Bonnet and Nosecone
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With most of the mechanical bits and bobs finished now (apart from the parts I am waiting for) it was time to tackle the bodywork.
I think I dug out the build manual for a quick read, but it said nothing other than the obvious and to be fair it can only go on one way. I had a read through the Kit-Car article on the Striker build (can you tell I was nervous about this) and again it said nothing more than fit bonnet, then nose and then the back bit goes on. OK here goes then…
First job was to fit the bonnet. As supplied the bonnet needed the rear edge trimming to the correct angle of the scuttle. When I spoke to Jeremy after cutting this rear edge he suggested doing it without the windscreen surround as the top of the rear edge will then contact the top of the scuttle and make it easier to trim the sides. With the windscreen surround in place I used a steel rule to space the bonnet 1” forward of the scuttle at the top and marked the cut line on the back of the bonnet in the same way.
With the bonnet cut to adjoin the scuttle I tried the nosecone and found there was a gap about 1” between the back of the nosecone and the front of the bonnet. I quick call the Jeremy confirmed that a bit of a gap was normal, but it seemed that my bonnet was perhaps trimmed a little shorter than should have been at the top – which determines how much to cut off the sides. I have cut a good 15mm off mine, which was apparently more than normal. Anyway no harm done, I just needed to cut the back of the nosecone back to bring it back in contact with the bonnet. This was a very time-consuming process as I found it necessary to alter the angle of the nosecone slightly and also lower the front of the bonnet slightly to get a good fit with even panel gaps. It was also very fiddly cutting the bonnet back around where the little bulges are near the rocker arm bolts. In order to get the correct fit I cut these back very roughly and then tidied up the awkward shape of these bulges afterwards. Having spoken to a couple of Striker builders it seems that cutting the nosecone back by this much and trimming the bonnet is not unusual. I guess that I had become spoiled by how easily everything else had gone together and this was one part that needed some careful fettling to get a fit I was happy with.
The noseone was drilled through and mounted to the chassis by four M6 button head stainless screws. The front screw went into the mount I had incorporated into the radiator mounting and I put a rivnut in this as reaching the back would be a pain. The rear screw goes through the angle that locates the bonnet. With the nosecone cut back accurately to the shape of the front of the chassis the nosecone was a very secure fit indeed. I eventually took the nosecone off again and gelcoated up the fixing holes and mounted the nose once again to better align with the final location of the bonnet.
I found that my bonnet tended to pull inwards from the angle on the top chassis rail used to locate the bonnet rather than pushing out against it. I had found that the nosecone too was being stretched out to fit over the front mounts, but this was OK as it was then being held in place by these. Perhaps I should have used something to ‘stretch’ the bonnet a bit whilst it was sitting about. I have seen similar things done with GRP to stop it from distorting but this isn’t really distorted and just seems to be incompatible with the recommended may of fixing it in place. Looking at some pictures of older Strikers they do seem to have the bonnet retained outwards rather than inwards by the mounts to the body. Mark Taylor fixed his bonnet on this way too with Dsuz fasteners which implies that the problem isn’t unique. I tried leaving the bonnet stretched over the chassis overnight for a few days whilst doing other things, but it definitely seems to have settled into this shape. In the end I used some small strips of aluminium to push the bonnet sides outwards, which was very simple and locates the bonnet very securely indeed. With the bonnet located properly I was able to fix the bonnet catches. Sylva have been using big rubber covered over-centre catches on Strikers for a while now as they are correctly radiused for SVA. I didn’t really like the look of these and obtained some nice polished stainless steel double-sprung over-centre catches from James Whiting of the type used on Caterhams. They supplied these with plastic covers, which will probably fall off after the SVA.
With the bonnet and nosecone fixed in place the car was staring to look much more car-like. Time to have a go with the rear bodywork.