Hawk build
Documenting the process of building a Hawk 289.
Posts
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Finishing touches
After well over two years, the list of jobs is finally getting to the end, with just the last few, relatively simple finishes touches left to do.
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Seats
I bought a pair of Mini One seats as a cheap way to get get going with road legal seating. (I’ve seen some nice Cobra seats with headrests in the 289 register magazine, but I believe they cost about three thousand pounds for a pair so that’ll have to wait for another day!)
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Steering wheel
The metal spokes on the steering wheel don’t quite have the 2.5 mm radius needed for interior fittings in the “specified zone”. To remedy this I decided to wrap the spokes with spare vinyl from the dashboard.
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Dashboard
For the dashboard I’m using a standard fibreglass blank from Hawk that includes recesses for the various gauges to allow old-style bevels to pass the IVA inspection. Based on what I’ve seen in other build diaries, my plan is to cover it in foam and then vinyl… although more on that later!
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Throttle connection
In the interests of simplicity and expediency, I’ve decided to go with a simple throttle cable to provide the link between the pedal and the carb. I can play around with rods and rose joints some time in the future when I feel the need to tinker with something again.
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Bonnet escutcheons
The bonnet catches need holes for the main shaft and to be held in place by screws from the exterior. Screwing straight against the fibreglass might work in theory but it would look awful and might be hard to make sure everything has a sufficiently large radius to be safe. To solve both problems I decided to fabricate some chunky, rounded escutcheons.
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Dealing with the weather
With the nights drawing in and the weather getting worse, it’s a suitable time to get on with the parts of the car that will protect me from the wind and wet.
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Exhaust
The exhaust manifold has some pretty tight curves so there’s not enough room for me to use the manifold bolts that came with the engine. Instead I get some manifold studs and cut each one down to exactly the right length for its location. The final fit takes a fair bit of figuring out and requires a different sequence of fitting studs, manifold and nuts for different locations. Before fitting I add a layer of thermal protection to the footwell.
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Front lights
It’s a busy time of year again, but there’s still time to squeeze in the fitment of the front indicators and the offside headlight.
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Exhaust manifolds and coolant plumbing
The exhaust headers sit very close to the footwells, particularly on the driver’s side where the extra bulge leaves only a few millimeters of clearance. To help prevent damage to the fibreglass and excessively hot feet, I’ve wrapped the headers with insulation.
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Shiny bits
The loom comes ready for the side indicators required by the IVA… and modern driving conditions! Happily it’s easy to find ones that suit the look of the car.
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Bendy bits
More fun with wires, tubes, and seatbelts!
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Starting the rear lights
On first inspection the loom is an intimidating beast. How can a car with so few electrical systems need so many wires?! But as with all these jobs, the key to progress is to stop worrying and just take the first step. In this case I decide the first step is simply to go through the comprehensive loom description and label every plug, socket, etc. Very soon it all starts to make sense and the labels will make life a lot easier later on.
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Handbrake and seatbelt frame
Just a couple of simple bolt-it-on jobs for March. Fitting the handbrake lever (the first bit of “bling” to make it on to the car?) and the frame for the seatbelts.
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Pedal box and more fuel line
In the interests of avoiding the hot bits of the engine, I decided to take what I think is an unconventional route from the filter to the carb. It runs backwards from the filter, over the passenger footwell, and then across the bulkhead.
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Clutch slave cylinder
A trial fit of the clutch slave cylinder highlighted a small gap with the backplate. I’d rather not fill up the bellhousing with more road grime than necessary so some sort of solution will be required.
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Little jobs in the engine bay
Another slow few weeks on the car, but that’s mostly because we’ve been off doing fun things over the Christmas period. But there’s still time to squeeze in the addition of the twin horns…
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Fitting the radiator
It’s been a slow couple of months. The lack of progress has been a little frustrating at times, but progress is still progress and even small steps get the build closer to being road legal.
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Fitting the bodyshell
Getting ready to re-fit the bodyshell involved tidying up a few loose ends.
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Fitting the engine
What better way to spend one of the hottest days of the year …
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Preparing to fit the engine
The extensively refurbished engine and gearbox from JRV8 had been sitting in their crate in the corner of the garage for the last few months, but it was now nearly time to fit them to the chassis.
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Fuel line
Most of Gerry’s fuel line kit made perfect sense but I couldn’t make head or tail of the section from the fuel pump back to the through-floor connection near the tank. Whatever route I tried it ended up about a foot too long! I checked with a neighbouring Hawk owner and they were using a similar route to my attempts, so I gave up and asked HEL Performance to make up a new section. They were incredibly helpful and eventually we found a combination of fixings that would work.
