Current progress so far
Links to parts and information websites
Where I will be building my diablo
Where most of the important bits come from
The stuff it all bolts to
What makes it go
What makes it pretty
The cars nervous system
Where you sit
The gubberment bit
 
Who really cares?
Stuff that will not fit anywhere else
Other diablo replica websites
 

Front cover

Here I have mounted the hinges and brackets supplied by Parallel Designs onto the front cover. The brackets holes are clearly marked, but as always, in entirely the wrong place. Luckily its fairly self explanatory as to where they go, Pretty much inbetween the positions marked.

Drill the holes with a 5mm hole and tap out to 6mm. Check your chart that came with the taps to get the correct size.

I needed to trim the left hand edge of the cover in order to get it to fit into the recess. Its advisable not to do anything without getting the front wings mounted and aligned first. I used the front bumper to ensure the correct mounting position for the wings, and then dropped the boot lid into position after bonding the wings to determine how much to trim. The line is not quite straight on the actual wings themselves, so filler will be required to finish the gap here.



After mounting the lid parts of the hinges, I attempted to determine the correct position of the chassis mounted halves of the bracket.

As always its not plug and play. The straight portion of the hinge which can be seen in the picture above is too long and too high. I need to trim this part and reweld it bring it into the right position. It looks like the knuckle end of the hinge should be mounted where the crank in the straight bit is. I will use my friend Dannys welding facilitys as my own are less than spectacular.



Here is the latch for the front cover. It is bolted to an offcut of fibreglass from the rear valance. You ought to keep and offcuts you have because they come in very handy for jobs like this. The latch assembly is then bolted to the boot liner and secured using rivnuts. This means the latch can be removed and access gained to the middle bumper mounting, which is almost inaccessable once the bumper is in position.



The latch in now in OEM position, although this is entirely by accident. I need to do some more work on the lip for the seal, as the latch fouls the lip where I wanted to put it.

I need a fairly low profile seal as the gap between the lip and the front cover is pretty tight. Not much I can do about this. The latch panel does look pretty nasty, but once the liner is covered in carpet, it should look fairly inconspicuous.



I had a problem with my original lip here, so I have decided to rework it.

Basically the problem was with the material I used in this area. In common with many other builders I had made this part from fibreglass. And in common with almost every other completed car I have seen, it was distorted. No matter what I did to this part, I coudnt get it to look right. It was especially noticeable when the front boot lid was shut. Any distortions were accented by the leading edge of the boot lid.

So I have cut this entire section out and replaced it with a piece of right-angled aluminium. It is 2mm thick and was 70x100mm before I began cutting it. Its bonded into place with fibreglass. Just make sure to thoroughly score the surface of the aluminium to give a good key for the fibreglass to bond to.



This is the lip with the front boot lid dropped down. As you can see its a nice even edge. The aluminium will give me a nice secure mounting free from distortion and will stop the front bumper from flexing up and down too much.

This is one of those things I wished I had done this way in the first place. Still not to worry, I only need to put the lip on for the rubber seal and to make the cutout for the latch.


I used some 10mm right angle aluminium to make up the front lip. The curve is not very well executed but is good enough to clear any protrusions on the engine cover and still allow the bonnet to shut correctly.

The right angle is pop-rivetted to my new front edge, and then filled with body filler along its edge. Whilst completing this part, I noticed that where my wife was helpfully sanding this part, she has removed too much of the seal lips running up the front wings. So I will need to rebuild these to make the bonnet waterproof.


Heres my new hinge setup. The hinge differs from the type Lamborghini use and the variants used by some of the US kitcar companies. It lifts and rotates in a way that ensures it clears the wiper blade whilst leaving access to the boot area completely clear.

The other benefit this hinge provides is that its not necessary to have slits with which the hinges protrude, allowing the boot area to be made slightly more watertight than otherwise necessary.


The hinge mechanism needs something to mount to. I made a 'n' shaped piece of metal up to mount the new hinges. It runs along the top of the boot aperture, with two uprights which run down to the chassis. The hinges bolt to these uprights and also has the benefit of stiffening up the whole section here especially where the windscreen wiper mounts..
Here you can see the wiper in its neutral 'parked' position with the bonnet fully open. The bonnet easily clears the wiper blade which means that if the wiper is activated and the boot is still up that it will not foul the wiper blade.

Because the way in which the bonnet opens and closes has now changed, it is necessary to rework the latch striker to prevent it hitting the rubber sealing lip.
This is the area in front of the aircon and brake components. Im in the process of making a cover which goes over this area which should stop water ingress. Its sculpted to round components which stick out.

The translucent cover on the right is a fusebox cover, and the one on the left is what will be a hinged cover to provide access to the brake resevoir.
Here the rear panel has been finished and simply requires covering with carpet or painting, I have not decided which yet. The headlight housings have also been blanked off using a removable fibreglass panel.

The headlights do not have any sealing around them, so potentially water could enter around the lights and would pool unless it has somewhere to go. To prevent the water draining into the boot area, where it would damage my luggage!, the panels will be sealed using silicon to watertight this area. It will make light removal and replacement more difficult, but not impossible. Seeing as this is not something that will happen too often I dont think it will be a problem.
Here the front boot area is now complete. I pondered about the placement of the water bottle but thought that the location I finally decided upon is as good as any. Its not cabled up yet but that does not take too long and is a fairly simple operation.

I still need to fabricate a small metal cover to enclose the area where the cable clamps exit the fusebox, but I can do this at anytime.