building an Exocet kit car - lockdown 1 project creeps into lockdown 2

[-gm-]

while stripping the loom, I'd removed the lighting circuits to keep things simple - now it's time to remake them

the kit comes with led fittings for the rear of the car - not the prettiest but IVA compliant and simple to fit

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I'll probably tint them at some point

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the tail lights fit to the mudguards, the fog and reverse to the tank cover, both of which are conspicuously absent from my build just now - solution : a diy trailer board

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hmm, not so sure about that - bung some juice in and see if it helps ?

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or how about up here ?

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looks suitably mental

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[-gm-]

the wiring was starting to do my head in so I needed a nice easy job to get my motivation back

lets have a go at fitting the seats then

the donor car came with these

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or I could fit these from my other mx5

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but what I'm actually fitting is

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just a simple* job of bolting on the runners and drilling holes into the chassis

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and they are about as comfy as they look ! I'll be fitting some foam padding before this hits the road (kayak seats are apparently ideal as water resistant)

[-gm-]

a kayak seat pad, yesterday

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that wiring is still all over the shop but I'm not ready to tackle it just yet

let's have a look at brakes instead

the donor car was a 1.6 that has smaller brakes than the later 1.8 mx5, ideally I'd like to upgrade them but, as this is a budget build, the originals will make do with a clean up for now (the mx5 racing series is based on the 1.6 car and brake upgrades are not allowed - if standard brakes are good enough for them, I can't see them being an issue here, the exo will still weigh less than a stripped race car)

bit manky though

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some wire wheeling later

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and a couple of coats of top* quality eBay calliper paint

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they won't be seen much behind the steelies I'm planning to use anyway

[-gm-]

so back to the subject of wiring - those choc a blocs are needing to go, time to whip out my trusty soldering iron

which conveniently ran out of gas at 5pm on a Sunday afternoon - I had to trapse round five convenience stores before I found one that could provide me with the necessary refills

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lots of chopping, joining, heat shrinking, cable tying etc...

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note the shiney silver box is the new Cobra Immobilibiser - that was a piggy to get right

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about half way there, and it still runs

dashboard end is still a bit of a mess

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moving into three dimensions helped untangle things (jump lead hanging from the ceiling to hold stuff out of the way)

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a big improvement - multiplugs will replace the choc a blocs under the dash

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[-gm-]

the original pop up headlight switch has been repurposed as a fog light switch

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but then my fancy dan switches arrived from china, much nicer

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lets have a wee seat and check out the drivers view

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feels great, the original mx5 geometry is still there, the new seat is extra low down, I can't wait to get this thing moving

[-gm-]

so as we enter lockdown 2, some pics of where we are at just now - brakes still need fitted (rears haven't even been painted yet), mudguards, a couple of panels, bonnet, tank cover, mirrors and headlights and we're nearly there

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ground clearance is between 5-6 inches, will be tight on the speed humps

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[Hooli]

Those seats look like they'll be awful for more than a couple of miles.

[-gm-]

those fancy dan switches should fit neatly into the corners of the binnacle

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I wasn't sure about the red on white dials but they do look good at night (note : zero miles - it is a new car, after all )

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original mx5 for comparison

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[-gm-]

another vido from the day I got the thing running

[Hooli]

I prefer green dials. Red is horrible, I know the theory it doesn't affect night vision but it always seems to bight to me.