One update as promised.. I tried to take a few more pics this time.
The Formula Renault loom has a little box full of relays, circuit breakers, and the battery isolator; but in the only places the box could fit the breakers are completely inaccessible, so they had to be relocated. I've moved the breakers out of the box and onto the "centre console" which means hacking the FR loom, extending it, and integrating it with the rest of the car's wiring.
Here's a WIP shot.. ditching the box entirely was out of the question as the relays, wires, and who knows what else are all glued in place, so the only option is to modify. The joins are all soldered then covered with adhesive heat-shrink.
Then I remembered to take some more pics as I went along! I've seen pics of looms all nicely spiral-wrapped and wanted to try it out.. anyone who's made a wiring loom by any other means will know that with straight wires they're totally rigid, so with the complete lack of space inside for anything other than people it seemed a sensible idea to have nice flexible looms. Also it looks cool.
Woof - the finished item.
I managed to find out which connectors the FR loom uses, so have used them throughout for consistency. For anyone who's interested, they're ITT Cannon QM / Trident connectors - and are available reasonably cheap from RS.
The other job I took pictures of was dealing with the bulging tailgate. It looks like the problem is due to the ducts being fitted when the clamshell skin is out of shape, pulling the front corners of the rear quarters out and making them much wider than they should be. When you try to pull them back in again the extra stiffness of the duct pushes the skin around the rear window outwards and makes an obvious bulge.
I've had to cut a wedge out of the bit joining the duct to the skin, pull the quarters in, then laminate back over the cut.
This is the gap with the rear quarters free
And this is what the gap closes to when the quarters are pulled in properly
A fairly big difference of 4mm.. easily noticeable from the outside!
Another thing worth noting is how different the ducts are side to side, despite having the same size & shape openings. This just comes down to shitty work IMO, same as the rest of the bodywork issues.
So with everything pulled back into shape as much as possible I used epoxy resin (since it's much stiffer) and fibreglass to hold it where it should be. (Pic is mid lay-up so no trimming done yet)
I'm not sure it will ever be 100% without cutting the whole thing out and starting again, but it should certainly be a lot better.
Finally I spent a bit of time making wiring diagrams and pegging out a board for the main wiring harness.
Oh and to finish with exciting news.. the frame will be going off for powder coating early next week. :up: