Overview

This blog is intended to document the build of my Gardner Douglas Mk4 Cobra; partly as IVA evidence, bit primarily to help others learn from my mistakes and/or successes.

I will endeavour to post as often as possible, with a view to entering a single post for a particular element of the build process, however inevitably some things may not be completed in one go. All posts will be tagged so it should be easy enough to find the information you seek.

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Showing posts with label heater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heater. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 April 2016

Heater box take 2

If you've read my previous post you'll now know how not to fit the heater box! To repair this first effort I sellotaped over a small piece of plywood and taped that over the holes in the passenger footwell, then filled from other side with P40.

This time, I marked the centre of the heater on the lower rear edge the offered it into position before dismantling it, I then marked across the bottom edge and transferred the centre line on to the body.

The heater was again taken apart and the empty box held in position using the marks made in the previous step, I then sprayed through fan mounting hole with some primer I had lying around. This outlined a rectangle and screw holes where the outlets fit.

Two of the holes were pilot drilled which allowed me to fix the outlet ports to the footwell bulkhead with self tappers and mark the holes. These were then drilled out from the footwell side.

To mark the mounting bolt holes I placed a few layers of masking tape on the front of the bulkhead and; with the outlets installed and mounting bolts screwed in from the inside, pressed the box in to position. This was enough to mark the tape so these were drilled out to 10mm to give me a bit of wiggle room.

Now the heater can be reassembled and bolted in position to mark the heater hose outlets. I had already pilot drilled the holes for the battery cables so used the top one of these as a reference to measure from to the straight outlet. These measurements were transferred to the engine bay side and the first hole pilot drilled. I then measured 65mm rearwards from the other outlet and pilot drilled again, the holes will be opened out fully when the engine bay bulkhead has been gelled.

The heater has been removed again for now while install the wiring loom.

Mounting bolts inserted wrong way around to mark bulkhead

Installed as seen from footwell, you can see how far out I was the first time! 

Installed from wheel arch compartment, I used the upper of the two battery cable holes on the left to measure from for the outlets

Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Heater box take 1...

So this was my first major cock up on the build, thankfully it's only inside the battery/heater compartment and not on the outside!

The manual states that the heater needs to be mounted as high up and as far outboard as possible which makes perfect sense. I started by dismantling the heater so I was left with an empty box with no ends on, four M8 rivnuts (I would have used M6 but the nozzle for my tool is broken) were installed ensuring the bottom two wouldn't fould the heater matrix.

I then made a cardboard template which was offered up as high and outboard as possible, holes marked on the bulkhead which were then drilled out. I then put the two outlets back on the box and made sure they fit which they did, great I thought.

What I didn't consider was the fact that when the matrix is back in the outlet pipes protrude inboard and prevent the whole assembly going high enough, so my holes are too high.....doh!

These will need filling and I'll start again....

Heater box fully assembled 

Heater box fully disassembled 

Cardboard template put in wrong position, do copy this! 

Even worse, loads of holes in the wrong place, out with the P40