Help - Fitting nosecone

[Guest]

Nearing the end of my build now and will be having to put the nosecone on the car shortly. Now, unless I'm being a total numpty (possible), I can't see anything in the Assembly guide on how to fit the nosecone.

 

Admitedly I haven't even looked at the nosecone yet so it could be that its very obvious how it works when I get roound to doing so. I'll ask the question anyway though. How does it fix onto the car?

 

Cheers

 

Tom

[Paul Richards]

Nosecone is normally already fitted to the car when kit is delivered. 2 Dzus fasteners at top and 2 dzus fasteners at bottom.

[7 wonders of the world]

you might need to do some fettling around the lower mounts to ensure it clears the front pick up points also a little bending of the top mounts to reduce the gaps to the bonnet - likewise you can easily ease the radius on the bonnet to make them match and get a really good fit.

[Domus]

The 4 Dzus fasteners should be on the nosecone already. I spent a very dusty half hour or so with some emery cloth on the various cut outs for ARB and lower wishbone, in order to get the fit just right.

LADS top tip, bond or solder a washer into the slots of the bottom Dzus fasteners. Instant wing nuts, saves scrabbling around on your knees with a stubby screwdriver. LADS other top tip, secure another washer, with a twisty tie, to a brake pipe from the master cylinder. You can now remove the nosecone without any tools at all.

[Grubbster]

As already stated it should be straightforward but some fettling of the nose to be expected. Don't be surprised if you can't do up the bottom 2 fasteners as this seems to be the norm on the latest kit ☹️ You can get them done up with a bit of force but then you'll also be able to get your finger in the gap between nose cone and front of car

[Guest]

Thanks for the tips everyone. The nose is on the car now and I did manage to get all 4 of the fasteners done up without too much hassle. The fit doesn't look too bad to be honest but then the lighting in the garage isn't great so I'll take another look in the morning to see if I need to make any adjustments.

 

Cheers

 

Tom

[Grubbster]

That's good Tom, I have 2 nosecones and neither fit well, maybe they've moved the lower dzus positions slightly as that would make the difference on mine

[Guest]

Here are some pics of the relative shut lines. This look any good or is there some adjustment needed. There is certainly a gap but not sure what's deemed normal?

 

Bonnet to nose

 

LHS

 

RHS

 

It looks like the ARB might just be touching the nose on the RHS too. What's the correct process for cutting away some of the nose without knackering the paint finish?

[Jonathan Kay]

Bonnet looks a bit high on nosecone: what do you think?

 

Options for fettling discussed in this thread.

 

Jonathan

[Grubbster]

Bonnet looks good and the sides are a bit better than mine but still a bit gappy - not much you can do though. To enlarge the cutout round the arb I used a Dremel.

[Grubbster]

Jonathan I was looking at fore and aft placement, but you are right that the bonnet could do with a tweak so it follows the line round the nose better.

[Guest]

Quoting Jonathan Kay: 

Bonnet looks a bit high on nosecone: what do you think?

 

Options for fettling discussed in this thread.

 

Jonathan

 

That's probably my own doing. I had a length of sticky back felt strip which I decided to run along the width of the nose so that the bonnet could sit on top of it. I figured this would help avoid problems with the bonnet rubbing against the nose. I did the same along the edges of the engine bay. In hindsight was this a bad idea?

 

I think as it stands, if I raise the nose, the bonnet will simply raise with it given the sandwhich layer of felt that is now between them. If I could somehow get the bonnet catches to pull down the bonnet more that would probably help.

 

Tom

[John Vine]

A tip from my own build: after your first few miles, take off the bonnet and check whether it's been rubbing on the front edge of the coil cover. Mine did, and it left an unsightly patch on my shiny new CF. A bit of sticky foam pad stopped further damage.

 

JV

[Guest]

Thanks John, will check that out.

 

Here's another couple of shots with better angles and lighting. I don't think the shut line between bonnet and nose come stands too proud really. I'm more concerned with the large gap where the bonnet fixes to the front spring clips. The bracket itself has large protrusions on the back of it from where its fixed through the aluminium of the bonnet. It therefore fouls the body and won't sit flush with the car. Presume not much can be done about that?

 

Further pic 1

 

Further pic 2

 

Further pic 4

 

Close up of bonnet shut line

 

Tom

[John Vine]

My car has gaps just like that. I'm not convinced you can do much about it. To help stop direct contact between bonnet corner, nosecone and chassis rail, I fitted strips of the SVA/IVA scuttle trim over the rear bottom edge of the nosecone where it rests on the chassis rail. It didn't reduce the gap but it did stop a lot of abrasive rubbing.

 

PS: Your car looks stunning!

 

JV

[2GBR]

I would have thought the process would have been to get the nosecone to fit the side skins with a nice even shut line both sides by removing material if fibre glass from the ofending areas on the nose cone. Then fit the bonnet latch it down onto the correct foam on rear top of nose cone, Check bonnet is fitting true to top rear side skins. Once that area is right slide the scuttle forward and around on its slots until the rear bonnet to scuttle shut line is correct with the correct foam in place then if happy do the scuttle retaining channels up

[Grubbster]

I agree that is the best way to do it but unfortunately the nose cone comes with the lower dzus fasteners ready fitted so there isn't any easy way to align it, particularly if it is too far from the front edges of the sides. Not enough material to allow redrilling of the dzus fixing points. Even when I bought a new nose cone it came pre drilled a d not really in the right places. I was told TADTS and not to bother trying to do up the lower fasteners ☹️