The Fraser factory has been a busy place to be as usual with lots of good progress being made on lots of our projects.
The end is in sight for a long term build of a VW beach buggy that we have been chipping away at over the last couple of years. The car was delivered to us in an uncompleted state and so far there is probably not a single part on the car that we have not touched to get it to the point of certification. These cars are a real struggle to get legal these days as they don’t really comply with current regulations and require lots of little things to bring them up to speed. We are there now having road tested it and it is going well so hopefully we should be able to hand it over soon.
Kevin’s 1976 Volvo c303 Overlander is making great progress. We have completed the disc brake conversion, mounted the power steering box, nearly completed the new steering column and are right in the middle of mounting the power steering pump to the engine block. This has been a real head scratcher due to the confined space in the engine bay, and the fact that the old 6 cylinder Volvo petrol motor doesn’t have any bolt holes for us to mount the pump to! We had to think outside the box a little bit and ended up mounting the power steering pump off the thermostat housing flange! As with most things on this build everything is outside the box but it definitely exercises the grey matter!
Bruce, our sheetmetal worker has been off work for the last couple of months with an injury. This has been terrible timing for our two Fraser builds which have been patiently waiting in the corner to have their alloy bodies fitted. Our two customers David and Wayne have been even more patient but finally I was able to give them some good news that Bruce is back at work and finally we are starting to see some progress. It’s great to see another few Frasers coming to life and we look forward to getting them ready to deliver.
The next build has started in the Fraser factory, this one is a 1975 Hillman Avenger. We have had the car acid dipped to reveal the true state of the body and we were blown away by how rust free it was. Next step was to fit the Nissan SR20 engine and gearbox into the engine bay. Custom engine mounts have been fitted to the cross member, custom gearbox mount fabricated to the body and the shortened Hilux diff has been dummy assembled to fit in the rear. This will need bracketry made up and the rear coilover towers built into the body. So far it is all going very smoothly, some might say a little too smoothly…
The Fraser Pit is back up and running again and we encourage you all to check it out. For those not familiar, it is an online workshop which allows us to document the builds we are working on as we progress. If you have a Fraser or even something else interesting lurking in your garage, we would love you to sign up and set up your own profile. It is a private forum so only accepted members can access it although you can give out guest passes if you want to show off your car to friends and family.
