This weekend I decided to tackle a project I've been thinking about doing for a while, something practical to use up the empty space under the bonnet where the spare wheel used to be. Since I've got 27" tires now there's no way the spare is going in there, so what to do with the space?
I carry a toolbox in the car always, some simple hand tools like sockets, spanners, breaker bar, pliers, also some spares like fan belts, spark plugs, fuses, bits of wire, rags, gloves, wd40 etc. This box is my roadside assistance since I gave up paying for RAA membership and the money I save on that has paid for the tools many times over. It lives on the floor behind the front passenger seat and gets in the way every now and then if I want to fold the back seat down, I've wanted to get it out of there but don't want to travel without tools. You can probably see where this is going
An under-bonnet storage box!
To hold all the tools as well as any spares I might need on a long road trip. Trouble is the spare wheel area is a weird shape, so the box has to be a weird shape. I bought myself some sheets of thick paper/card for the cardboard aided design along with a large sheet of 3mm aluminium last week. Started on it yesterday and here's where I'm up to.
Base plate, it's roughly 500mm front to back and 600mm side to side, will be 120mm roughly internal height
Need some weird shapes to join the straight edge to the zig-zag
Can sort of see why it needs to be this shape, to get in under the windscreen
End of day two handiwork
How it looks in the engine bay so far
It will have a hinged lid with latches on the front section. Heat may be an issue, dunno how hot it will really get in there until it's finished. Might just be building a pie warmer so we'll see
It's been good to crank up the welder on AC mode for once, I'm long long out of practice on the ally so this is good to get my eye in again before I tackle something like an auxiliary fuel or water tank