What a change a month makes! With soaring Covid cases we are thankful that the Fraser factory is a small tight knit team. So fingers crossed we can keep working and avoid the staff shortage shutdowns that bigger companies are or will be suffering soon.
The floor has been a busy place again with lots of progress happening on lots of cars. Peter’s KE25 Corolla has had the fabrication on the diff, front and rear suspension and the front and rear brakes all completed. It is now back on the ground at its proper ride height and we have begun repairing a few sneaky bits of rust that we have discovered along the way. The engine bay has all been smoothed, with all unnecessary holes welded up and brackets removed. The final thing to do is to fabricate all the custom brake and clutch reservoirs, radiator overflow and catch can, then we can strip the car down for paint and rebuild all the subframes etc. We are all really enjoying working on this car – I think its because it is the sort of car we all used to muck about with when we were teenagers, only we were doing it by cutting springs and running no air filters for more performance! Come to think of it, this may be why cars like this are hard to come by nowadays!
We have had a few delays in our two new Frasers unfortunately. We have had to make a few design changes to our front end for new cars going forward, current cars are all good so no need to worry your pretty little heads! We have had to change our tie rods from rod ends to proper tie rods joints which in turn interfered with our brake rotor. This means we have changed our front brake kit for clearance. The new tie rod ends als meant changing our steering rack height and length to tune out the bumpsteer this caused. While we were at it we decided to change our headlight mount to shift the headlight back 20mm. This allows us 15mm more wheel travel in the front suspension. A bit of a can of worms but we are through the worst of it and going forward will be a big step in the right direction. Last month I rambled on about our new Subaru diff installation, this has all been completed and we are stoked with the way it turned out. Not long now and we can complete the brazing process and get them off for sandblasting and powdercoating.
Chris’s Caterham is well on its way to being put back together. This is an ex race car out of the UK which has had a bit of a hard life. The main issue being it has had the front half of the chassis replaced at some point. Getting something like this through certification and compliance these days is a bit of a lengthy process, we have had to strip all the alloy off the car except the side skins to expose the repairs to the chassis, and once stripped we discovered further tubes that needed replacing. This has all been done and documented so we can now throw the car back together and submit it for its final LVVTA inspection. While the work turned out to be necessary, the delays for certifier inspections are long and tedious!
That said, Stu’s Fraser has passed its final LVVTA inspection so the next thing to deal with is to have the replacement bonnet painted and then send the car through compliance. These should be happening soon so expect to see Stu out on the road before summer is out!
