Background


Of the many options and kits available we have chosen the South African Birkin - a kit which faithfully reproduces the beauty of Colin Chapman's original car and which you build up with component parts from the factory, adding in your choice of engine and transmission.



This holds true to the tradition of garden shed mechanics without requiring quite the level of welding skill, or CAD programming, that some of the amazing, home built clubman cars require. Or at least we hope not, as neither of us have done anything like this before.....



Sunday, January 23, 2011

Water Rail

We have finally added the water rail which is from Raceline. It's a lovely bit of engineering, with plenty of take-offs for temp senders and heaters. Due to the Birkin headers being a bit tall, it does need some modification to fit over the exhaust manifold of number one cylinder.
This was achieved with the angle grinder and a metal file. Rob from Meridian welded a plate over the resulting gap and once a few troublesome bosses were ground off the engine block the rail fitted as nature intended. It looks great!
Posted by at 8:21 PM

2 comments:

  1. UnknownMarch 31, 2011 at 1:43 AM

    Looking good, we are currently doing the same build as you in bendigo. how much was taken off the water rail to clear the exhaust.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kerry and AndrewMarch 31, 2011 at 6:18 PM

    Hi Matt - hope you're having as much fun as we are! I didn't take measurements but if you compare the first and second pics you can see where the flat surface with the hole (where a plug used to be) has been ground out and a curved plate welded in. Its about 10 -15 mm deep at the centre point ie where the header is closest. I just kept offering it up until there was enough cleareance, allowing for the welding of course. If you blow up the third pic you get an idea as it's in profile. Hope this helps, Cheer Andrew

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)