lace, and very thin to start with except where it was factory reinforced around said seatbelt mounting. The metal I have welded in is about three times as thick, and links to the seatbelt mounting, reinforcing the reinforcement as well as filling the MOT failure hole. I also tacked a repair patch onto the wheelarch, and tomorrow Thomas will be learning the noble art of plastic body filler to make it look reasonable and prepare it for paint. Theoretically it would then pass an MOT on that point, but as it's now sans glass, lights, wipers etc etc I somehow doubt it will ever pass an MOT again. It will however be fit for racing. 

Next step will be to do a couple of remedial jobs on the race trailer before I can take the car to the man who will be bending the tubes for the roll cage.

Electrical wiring - bomb disposal

Electrical wiring - bomb disposal - do I cut the blue wire or the red??????

It's blooming nervewreckingly complicated without a wiring diagram. 

The car has an ECU, which needs to remain, and an immobilizer, which seems to need to remain.

But surely all this spaghetti is superfluous? 

I'll keep on cutting until the car stops then rejoin if necessary.

Glass out.

Found a little time this afternoon to remove all the glass from the racer.  Door glass was easy enough, I've done loads of roll down windows before so knew what to expect. simple nuts and bolts. Side windows refused to come out with the string method I've used in the past, just too tight in the seals, so as it's not likely to ever need them again I used a Stanley knife to cut the rubbers and pop the glass out neatly.
The front windscreen proved to be even more awkward, a bonded in windscreen was new ground for me. The correct way to remove it involves a cheese-wire saw which I don't have. Attempts to slip a flexible blade behind the screen to cut the bonded seal cracked the glass, so it was then a case of be damned and use brute force. In a scene worthy of Hollywood I kicked the screen out from inside. Sadly it doesn't work like in Hollywood, where the screen would readily pop out in a single albeit cracked chunk. Instead it shattered to bits held together by the laminate, and took a lot of cleaning up afterwards.
The rear hatch glass is even trickery, being curved much more towards the edges. But then inspiration struck - a gas torch and a flexible wallpaper scraper later and the glass reluctantly let go.
So now we have a glass free car ready for a rollcage and some remedial repair welding. And that damned wiring harness to finish with.

Boys and their toys

They say that men never stop playing with toys, the toys just get bigger and more expensive. This may be true. I have just acquired another car. But this time instead of a daily driver, or a classic this time it's a racing car......in my mind.

It's an MOT failure Nissan Micra, bought off Ebay for the princely sum if £100. The plan is to turn this into a Class One Autograss racer for me and my son Thomas to play in. This will be done on a very limited budget, hence our temporary team name of Budget Autograss. I'll probably think of a better name later.
If you are new to the Autograss racing world, as I am, then a simple explanation is as follows.
Class one is entry level racing and the cheapest way into motorsport I can think of for a Dad and his soon to be 12 year old son. In a Class one car Dad can race in the seniors, and son can race (from age 12) as a Junior, using the same car, which has to be of a certain type and built to rigid specifications. The choice includes the original Mini, the Micra, Citroen Ax, Toyota Yaris and some small peugeot or other, I forget which, all of which have a 1.0 litre engine.
Racing takes place on an oval 1/4 mile dirt track, so whilst a 1 litre motor might not sound fast, it is fast enough, I doubt the cars ever go beyond second gear, and because the cars are so evenly matched it's close racing. I have watched for a couple of seasons, and no Thomas is old enough to join in, we've decided to give it a go.
Having spoken with a few drivers they all advised as a novice, I should buy a car ready built. Well I looked around and watched a while on ebay with cars coming and going, but they were either prohibitively expensive, or tired looking wrecks. So I ignored all advice and bought a car to build myself. And hence this blog, a diary of the trials and tribulations of a first time racer building his own car from scratch, and hopefully going on to race it in the 2015 season. That gives me around 7 months to build it, and as part of the team building exercise Thomas will be helping too.

The first hurdle was obtaining a reasonable size and reasonable price trailer - ebay again. A trailer was located and purchased for a bargain £200, but needed new brakes, a new jockey wheel, a lighting board and corner steadies to stop it tilting or putting excess strain on the tow car when the race car is loaded. It also needed some lashing hooks welding on and new mudguards fabricating. All of that plus a set of four wheel straps to hold the car on burst Mays budget, totally up to just over £350 all in. This is a recoverable expense however, as the trailer would now sell for much more, and will always hold it's value.

For the car I spoke with a couple of friends in the motor trade and asked them to keep an eye out for any MOT failures or trade ins, of the right sort of car. I could expect to pay £150 they said, as that is scrap weight value. I was well chuffed to get the bargain £100 Micra then, even if I did have to drive to Manchester to collect it.

Striping the non essential parts of the car comes next, and the lights mirrors and various other parts were immediately put back on Ebay. So far both rear lights have sold, plus a door mirror and the number plate plinth, recouping a few quid (although postage eats the profits) I could have got more for the parts I suppose, but I priced them to sell quickly, and so far parts to the value of £35 have sold. Coins to the value of 65 pence also turned up in the car, so it now stands me just £66.15.

So far, the seat and interior have been stripped out, lights and wipers removed along with their motors. I am slowly stripping back the wiring harness, which is an incredible weight, to the bare essentials. Without a wiring diagram it is slow work - I feel like a bomb disposal officer every time I cut a wire. Once that's done the glass can come out. I'm trying to keep it water tight as long as possible, as it's more pleasant to work in the dry. Then there will be a couple of welding jobs to do before the build starts. More soon.