Saturday, February 21, 2015

DBR1: Chassis, engine, body

The engine now has alternator, oil filter, carbs and a dipstick. The brass colour used for the carbs is a bit eye popping and I will probably put on a coat of dullcote to tone it down. I'll put on the exhaust manifolds once the engine is permanently in place, as they have to aim through the chassis tubes to an oval hole in the floor just right. One item that shows in the instructions, but that I can't find in the kit, is the cooling system standpipe and filler cap that seems to be attached to the front of the cylinder head, between the cams and above the water pump. There is another bit, with no obvious mounting point and with no mention in the instructions, that looks a bit like a starter motor, but which could, with a bit of squinting, be the missing cooling system filler. 


The chassis has acquired more little tubes, gussets and various other bits such as the steering column and pedals. The lack of mounting brackets for a range of things makes a lot of this guesswork, and hopefully I haven't glued something in that will interfere with some future installation. Particularly challenging will be the front suspension, which, in the absence of locating pins, leads to the possibility that wheels won't line up right with the fender openings.

Brownie points if you can spot the error in the chassis.

As I will be away for a few days on business, I also got brave and painted the body so that it would have time to dry before I get back late in the week. In the end, I picked Tamiya's TS-9 British Green, much darker than the pictures on the Profil 24 website but closer to what I've seen in online pictures. Of course digital pictures on a computer screen can be deceiving, and these pictures look darker than the car appears to the eye; this close approximation of BRG suits the car well and I won't worry about authenticity too much.
 



PS if you were looking for the error in the plug wiring in the last post about the DBR1, here it is: online photographs of restored DBR1's show that the left-hand distributor connects to the forward plug in any given cylinder, but I cut one of my wires too short, so the left-hand distributor connects to the rearward plug on cylinder #3 - the wire wouldn't reach the forward plug, and couldn't be lengthened as it was already embedded in the distributor. Essentially the leads for the plugs for #3 are reversed. No one got it, so the Brownie points go back in the pot for someone else to earn.

PPS Brownie points are rather unique as they are occasionally allocated by Members of the Browne family, a notorious bunch of know-it-alls, in recognition of Browne-class levels of nit-picking. It takes one to know one ... given the rather large burden of proof required, they are very rarely awarded and are thus much prized by the infrequent grantees. You've got another crack at it as the chassis photo above shows another screwup.

1 comment:

  1. So no one spotted the error in the chassis, or if you did, you were too shy to point it out to me. In case you were wondering, here it is: the chassis rails that run front to back, either side of the engine and cockpit, are upside down. This makes location of the support for the front torsion bars, and thus the location of the front wheels, somewhat problematical.

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