Nothing to it, don't know why people have the problems they do......... OK then, perhaps I exagerate.......
The one good thing about building a Locost six or so years ago was that scrapyards were still scrapyards rather than 'recycling centres' and you stood a fair chance of walking into one, asking for cortina uprights, escort axles and gearboxes etc etc and not getting laughed out of the place. I think I paid £25 for the first uprights and £20 for an axle - best of luck if you're planning on trying that nowadays!
And so to actualy building it..... to be honest I'm not going to go into any great depth here, ex (at the moment) Locost racer Chris James wrote the definitive Locost race diary a few years ago and if you're looking for a blow by blow account you can do an awful lot worse than pop over and take a look at www.locost-racing.com.
One of the first problems to come to light was that once the bushes and crush tubes were installed in the front wishbones they seemed distinctly unwilling to fit i
nto their chassis brackets. They would go - with the judicious help of a big hammer, but this obviously wasn't ideal. A second issue was that the bolt holes in the brackets seemed to drilled for a 12mm bolt and the crush tubes for a 1/2 inch bolt. Much grinding, drilling and fettling later they all fitted and you could even move them up and down but to be honest you did wonder why you'd needed to when you'd bought everything from the same manufacturer.
One of the first problems to come to light was that once the bushes and crush tubes were installed in the front wishbones they seemed distinctly unwilling to fit i
nto their chassis brackets. They would go - with the judicious help of a big hammer, but this obviously wasn't ideal. A second issue was that the bolt holes in the brackets seemed to drilled for a 12mm bolt and the crush tubes for a 1/2 inch bolt. Much grinding, drilling and fettling later they all fitted and you could even move them up and down but to be honest you did wonder why you'd needed to when you'd bought everything from the same manufacturer.The second problem was with the fit of the GRP. The scuttle was fine, the nosecone was tolerable but the rear wings were dreadful - if the front was aligned with the body the bottom of the back was fine but there was at least an inch gap further up. The gap was too big to tighten up with a fixing bolt so in the end we had to resort to some subtle panel beating to bring the aluminium panel to meet the wing and a bit of thick rubber beading to fill in any remaining gaps.
The aluminium panels were fairly straightforward in contrast. We eventualy gave up trying to cut holes in the engine bay side panels for the wishbones to fit through 
and to be honest, especialy for a track only car, it isn't realy worth the time and effort. I found the wiring oddly satisfying and apart from a bit of headscratching to get the indicator/hazard warning circuits to work as they should it was fairly straightforward, even better was that everything pretty much worked first time. To get us racing the engine was lifted out of a Ford Escort and dropped into the car and to be honest that was pretty much that (it sounds so simple in hindsight doesn't it!). In total it only took about about a year and a half from start to finish.......but the sense of enormous satisfaction you get when you start the engine and drive the car under it's own power up the drive for the first time does wonders making up for all that time (and money!) lost from your life.
and to be honest, especialy for a track only car, it isn't realy worth the time and effort. I found the wiring oddly satisfying and apart from a bit of headscratching to get the indicator/hazard warning circuits to work as they should it was fairly straightforward, even better was that everything pretty much worked first time. To get us racing the engine was lifted out of a Ford Escort and dropped into the car and to be honest that was pretty much that (it sounds so simple in hindsight doesn't it!). In total it only took about about a year and a half from start to finish.......but the sense of enormous satisfaction you get when you start the engine and drive the car under it's own power up the drive for the first time does wonders making up for all that time (and money!) lost from your life.
Then we went racing.................
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