HM-2030 Build Log - The Storm Ahead

[Redstang69]

Wiring looks nice and clean Greg.

[FFR428]

Very nice Greg. Is that the rubber edging we were talking about?

[Greg K]

Thanks Ben...yes that's it Glenn.

[Greg K]

Had the day off and spent some time working on the car today. Got the wheels and tires back on and off the jacks from last weekend.
Made a pair of brackets for the outer fender panels that are attached to a bonded stud. Finished up the support bracket and 1.5" Alum standoff for my coolant hose and then worked on assembling the fuel fill between the cap and tank. 45 degree angle hose to a 12" long stainless tube and coupled to the tank.
I also received the 1/2" angle door sill from Dark Water Customs yesterday, looks like it's going work well with some trimming of the ends.

[Greg K]

Little by little we get things done. Polished up the stainless spacers this morning that I cut to length a couple of weeks ago. Had to enlarge the holes on the body to accommodate the grommets for the QJ spacers. Mounted up the rear quick jacks with the spacers thru the body. Now on to what's next...roll bar...doors...we'll see.

[FFR428]

Looks great Greg. Chrome Quick Jacks look so nice.

[Greg K]

Instead of looking at the doors or roll bars, I decided to finish mounting and wiring of the rear tail lights today. Also came up with a method of transferring the roll bar stubs to the body using some 1" and 1-1/4" schedule 40 pvc pipe. They fit the stub pretty well and just one layer of masking tape on the 1" gives enough friction for the 1 inch pipe inside of the 1-1/4. Will do the same for the down tube as well. Will mark the 1" to the underside, find center and drill 1/4" hole and then hole saw from above is the plan.

[Kamal]

Looks great, glad you are making progress on one or another thing.  I find myself paralyzed at times on what to "finish up".  Lots of little stuff to finalize on the chassis before moving to the cockpit and trunk tubs.

What size hole will you drill?  Havn't looked forward into the manual, but I know that there is some wiggle room with the bezels provided.

[Greg K]

Will do a 1/4" from below to be a guide for cutting with hole saw from above. Will start with 1-5/8" which will be close and can adjust from there. Will probably do that after I get the doors hung.

[Greg K]

Doors Doors Doors...got to be patient with these. Spent a few hours sanding gaps and fitting the doors today, got both of them hung, still need to do a little more on them and make some additional adjustments on the hinges. Overall the gaps are not bad all around, the cut made by Hurricane on the rear top edge of the door was more than I liked, But I think I can cheat it up a little and move it rearward at the hinge a bit.
Both of the doors seem to be proud of the body midway down the door, driver a bit more than the passenger side as seen in the pics below. Also ground down the excess material and bonding adhesive along the inside top area of the doors. They look awful in pics, but not really that bad. This area will get filler and be built up and blended to look like the last picture when it goes to paint.
Also plan to do some mods and upgrades to the door latches before mounting them, will document and share what I do to them.

[Greg K]

Had the day off from work today and was able to work on the door latches everyone loves...When I visited Hurricane in 2020, they were working on a customer's car and a latch was basically in pieces on the floor of the car. I had read before people having issues with these latches falling apart, difficult to close or open and losing the knob on the latch lever. Found some ideas looking into these issues and here is what i have done to my latches.

Latch 1 Pic:
1. The lever is just pressed together to the lever disk, one of my latches was fairly tight and the other was just ok and easily came apart when I pressed on the center of the disk.
2. The external spring was removed and tossed to the side. There is a spring behind the latch pin and it is plenty to engage the pin to the striker.
3. The cotter pin on the right secures a spring retainer that is behind the latch pin. I would remove the pin and the spring to lubricate and modify the pin.

Latch 2 Pic:
1. There is a spring washer behind the latch plate that keeps tension on the lever arm and lever retainer

Latch 3 Pic:
1. Backside pocket for spring washer and lever disk.
2. No lubricant in this part, so I added some synthetic grease in the pocket for lubrication when reassembled.

