Scuttling along....

Whilst i'm waiting for the money pot to build up again, I've been doing what i can with what I've got. So, lets build the scuttle.

I started by marking the centre of the scuttle and how far the firewall will be from the front edge by aligning the alignment tabs 

(the firewall tabs are bent towards the engine bay)

I then clamped the two together and started to drill and rivet from the centre out.

 As I reached the curved part of the firewall I bent the sides of the scuttle to match the curve of the firewall (sorry, wrong pic, correct one missing )

 Using three bungy cords together with clamps worked quite well in holding everything together.

 I then temp clamped the scuttle to the chassis and applied the alpha adhesive and let it set over night.

The next stage was to bend the tabs of the dash support.....

line up the centre ( indicated by a nipple on the scuttle and dash support ) drill and rivet moving from the centre outwards. I used 6mm coutersunk rivets here. When drilling and riveting, keep the rivets to the front edge of the scuttle, as once done the protruding part of the rivet can be ground flush and trim can be fitted hopefully without it looking too bumpy.

Here's the finished article

I then applied Alpha adhesive and again let it set over night.

The dash temp fitted

Now that the scuttle is built, I thought I may as well play with my new tool, the Rivnut gun / Threaded Nut Riveter !!

 Well, I had never used one of these before, so here is a quick tutorial.

Choose the appropriate rivnut and mandrel to use.

Ok, STOP Make sure that you screw the threaded part of the mandrel into the tool fully ( reverse thread ). There is a spanner supplied with the tool in the handle. Then screw the knurled nut on. If you don't do this, when you fit the rivnut to the chassis and apply force, it will strip the thread of the mandel ( ask me how i know ).

Fit your Rivnut onto the mandrel.

Drill your hole into the chassis making it a tight fit for the Rivnut

Place Rivnut gun with Rivnut into hole ( a tip from a colleague is to apply a dab of thread lock on the rivnut ) and squeeze.

If you need more tension on the rivnut, turn the knurled knob indicated clockwise and squeeze a little more. Once happy, turn the knob anti-clockwise to unscrew the mandrel from the rivnut.

Easy when you know how

Ready for the scuttle ( p.s. these are the bolts that held the donor wings on 😉 )