Q786 DPG was registered in Feb 96. I acquired it in October 97 after it had covered only a few hundred miles. The price was good and I knew there would be a number of problems - especially since I had in mind to use it as a daily driver. After several years I bought a house with a garage and it turned into more of a toy. These days I only occasionally tax and insure it, which is a shame, but the summer weather in the last few years has come and gone before I get inspired enough to splash the cash for the paperwork to get it road legal.

Rebuild

Anyone about to build a car might consider the following short list of the main problems I remember :
  • The weather gear didnt fit at all (not entirely unexpected)
  • The engine would die in the 1800-2000 rpm band if put under any load at all - Not great for pulling away ! Smoked a bit too - I had been told it was straight from a breakers yard.
  • Many electrical items did not work, in particular the 2 speed wipers has only one speed. Dead slow. And they only moved about half of the screen width. Washers didnt work as well - which was just as well - because...
  • Everything leaked the scuttle, screen, floor, inner wheel arches etc
  • Suspension was set ridiculously low and hard. Speed ramps were out of the question!
  • The handbrake adjuster hung so close to the prop shaft that occasionally it caught making a heck of a loud clanging sound. How it ever got through the test like that I'll never know.
  • Speedo didn't work.

Initial attension was focused on the practical issues. All the electrical connectors that had been exposed to water were rotted (after only 12 months). The original builder (bodger) had not pushed the rubber sealers into the back of the connectors allowing water to corrode the connectors. This cured most of the intermittent lighting etc.

Soft top

Second was the soft top. The poppers supplied by Westfield are hopeless if any tension is required on the roof. These were replaced with stainless twist fasterers from Euro Spares. I wanted the roof to be easy to fit even in the cold of winter and so the roof supports (which were too long anyway) were cut and pivots added to create over center levers. This works really well, the roof is fitted in a loose state, the two levers are raised and the whole thing snaps into place. The velcro loops that are designed to keep the roof bars in the correct place under the hood didn't work (the velcro slips) and so adjustable 1" wide adjustable straps were made to anchor the bars to each other and to the rear of the car. This too ensures exactly the correct roof shape can be maintained. Fitting my roof takes about 30 seconds (10 of which is getting out of the car:)

niggles

Wipers were next. The problem it turned out was that the motor was moving around considerably - driving itself rather than the wipers. The builder had realised this and added an extra bracket to try and stop the motor moving (it didn't work) and the reason was simply that the wiper drived a flexible 'worm' inside a metal tube. The tube should be clamped to the motor. Clearly the clamp was far too feeble to take the force of a pair of wipers. After some consideration I simply welded the tube to the motor case. That fixed it. Fast 2 speed wipers and no wobbling motor !

Spax adjustable shocks are great - I raised the car and softened it all round too. The front is just slightly harder than the rear now. (still pretty firm c/w production cars mind you...

The handbrake problem took some solving because tightening the cables sufficiently to clear the propshaft (when the suspension conmpressed) made the rear brakes bind when the handbrake fully off. Finally I added a new duct for the front part of the cable to support it and raise it well clear of the UJ.

The speedo cable had broken I guess because it had been forced around a very tight bend. Having bought another I re routed it and it is still OK 32,000 miles later.

Water proofing

Water profing is simply a case of disassembly and reassembly with some automotive flexible sealant ! This did take quite a bit of time. Not least because no grease or oil had been used on any of the bolts etc and even in a year some were hard to shift, especially those hex head dome bolts. Many bolts were stainless... but the nuts were only mild steel. For the future I splashed out on stainless nuts at the local yacht chandlers - and gave them a wipe of grease to make sure. In subsequent years I have become increasingly glad about that small investment in quality. To stop water from coming off the rear wheels and launching itself on a trip to the front of the car between the outer bodywork and the aluminum covering the space frame chassis. I used some expanding builders foam carved back to the profile of the inner wheel arch when set. An unexpected quality of this foam was its sound deadening ability. The car had a much more solid feel (sound) to it. Hitting a pothole etc now causes a dead 'thump' reather than a multitude of rattles and clangs. The inner wheel arches were also given a good coat of underseal to help bounce stones and muck off as well.