Cutting holes in the bodywork

After 31 years as a consulting actuary, I retired today.

So I celebrated this evening by taking a drill to the body of my Westfield and fitted the exhaust.

Relatively straightforward - I put some masking tape on the inside of the body where the manifold was and drew around the ends of the pipes. I was wondering if I could pull the body out enough to be able to drill the centres without removing the body panel, but all that did was put a stress crack in it! so off the panel came - relatively easy as I must have had it on and off at least half a dozen times.

Beautiful taping skills

I know, lovely tape job! It's not easy to get at with everything in place. I was able to locate the centre by eye, using a 2 1/8" hole saw. once the centers were drilled, I took the plunge and drilled from the other side (tape on the bodywork is a good idea to protect the finish from inadvertent slips):

There is no going back now

Then I joined up the sides with a hand blade to get a perfect fit around the manifold. . . . which I then opened up 1 cm all around with a Dremel, so the exhaust would fit on and to leave some clearance for the clamps:  Not sure if this was the best way to do it, as the neat hole around the manifold became a little bit of a freehand job when I then enlarged it.

It was really a question of not having a larger sized hole saw and being fed up of the trip to the hardware store. However, I am pleased with the resulting job - it is very neat and should give sufficient clearance from the heat of the exhaust. Time will tell.

Now that is a perfect fit

Very pretty if I do say so myself

It actually needed a little more fettling at the front to clear the clamps, but it ended up being a pretty neat job. A piece of sandpaper wrapped around the rubber pipe for the fuel filler was the perfect diameter to smooth the the curves!









The rear mount was just a matter of drilling through the hole from the inside and enlarging it with the Dremel. I did make it a little too far back so when I inserted the spacer it distorted the body a bit, so I just enlarged the hole for the spacer some more - it isn't visible once the exhaust is fitted.

Getting at the bolts to tighten up the exhaust on the manifold isn't easy with the body in place, so I left it for another day!

Sorry for the poor picture quality, it was dark by the time I finished.

Off to the track tomorrow and then fuel filler, harness bolts and cage (gulp) fitting on Thursday.