21/11/04
The first front brake pipe goes from the upper master cylinder port, through a P clip on the chassis...
...then down to one of the original Metro T pieces bolted to the front subframe. A second pipe goes from the T piece to the O/S/F brake hose, which is attached to a small angle bracket.
A third pipe runs along the top of the subframe to the N/S/F flexible hose.
The handbrake lever bolted in position. The new cable was about 90mm too short, so I tried the old cable, which was exactly the same. I've extended the threaded rod section with a length of 6mm studding. The original adjusting nut is being used as a joiner in this picture, but I'll have to get a narrower threaded sleeve to do the job properly.
The handbrake cable comes through the rear bulkhead bracket, loops round to the compensator, then out to the inner trailing arm bracket on each side.
Some steel strip was used to make small brackets to hold the cables away from the trailing arm, shock absorber and brake pipes.
The gear lever and linkage in position. The lever needs to be shortened and bent backwards to give more knuckle clearance between it and the dash.
I've made a rubber seal where the rods go through the bulkhead, to keep the MSA scrutineers happy. The bottom of the rubber will be secured when the bulkheads are finally riveted to the L section joining the bulkheads and floor panel. I should have removed or covered the brake valve before drilling the bulkhead, to avoid any chance of swarf getting into that open port. Very naughty.
The driver's seat placed in position so that I can start planning the layout of the instruments, fuse/relay box and wiring loom.
The plan is to mount the Metro's instrument cluster to the chassis and/or the steering column, something like this. The dash panel will be a simple aluminium sheet with a Perspex window, through which the instruments can be viewed.
To give support at the front, two aluminium strips will be P clipped to the round chassis tube.
The instruments were too high with the mk1 version, so the mk2 version uses an exhaust clamp to hold the cluster further down the steering column.