Latch 4 Pic:
1. What I'm showing here is that the latch pin is not fully engaging with the striker hole, gap at lever handle.
2. Hole was smaller than pin diameter. The latch pin is slightly tapered to the tip. Full diameter of pin is 11mm, hole was a little smaller than 11mm. I opened up the hole in the striker with a 7/16 drill bit. Pin then fully engaged.

Latch 5 Pic:
1. With the pin fully retracted by the lever, some of the pin is still high in the slot, sometimes this can catch on the striker when trying to open. When I removed the pin, I filed some off the tip where it was almost flush with plate.
2. To prevent the latch lever assembly coming apart, I used a stainless 5/16 carriage bolt 3/4" long in to the lever disk. I was going to not use the spring washer initially, that didn't work so the spring washer went back in.

Latch 6 Pic:
1. Reassembled latch, an AN960 9/16 washer and 5/16 washer were added and a 5/16 nylon jam nut secures the lever now. You do not want to make this real tight, just enough to holt it all together with no play in the lever handle. If it is overtightened, the lever will not move.
2. Before reassembling, I also added some grease internally where the latch pin slides.

Latch 7 Pic:
1. To address the lost knobs, I drilled and tapped the knob and used a No. 6-32 thread button head and washer to secure to the lever arm.
2. The carriage bolt head is also ground down flat, you could probably use a stove bolt here too and cut to length. The door also has to be relieved a little bit to accommodate the bolt head.

I believe these things will make a smoother operating latch and that won't blow apart now. One other thing I did was run a #8-32 tap into the bonded door inserts, most of the screws would not start without doing this this. I also have a #8 lock washer and flat washer between the door and latch.

[Redstang69]

Nice write-up Greg. I'm sure it'll help a lot of people, myself included

[Greg K]

Weather was not cooperating today and wasn't able to trim and sand edges of the hood and trunk lid today due to rain like I wanted to so I did what I could inside to stay dry.
Follow up to to door latches, striker/receiver has about 1/2" inch clearance from wing/banana bar. I have two sets of plates, one to mount and another I cut to act as a spacer, will also require thicker 3/8 fender washer to get it positioned for the door latch. Both sides are the same but didn't complete these.
Worked on the trans tunnel cover, installing and placing a few riv-nuts for my shifter boot ring. I then ended up working on the trunk lid accessories.
Started with opening up the bottom of the trunk lid to access screws and nuts to attach handle and latch, latch retainer showed too.
Drilled holes for the license plate light, mocked up, you can also see holes inside lid to accees the light's studs with nuts.

[Greg K]

Now the trunk latch. Hole saw for the latch handle and rod, easy enough. Install handle and notice that the mounting angle for the hook latch is not square to the square rod of the handle. Drilled the mounting holes for the hook assembly and see it's not going to lay flat, but I tighten it up any way. This puts it into a bind and doesn't work smoothly at all. The outer handle surface on lid and the surface for the hook latch are about 10-12 degrees off from each other. I know why, but doesn't matter, i do not like the bind they are in. Also with the hook latch mounted flush to the inside surface, it is not inboard enough for the catch stud shown in above post. So to get rid of the bind and for the hook latch to catch, I had some spacers and beveled them so the latch assembly is not put in a bind. When the lid is closed, the hook will not be 90 degrees to the catch stud but that'll will be fine, with it's adjustable height.
I originally wanted to install the latch in the opening we created similar to what Jeff K did, but without the glass work. Then I noticed it would not be inboard enough to latch with the parts I'm working with. Had I known, I probably would have just created holes for he fasteners only. Will make some sort of cover for the internals later.

[Greg K]

Finished up the door latches, I drilled and tapped the wing bars for the latch receivers, if in the future it needs to be removed, nut on back side does not make sense to me. I used (4) 3/8 fender washers behind the bracket and spacer I cut from a second set of brackets on the driver's side and 2 washers and spacer behind the mounting plate on the passenger side.

Started on the trunk, doing this alone is fun...it's in the hole after some cleaning up of the edges, but still needing some adjustments and a little gapping to get it closer to where it needs to be. Will get more pics tomorrow. Body support makes a good prop.