1966 Triumph 2000->2500->4000

Onwards and upwards with the transmission tunnel. Made a little closing plate to try and keep some vestiges of straightness in the panel as it's welded in place:



Welded that in place and made another CAD template.



Cornflakes for a change. Slightly larger package, material not quite as stiff as Shreddies but still perfectly adequate. In case anyone's making breakfast decisions with car fabrication in mind

Transposed into steel with an access panel cut out for the slave cylinder (spot where I welded a captive nut in the wrong place. Measure once, cut twice and all that.)



Weld that all up and we have a transmission tunnel that looks 90% complete from this particular angle!

Well, turns out there were plenty of non-Triumph things that needed doing, but I've managed to find some time to get a little more done now

Turned the slam panel CAD template into steel:




I've also drilled some bolt holes on the leading edge.

Attached to that are some little welded channels which will locate the radiator. I've ordered some 30x30mm poly rectangular bar from aliexpress to give a bit of vibration isolation. Until those arrive I've used some blocks of wood cut to the right size for test fitting:




There's some on the lower valance as well, which means it all fits together like so



Next up is the heater matrix I think

Many years ago I had great success in making some ducting from raw grey/brown card, all stuck together with the odd piece of masking tape, the less tape the better, this, once trial fitted was then covered in polyester/fiberglass resin all the joints were covered in strips wrapping tissue and bonded in too, lightweight and surprisingly rigid,
The Raw card I'm referring too is the sort of stuff you can get in arty shops for model making, its a bit like stiff grey felt, no dressing or finished surface, but absorbs resin nicely

Not my original Idea, I think I read it in StreetRodder magazine good few years ago.

The next (and current) big task is sorting out the front subframe and steering rack. The first issue is that to get the engine under the bonnet the sump is resting on the subframe:



Easy enough to sort with a zippy death disc.



Bit of a clean up and paint with zinc primer, and made a new top for it.




Easy peasy.

Far more challenging is the steering rack, which is the last major obstacle before everything is just regular swap stuff. Normally it sits above the level of the subframe, right through some important bits of Jag engine. My plan is to drop it down underneath the sump, but space is truly at a premium here.

I tacked some bits of angle iron on the bottom of the subframe to act as a level resting place for the rack and started work. Got it to within 1mm of level, so a little shim came in handy.



First obvious issue (which luckily I'd forseen before clearancing the top) is that the crossover pipes of the rack would intersect the subframe as it kicks forwards to clear the Triumph sump. Luckily, a bit of measuring showed that the subframe is in fact completely reversible (bar the rack mounts which are changing anyway). Flip it around and it kicks back, away from the crossover pipes.

Just needed some cutting to clear the turret thingy.



What became immediately obvious after getting it into position was that ground clearance was going to be pretty badly effected if the bottom of the rack centre tube was made level with the bottom of the subframe because various gubbins stick out below it. Having the rack as the lowest point of the car by well over an inch is less than ideal.

Cue lots and lots of measurement to work out where I can steal a bit of clearance. At its current position there should be 12mm of clearance to the bottom of the sump so most of that can go. Next place to look was in the sump itself.



There's oil pipes running from the front-mounted oil pump back to the sump, but using some oily tissue in lace of play dough I worked out there was some usable space beneath them I could make a cutout with. Cue some more chopping (made less tense by the fact that I have another sump if I mess this one up).



That allowed some more precise measurement showing there was maybe another 9mm I could sneak if I kept the same 4mm thickness of sump.



So I plumped for spacing the rack up by 15mm:



...which means the lowest immovable point is only 13mm lower than the subframe, which can be protected with a skid plate or something like that.



Next up is mounts!

Yep that's what I thought when I looked under there the first time!

I'm hoping it will. There's a factory windage tray (love the AJ6) which has a little space between it and the crank so if it pools at the front it should be able to sneak through in places. Might lose some of the benefits of the windage tray, but better that than ripping my rack off on a speed bump!

The front of the sump seems to have its own little pool of oil at any rate as the oil pump sits in a depression which was full of oil when I whipped the sump off.

Intriguing. Took me a while to find squaure stock made from poly. Half of the challenge is knowing what words to search for! Will have a look into rotary printing press stuff. Bet it's the same thing...

Looks like useful stuff for many little jobs.
Linky to Ali pretty please

Haha I can see it coming in useful in some of the dodgier parts of the world! No-one wants to get beaten round the head by a 24" lump of rubber. No telling what it could be!