I have now fitted my windscreen to the car.
The windscreen itself is formed in a two part, male and female mould that Ken has made. The perspex man shapes the perspex into the mould and then we end up with a roughly shaped windscreen that needs trimming in all directions in order to be fitted to the car.
The first process is to fit the fibreglass angle brackets to the body. Once these are trimmed and fitted, Ken takes them back and glues the windscreen into them with Sikaflex.
To do this he has made a special, and complicated, jig that holds the fiberglass bracket upside down, and in the correct contour of the body to allow the perspex screen to be glued into it.
I needed to get my screen at a steeper angle than the one Ken first made, and was trial fitted in an earlier update, in order to get adequate clearance (min 50mm) around the steering wheel, so it was glued at a steeper angle in the mould.
When I got my screen back, glued to the bracket, I trimmed the bottom edge and fitted it to the bodywork. Unfortunately there must be a mismatch in Ken’s jig and the body of my car, as the bracket wanted to sit about 6mm off the body on the LHS where it meets the rollbar. Initially I thought that I would just pull it down with the fasteners, but then I worried that there would be extra distortion where the screen is cut at the door openings.
Eventually I discovered that the Sikaflex has not stuck well on my screen (to the fiberglass bracket) so I pulled it all off and will now fasten the screen to the bracket with silicon and pop rivets and similarly to the body. But it has allowed me to take some stress out of the screen by not “forcing” it into a shape that it didn’t want to take.
After the lower edge of the screen was securely fitted, I nervously marked and trimmed the top. I agonised over the decision, but eventually decided that the screen should completely cover the steering wheel, so the screen is cut about 50mm closer to the rear of the car than the face of the steering wheel, and then angles back down to the bodywork where it meets the rollbar.
The end result is that the screen is slightly steeper and higher that I initially would have liked, but altogether the final result is really good. No longer when a driver sits in the car does it look like he is sitting in a bath!
After the screen was secured, I cut the door openings on each side. This is where the stress in the Perspex is most apparent. To maintain a nice neat fit when the door is shut (and to keep the screen aligned at the high speeds that the McArlus achieves!!!!), I have made some aluminium brackets that slip over the join and keep it all neat.
Next there are some new fiberglass mouldings that act as scoops over the air intakes in the top of the doors. These help to duct air to the radiator in the left hand side and the oil cooler and voltage regulator in the right hand side.
They are a far neater solution to the problem that the folded piece of aluminium on the first car. Simon.
If this was on Facebook I'd be clicking the like button.
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