Not much has been done to the car this week. No, I'm not losing interest, but as the build is going well and I'm ahead of schedule, I've spent some time doing all the jobs and chores in and around the house that I've been neglecting for the past eight weeks!
I did however manage to temporarily fit the front cycle arches. Not a difficult job - it only involves bolting on four metal support brackets and drilling two holes in each arch. It did need a fair bit of bending and fiddling with the brackets to get the arches level and equally spaced all round the tyres, without the brackets fouling on my nice new wheels and tyres. I have been contacted by another Xtreme owner (thanks Ross!), who warned me that his cycle arches had begun to crack around the mounting holes after two months use of his car. To hopefully avoid this, I bonded some thin rubber on to the mounting face of the brackets, rounded off all the edges of the brackets with a file and made sure that the arches are sitting flush against the whole mounting face to spread the load. I've also ordered some red, button-head mounting bolts, to spread the load on the top surface of the arches. I've positioned my arches further round the tyres to the rear of the car than most other Xtremes I've seen. This is to protect the rear wheel arches (and possibly the car's occupants) from spray and small stones flicked up by the front tyres. I may even extend the rear of the arches by using some modified mudflaps or pieces of stiff rubber for maximum protection. Before finally fitting the arches, I'll coat the inner surfaces with some special rubber paint (Carlife Rubbercoat) that I've ordered, but for now, like the nosecone, they're back upstairs out of the way.
