Cameron's Romero Build

[cameronfurnival]

My build started over five years ago. Its not that I'm slow (ok it is) but also the nature of my work has been that I have had several projects on the go at once - at least that's my excuse. Also, coupled with having three kids who were of an age to start motoring, one who just breaks things, one who fixes things till they break and my daughter who just crashes into anything, I spent a lot of my free time fixing up their cars too!

Anyway. having had multiple sportscars over teh years and being quite adept at teh restoration thing, I decided to have a go at a kit car. My first look at kit cars was back in 1983 when my gran showed me a pic of a morganesque thing glued on a vw chassis - I knew I would build my own car one day after that! Stoneleigh in 84 nearly saw me buy a Merlin but then marriage, kids, mortgages (not necessarily in that order) came and went until a few years ago I saw an unstarted kit on ebay. It was advertised as with most parts to complete etc etc so I put in a cheeky bid of £300 and won it. It was advertised as a Marlin YKC Romero; I knew what a Marlin was so thought it would be a good car to start my kit car experience with. Off we went down to Aldershot in a hired tail lift and loaded it all in. It came with a Rover V8 too.

Anyway, back home it seemed that most parts to complete was actually no parts to complete. And, everything that had already been done was either back to front or upside down or just wrong. So it was a complete new build from the ground up - which suited me fine. I got in touch with Don Burt and got a copy of the build manual (a few bits of photocopied paper stapled together - often with notes added like "say how to make this bit here" written in.

Don had retired and was taking his helicopter licence, he had bought a Robinson R44 and wanted to claim the vat back on it so set up a business as a helicopter taxi, I made him a quick website to promote his new business and as a favour he sent me loads of photos of cars in various stages of build. THis was most useful as it showed pretty much how everything fitted.

The rover V8 was far too big so I sold it, I had done a lot of work on it and a lot of polishing - it went on ebay and I got £750 for it from someone who wanted it for a spitfire project (triumph spitfire!). A lucky bid on ebay got me a twinc out of a Sierra XR4i complete with EFi so that's what went in...

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[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

You will notice on the photos above that the alternator has been chopped off (it was replaced with a Denso mini unit on home made brackets.
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I had to make a new pulley for it but it works fine, my local motor factors found a belt which would fit.
Notice also I did away with the plastic sierra steering column bearing and replaced it with a part from Bearing Boys. (A mod I copied from rhocar).

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

So the DOHC was in, all looked good and I moved on to other things like seat belt mounts, riveting in the floor pans, working out how to get petrol pipe through the tiny gap between the diff cage and the bodywork (Re-route it is the answer). I found an original escort fuel tank dropped in the xr4i fuel pump and thought it might need baffling; the fuel rail has some capacity for spare fuel but not much. I guess this is an area I might revisit. SVA changed to IVA and so I re-did all the work I had done so far to check it complied with the new legislation as best it could. I seem to think it all depends on who you get on the day to carry out the test!

[chris_cussen]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

I think you are right about the IVA test. With 280+ pages and 5 hours to do the test they can't do everything. My test was the first IVA test performed by the examiner and being in Taunton he knew about Marlins and knew Mark and Terry. As a result he concentrated on things it was important to test (brakes, steering etc.) ignored items he thought would pass anyway (light positions, space for the number plate...) and did a selection of tests that were new to him (mudguard coverage arcs, Seat headrest heights etc...). My first time fail points were radius on the mudguards, exposed bolt heads on the forward facing front suspension, speedo calibration (it worked fine up to 35 mph then showed double the actual speed!) and a that was about it.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

That doesn't sound bad at all Chris, Danny was regaling me with all sorts of things that people have failed on recently.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

So the next thing to do was assemble the floor pan and check there was room for a prop and all that entails...
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I also trial fitted as many of the parts that had come with the kit as possible. Fortunately I had an almost complete set of body panels so they all went on next. Most needed quite a bit of fiddling as there were no instruction as to how they fitted and the Romero bits all seemed slightly different to the Roadster bits referred to in the build manual.
In this pic you can see that I didnt get the engine lined up as well as I had hoped. THis became really noticable when I fitted the propshaft and started it up in gear - the thing tried to wobble itself to death! HOwever, £2 on a laser pointer soon changed everything and a new set of engine mounts cured the wobble completely (now everything was in a straight line!).

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[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

Seatbelt mounts were next. The instructions were quite clear on this bit as its new for the later cars. A piece of 1" box is welded to a threaded boss and screwed to the rear cross panel behind the seats. THen a triangular bracing section is bolted to that and the top of the suspension mounts. I also decided to weld these together for extra strength. Belt and braces I guess but I feel better for it!