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Rear shocks
I had decided to go with Gerry’s telescopic shocks for the rear end. The original lever arm shock absorbers would have needed costly refurbishment or replacement, so given the suggestions that it improves handling it seemed sensible to switch instead.
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No going back
I’d been putting it off, but at some point I needed to take the plunge and make the holes for the side vents. Starting to cut a hole in a material you’ve never worked with, from a piece that costs thousands of pounds, and comes with a two year waiting list is a special moment, and the goggles, dust mask and gloves added to the drama! I needn’t have worried though: the fiberglass was very predictable to work with. Phew!
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Brakes and summer sunshine
Given that brakes are particularly important for keeping life and limb intact, most of the components were bought new rather than rely on refurbishing parts from the MGB. That also had the benefit that progress was rapid.
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Rear suspension
Building up the rear end involved restoring yet more of the original parts, so it was back to the wire brush…
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Steering again
Time to rebuild the steering assembly, with new seals, gaiters, etc. The shortened steering column still had some light pitting where it met the oil seal, so instead of using the standard EP90 oil I went with semi-liquid grease. Not only has the grease prevented leakage, it also made for a very childish and entertaining evening with a couple of friends as we worked the grease into the assembly accompanied by all sorts of ridiculous noises!
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Front suspension
Despite lots more distractions with exterior building work on the workshop, the build up of the front suspension is finally finished. Meanwhile, the rear axle has returned from its refurbishment, so things are lining up nicely for the next stage.
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Refurb
The tone of the last couple of weeks has been lots of little jobs - an hour or two in the evenings, or a few stolen hours at the weekend inbetween trips out with the family, or regular chores.
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The kit arrives
It’s been a busy couple of months, but mostly only indirectly related to the kit build at best, hence the lack of updates. For example, making good progress on the interior insulation and cladding of the garage, and tracking down a couple of leaks (the joys of a partially subterranean building!).
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Rear axle
A bit of a mix for this job. As hoped, the prop shaft bolts weren’t too much trouble thanks to their proximity to “oily bits”, and the handbrake cable and hydraulic line didn’t put up a fight. The shock absorber links came undone fine but needed a bit of a persuasion to come loose. The spring shackles required a more robust approach. Finally, the whole assembly was hovering just above a pair of axle stands, held up by just the rubber straps, so after a couple of quick flicks of a pen-knife it’s free.
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Steering column
The trickiest bit with this was prising the joint free from the upper steering column, but all the other fixings came off just fine.
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Lower steering assembly
With all the nuts and bolts that little bit more protected from the elements, removing the lower steering assembly was pretty simple. One of those seemingly rare cases where you really can just follow the instructions in the Haynes manual. No need for the blow-torch or PlusGas at all!
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Suspension
If you had to invent a fixing that was specifically designed to rust and become all but useless, I think you’d be hard pressed to come up with anything that beats a weedy, little split pin. Especially when that weedy, little split pin is sitting in a blast of road grime. Sadly there are castle nuts & split pins aplenty on the rest of the suspension. Trying to straighten the tails of the split pins and pull them out just results in the heads cracking due to rust damage, so I resort to snapping the heads and tails off with a little metal fatigue.
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Hubs away
The first step in removing wire wheel hubs is to remove the grease cap so you can get at the castle nut underneath. Moss make a handy tool just for the job. Given there’s a reasonable chance of needing to go through this process a few times I decide to splash out… only to discover that Moss Europe don’t carry that part. Plan B - buy some 5/16” UNF nuts & bolts and make one myself. It’s always good to have an excuse for a spot of welding.
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Handbrake removal
Barely any time free for Garage Things today, but still enough to pop in with the #4 PoziDriv bit I’ve borrowed and undo the handbrake mounting plate. Perhaps it was the two days soaking in PlusGas, perhaps the area was more protected from moisture… either way, all three bolts came out without much, if any, of a fight.
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Engine delivery
Jim Robinson and his son Thomas, trading as JRV8 up in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, have been absolutely great to deal with. After one or two very helpful chats with Jim where he patiently dealt with all my ignorant questions, I put in an order for one of his extensively rebuilt engine and gearbox packages a few months ago, and today was the big day of the delivery. They’d already sent photos of the engine being packed up so I knew exactly what to expect, but even so it was real treat to see it in the flesh. The kit is still not quite here though, so after a quick once over it was time to put the lid back on, ready to move it somewhere out of the way for a few weeks/months.
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Offside brake and handbrake
Front suspension
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Boing
Front suspension (part 1 of … many?)
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Getting started
Now that I’ve nearly finished building my new garage, I can finally get this project properly underway and start work on dismantling my MGB donor. It’s only a few days/weeks until the chassis & bodywork will be ready for collection, but better late than never!
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