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Domes Locost Kit car-Now Sold :(


dome

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Am a little confused, which is quite normal for me these days.

Without trawling through the whole thing I thought you had type 9 gearbox?

I thought standard type 9 had splines not flange, although there are many with modifications.

Is the flange adaptor plate fitted to the diff or the box?

It would be logical to me to fit a different flange if possible rather than use an adaptor.

Non of my ramblings will affect it working though, it will be fine when he's made it straight.

Propshafts are surprisingly cheap....I hope.

I originally thought it was a type 9 but it turned out to be an Omega box (getrag?) The adaptor is fitted to the box end.

 

Price isn't terrible, it'll be worth it if it cured the vibration

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  • 2 weeks later...

I picked up my new shaft for this last week...

 

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Due to the Civic taking up all my spare time I only got to it last night.

 

It was a colossal arse to get this back in. I had to split the shaft at the splined joint which being new was really fucking tight. I could then install that front half onto the gearbox and feed in the rest of it. Of course with the thing being so tight it took a lot of effort to get it back together. I was frustrated more because I was doing this at my lockup so kept having to come home for tools.

 

I got to this stage and gave up as I had other shit to do.

 

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There was about 10mm left to move it so I could reattach everything. I came back tonight with a rubber mallet and persuaded it back together.

 

A quick test drive showed it was much smoother at 60*mph, I'll hopefully get some more miles on it this week with the weather looking decent.

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Guest Hooli

I do hope you kept the two halves aligned when you split it as they are normally rationally balanced.

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  • 3 months later...

So, summer is nearly over and as normal I haven't driven this as much as I'd have liked to. To be fair, it doesn't take long to top up on my fix. It's pretty intense. 

 

The exhaust has been causing problems since last summer when the old silencer split at the end. My new exhaust fitting revealed that the downpipe had been held* together with exhaust wrap for a long time. 

 

The previous attempt to weld it up was unsuccessful so i fitted a bracket to support the exhaust and ease the strain on it. I then had a go at welding it up myself.  However, i can't weld. Access was also tricky. The exhaust is one piece from the manifold all the way to the silencer so couldn't be removed without chopping it up or removing bodywork. Needless to say this failed again in fairly short order. 

 

I have recently purchased a welder from Tickman of this parish. I decided it was time to do this properly.

 

The original setup. It was blowing from where the manifold goes 2 into 1, handily* placed for repairs.

 

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A bit of manhandling and the hole thing split off

 

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I needed to put a join into the exhaust otherwise I wouldn't be able to put it back on once I'd welded it. I chopped it roughly in line with where it goes through the bodywork.

 

This turned out to be a section where it had been sleeved and welded previously.

 

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I fired up the welder and began my task.

 

Those of a faint disposition, look away now. 

 

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Never had one lesson.

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The exhaust had clearly been causing problems for some time from looking at previous repair attempts. I had to manufacture* a patch for it and used high tech fitting methods to hold it in place.

 

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I used burning paper to try and see if there was any leaks, once satisfied I gave it a quick coat of high temp paint and moved on to try and work out how I was going to join it back together now.

 

I decided to resurrect the sleeved section that I'd chopped through originally which proved interesting.

 

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I was pretty happy with this.

 

The section these were going to mate to

 

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I squared off the ends and slotted them at 180 degrees so I could clamp it together then applied some more paint.

 

Except, I picked up the non high temp black paint instead of the correct one so had to sand it all off and do it again. FML.

 

Test fit off the car

 

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And back on the car

 

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Fired it up and I've not sealed it completely so will need to put some gun gum on it. Sadly I couldn't* test drive it as the MOT ran out when it was in bits, I'll get it in next week for one. A quick spin and it seems OK, the question is how long will it last?

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Yes, this thing still exists. Yes, sometimes i forgot that i owned it too.

So, not long after getting it back on the road I decided to take it a spin, probably it's last of the year I thought with it being October. 

Sadly, it definitely would be it's last of the year as I managed to crash it :(

Low speed (<20mph) heading towards an acute angled left hand corner into a bridge on a narrow country road and a car comes out of the bridge over the road on my side a bit. I jump on the brakes and cold tyres(R888s) and greasy tarmac causes me to lock up and smack into his RH rear door. Fuck.

His MPV thingy has aftermarket sidesteps which take most of the damage, my front RH suspension is fucked though. We sort it out without insurance, I buy and fit a set of sidesteps to his and we're both happy. If we'd went through insurance it would've been 50/50 at best so i took the hit. 

It sat in my lockup and I forgot about it as I was busy doing the engine swap on the MR2 and enjoying Knockhill. I'd been thinking about selling this before anything happened as I'd kinda decided I'd had my fun with it. Ironic as I'd managed to get it running and driving pretty well, it was a bit of a horror show in some parts when I got it.

 

 

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The main thing that put me off was the fact you can't pop down to your local factors and buy a set of wishbones for a 2005 Locost. They don't exist. And my manufacturing skills were zero. So it sat in my lockup forgotten about. 

At some point last year I discovered Rallydesign sell a full Locost wishbone kit, everything I need including bushes and new balljoints, the lower being from an Austin Maxi for extra shite points. I measured, calculated, measured again and decided it seemed to be a good fit so I duly ordered them up. On arrival I was happy to see that they fitted perfectly, however the inner sleeves for the mounting bushes were a larger diameter-I'd either need to drill out the mounting holes on the chassis or get new bush sleeves made up. I duly forgot about it again for a while.

