80: Friday 11th December 2009

Had a good session for about 6 hrs. I made up the some vertical supports for the front of the battery brackets. I also moved the arrangement of the raised battery. Where it was enclosed by angle iron, I change the angle iron to outside of the battery area and relocated the fixing points on the cross brace. As space was so tight for the batteries, this change gave me 2x the thickness of the angle iron extra (12mm), and that makes all the difference at the front end. I then made the flat bar to go between the new vertical supports and fitted this all in the car. It was tight, but put the hood latch in exactly the right place and supports it fine. Now the hood shuts perfect and stays shut. With this all in place I started making the strap to hold the batteries down. The fixing points would be the cross brace and the slam panel at the front. This offers even more stability to the slam panel. I tried using flat bar and bending it, but after nearly ripping my vice off the bench and dislocating my shoulder, I decided that I would need to fabricate something from angle iron and flat bar. It looks like a bit of a "dogs-dinner", but by the time my wife has painted it with red Hammerite, it will be presentable (she likes painting the bits for me). So armed with a measuring tape, I set about cutting the various bits of angle iron and flat bar, I had the kit to make the bracket. I welded (yes, welded!) the first 2 bits together and called it a night.