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You will notice a hole drilled in the 1" tube for the inertia reel to be bolted too. This wouldn't pass IVA unless the hole is sleeved so I made it all a bit stronger and welded on some 3mm bracketry which will do the job much better.

I also fabricated some spreader plates for the lower mountings (for the stalks) but these cant be fitted until the belts are put in with the seats as they need to be accurately located to comply with the IVA requirements and seat position.
I found a lot of what I have been doing relied on something else being done and there comes a time when you have to just get on with it and rectify mistakes later if they arise.

A case in point was the bonnet hinges. None came with the kit and I managed to contact someone at aquila (a rare moment) who told me they would supply me a pair at £46 each. I made my own! I had a couple of goes, once using peugeot hinges but although these looked fab they couldnt be made to clear the screen clamp so I reverted to my copy of the original design.

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and here you can see them on the bulkhead alongside the wiper (that's another story in itself!).
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[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

Wiring went in next. A got a loom from PWS - what a lovely chap, so helpful, my loom was a sierra one but I had to splice my own engine management loom in. It wasnt too difficult but needed a lot of patience. The wiring wasnt too bad but there was some confusion over the column switch colours, it seemed my stalks were from a different car and so there was a bit of cross over between the colours and positions of the terminals.

I also decided against the stock dash (didnt have a 2" radius on the bottom) and made my own by sinking triumph gauges into recesses in plywood (and an electronic speedo from Nick - cheers)

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I also found on ebay (incoorectly labelled!) a cossie type wheel and I had teh YKC logo printed up by http://www.domedbadge.co.uk/

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

Next I gave the engine bay a tidy up, everything is working in there nicely (touch wood) and theres even a bit more room now the engine is lined up better! Red silicon hoses add a touch of bling and the coolant is topped up and the engine run up to temp. on a home made exhaust (soon to be remade).

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Ally panels have been etch primed, and all the panels fitted (well fitted as best they can - plenty of fettling still to do before paint).

Note I fitted gas rams to the bonnet and this pic shows how it fits into the available space. God knows how Brian Wesby has got V8 in there!engine.jpg

[Mike]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

Hi Cameron

This is the benefit of lots of photos - and cross fertilisation at its best!

Couple of questions:

What diameter is the Cossie steering wheel?
- this looks a safe bet for the IVA test (my Momo will certainly fail) and obviously is a standard fit to the Sierra column.

How did you work out what length, and strength, gas struts to get for your bonnet? I am considering the same for my boot, because it is incredibly heavy with a large alloy and wide tyre sat on it?




PS
Is there anyway to recover a "lost" page - it is damned annoying if you nip off the page to find something and forget to do it in in a new tab!

Mike

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

Hi Mike - the wheel I have fitted is 14" diameter compared with the 15" of the standard sierra wheel. It seems to fit quite well. It is also 1/2" shallower so doesn't sit as close to the driver as the ordinary wheel. One thing to be aware of is that by using a ford wheel on a ford column with all that entails makes it IVA proof as it is a type-approved design. Loving your photos by the way, you have really done some work.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

The gas struts came from a citroen saxo tailgate. I tried one and it worked ok and held the bonnet up but two actually raise the bonnet nice and steadily. I simply screwed a L shaped bracket to the underside of the steel strengthening ribs on the grp bonnet and drilled the plastic cup on the ram to accept an M5 bolt. The other end of the ram has a threaded rod which I was able to use with another L shaped bracket. HOpe this helps - I can get pics if that's not clear.

[Robert in Cumbria]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

Hi Mike, very interesting, pictures especially, a picture tells a thousand words especially with car building!

If you loose the text of a post before you hit the Submit button start another post and there is the opportunity to rescue a lost post.

I just did it on this post, here is a screenshot:


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[cameronfurnival]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

well some news! Since retiring from the day job last December I find I have had even less time to spend on my car - how does that work??? ANyway - accompanied by several eager foster children I entered the garage and plugged the battery in, did a few little jobs including lowering it to the floor and turned the key. cough cough cough brrrrrrrrrrm. Reverse gear - snick - handrake off and it drove out of the garage under its own steam - big grin. Obviously as I was just moving it so I could tidy the garage I didn't take it for a blast up the drive NOT!!! whooooo. So there - it does actually work, all the gears engage, the brakes stop it and the steering wheel turns the wheels in the right direction - what more can you ask?

[dcunn]

Re: Cameron's Romero Build

Great News, well done....................................not too far to go now (hehehe)

B Rgds DC