Bonnet Catches and Sikaflex

The main work for the weekend has been on the bonnet catches. There are two ways of securing the bonnet.

A pair of over centre catches on the outside of the body, that look pretty awful but make it harder for you to set off with the bonnet unlocked (leading to enbarrassing flying bonnet syndrome) - or a pair of nice looking locks that make it easier to pass the SVA test but are apparently right so and so-s to fit.

We have gone for the prettier trickier catches.

First job is to cut some holes according to the templates that come with them... The locks then need disassmbling and reassembling to fit through the bonnet. This is the relatively easy bit, as the next job is to align the catches with the lock on the inside of the bonnet and attach them to the chassis.

This requires triming of the bonnet return flange, the body and then raising up the catches on some sort of packing to get the right height.

Most of this work is done, but we don't have suitable thickness ali so will have to wait until that arrives in the post.

The other job we did today was to mount some cable tie posts onto the inside of the nosecone using Sikaflex so that we can cabletie the front grill in place - a horribly crude fixing mechanism but one that others seem to have used successfully. Here is Chrissy in her oh so fashionable purple disposable gloves applying the adhesive...