It's Starting to Look Like a Car. (Patreon)

Some leftover photos from last week that I hadn't posted yet, mostly just the filler work to the 3d prints and then some beauty shots of the part fresh out of the mould.

We knew the part wasn't going to fit straight onto the car because of the flange as well as a lot of the metalwork getting in the way and so my goal for this week was to trim it all out and get the panels all sitting on the car.

This is the main problem area.

This upper beam or rail or whatever the terminology is, clipped through our design. There was really no way to tweak the model to get it to work without cutting it.

Here I got really bad at taking photos because I kinda got distracted with the excitement of finally fitting this piece, but I do have some crappy phone pics that at least explain what I did.

So there were about 50 or so spot welds holding this upper piece in, once it was removed we had the lower side which is actually the firewall, obviously we'll want to avoid cutting any of that, and then the higher side is just the inside of the car.

I also removed the original soft top since it will no longer be needed and it weighed more than the entire center section of fiberglass it felt like.

After this I marked and cut the higher side so that they were both the same height and then we were able to test fit the rear clamshell. And it looked so unbelievably stupid that I kinda lost all motivation for the build and didn't even want to take photos of it, which was not a great start. So I spent yesterday doing some arts and crafts with my various amazon boxes and the spare wheel until I had all the shapes mocked up, then it was looking a bit better.

These panels that I've mocked up in cardboard really don't need to be made out of fiberglass or 3D printed at this stage because they are just flat panels, and so when I get around to buying a van I'll just buy these as sheets of plywood from the hardware store. The plug for this car is going to be a bunch of different materials but all it needs to do is give me the shape I need to make my final moulds. Overall fitment between the clamshell and the center section is probably on par for a 90's race car. In other words pretty trash. But I was expecting that which is why I added all the flanges and reinforcing to the rear clamshell when I redesigned it.Honestly I was expecting to have to cut the fiberglass in order to get it to fit but it's resting on that metal frame in exactly the right spot so I don't have to do anything.

So I guess the next step now that I've confirmed everything actually fits is to go ahead and take the front and rear clamshells off and start actually mounting the center section where it needs to go.