Fast forward to lockdown and the ever wonderful @Tickman on here saw my cries for help and offered to turn down the old inner sleeves and press them into the new ones, solving that problem. He was far too efficient and had them back to me within a couple of days. Guess I'd better do something then!

Firstly, lets see if it runs after all this time. All fluids looked good, although the brake fluid was low-more on this later. I stuck a battery on it and cranked it over with the ignition off for a while to let some oil circulate and then...

 

 

Well, that gave me some motivation :)

 

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I'd somehow missed that you had crashed it :( glad no one was hurt and its going back on the road again, shame there's no trackdays to take it to yet.

I do like that fancy dashboard, what is it and how much of a job to fit ? 

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So, here's how it looked after 18 months or so of being forgotten about

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I removed the nose cone for access and started stripping it down

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The old LHS partly dismantled

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New vs old wishbones

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The old wishbones were home made and pretty skinny, however as they failed they saved the chassis so I'm not complaining. New ones are much nicer looking.

It all went together pretty smoothly with the exception of the lower shock mounts which are wider on the new wishbones. I'll need to source new bolts and some spacers but it's together for now to get it moving.

 

 

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Drivers side on first

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And then the LHS was fitted and it could get some wheels on and back on the ground for the first time in too long.

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19 minutes ago, spartacus said:

Liked for the thread resurrection and because I like the car, not for the accident though.:-(

Bad luck, will we be seeing a repair update soon?

Apologies, I find multiple posts easier when doing big updates as it's easier to organise the pics! Stay tuned!

9 minutes ago, gm said:

I'd somehow missed that you had crashed it :( glad no one was hurt and its going back on the road again, shame there's no trackdays to take it to yet.

I do like that fancy dashboard, what is it and how much of a job to fit ? 

It's a KOSO R2XN. A very nifty bit of kit designed more for motorbikes. I originally had a hall sensor type speedo running off the prop but upgraded to a GPS setup. There's a few different options folk use but the blue backlight and cool needle sweep won me over :)

https://www.koso.com.tw/products-detail.php?id=303&lang=en

The manual is very good and it covers all the functions you'd want including 0-60 and 1/4 mile timing. I've never tried these though. There are fake ones available on aliexpress but I've no idea how good they are.

9 minutes ago, Tickman said:

?

;)

9 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Glad you were OK, sounds like quite a big car that came round that corner.

 

It was a Highandry MPV of some variety. One of those things. If he wasn't over on my side a bit I wouldn't have panicked and jumped on the brakes. But, if I'd been hooning enough to get heat in the tires I would probably have stopped dead!

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5 minutes ago, dome said:

It's a KOSO R2XN. A very nifty bit of kit designed more for motorbikes. I originally had a hall sensor type speedo running off the prop but upgraded to a GPS setup. There's a few different options folk use but the blue backlight and cool needle sweep won me over :)

https://www.koso.com.tw/products-detail.php?id=303&lang=en

The manual is very good and it covers all the functions you'd want including 0-60 and 1/4 mile timing. I've never tried these though. There are fake ones available on aliexpress but I've no idea how good they are.

not as expensive as I'd thought - could be going on the (ever increasing) shopping list 

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So, with it now back on all 4 wheels I decided to pull it out of the garage for the first time. Although it had other ideas. Remember the low brake fluid? Yep, I had no  clutch. Bugger

I'd had issues with the clutch before, there's a leak somewhere in the system. It usually came back after a bit of pumping though. Fnarr. 

This time it didn't respond. It's the Omega gearbox but there's nowhere to bleed the clutch without stripping the gearbox out as far as I can see. Here's where the hose enters the box.

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In desperation I cracked off that union and let some fluid out, amazingly this fixed it and I had a clutch again! If any one can shed any light on how it should be bled properly I'd be grateful. Getrag 265/285 box from memory out of an Omega I think.

Hello world :)

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And here's the new suspension in daylight

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Tracking is miles out and it needs new steering arm boots as one has split. I adjusted the tracking a bit hence the boot is twisted in that pic. 

I insured it (£95 for the year) and took it a very quick spin as it's sans MOT and was raining. Nothing untoward apart from the tracking so that's good.

Next up is MOT. I want to get the Audi mobile again as it's blocking my driveway (still not got the wheels back from getting refurbished) and then get this along to my garage to get it ready. As well as tracking the steering column lower bush is knackered, I also need to do the lower shock bolts and I'll give it an oil change after it's sat and generally give it a fettle. 

It still does this very easily though...

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After it's ship shape and back on the road it'll be up for sale. I've loved having it and it's been great to tinker with-a total departure from working on a normal car as you literally have to make things up as you go along. And to drive it's amazing. I'm very glad I bought it but it's time for something different :) 

No swaps unless you have a Manta coupe somewhere ;)

 

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Think I've worked out how to bleed the clutch-turns out there's supposed to be a bleed nipple on the underside of the gearbox. Quick look at a photo of the box and oooh hello

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Will have a crack at that when it's back at the house and will try and get to the bottom of the leak-it may need a master cylinder. I've also got a bias adjuster for the brakes I never got round to fitting

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