65+435 = 500hours
Five hundred hours!? say it fast and that’s okay I think. Where does the time go? both in terms of me updating my blog and working on the car. getting there though…
All sorts in this update, early on sorting some more of the wiring, not sure what to say here, it was just relentless but eventually I’ve something that works all the electronics on the car. Dials, switches, lights are in, the dash is now in too, looks rather good if I say so myself.
Great to see all the switches working, lights etc all doing as we’d hope, even the tacho works – some calibration to do on the speedo.
Next on to the windscreen, arrived in an expensive wooden box (I recall you do actually pay for this :))
Fitting the windscreen was one of those jobs that makes a big difference, but to be entirely honest wasn’t that difficult (I will cover the fillet in a moment…). With help from the wife it was manouvered in place and the windscreen pillars fitted with the 4 bolts. with a little help from a wooden pole with a few markings on it to ensure the windscreen rake was right.
The fillet. What can I say that covers it or helps anyone else. The manual says it may need trimming – not incorrect. It must have gone on and off 25 times, my tip would be to leave only a small amount of fillet poking inside the windscreen pillar, not trim it down mm by mm. It does flex quite a bit so at least that was a bit forgiving.
Wiper motor and wheel boxes? not a lot of pain here, but there was certainly some fettling to do to get both the wiper boxes, rubber mount things and the fillet sitting anywhere near correct. I did still end up with one wiper arm at a different angle to the other, but a look at Stoneleigh shows me they’re all like that sir.
At last I’ve started the fitting o fthe lovely playskool MSA bar, and it was very simple instructiions to fix, also changes the look of the car, just a bit of grunting and swearing to get the holes to line up. Also a set of ratchet straps are key here it seems. Trial fit didn’t have these, that was a pain.
For the boot box/panel I toyed with a few options, cut up the stock bootbox, fit something complex, or what I settled on, a carbon flat panel – carbon nv did a wonderful job of putting a panel together, and I’ve taken the brave step of chopping it up to fit the car. Not before I made a foil (wife was out for this bit) and then a cardboard template.
Advice was permagrit bits and mask, gloves etc while cutting it, it is oddly quite satisfying to work with, rather like fibreglass, where as because it’s strong I kind of expected it to be harder, it’s not, it’s quite malleable.
Next steps are to cut the panel into 3 sections, 2 to fit around the rollbar diagonal, one to be a middle large access removable panel, that the makes fitting the rollbar easier, as of course the harness eyebolts need to go in at the same time – that’ll be fun!
Final thing – seats are on order from JK composites 🙂 should be with me in 2 weeks ish.
Before then I’d love to have the boot panel in, rollbar fitted, carpets fitted (they arrived eventually, no rush Westfield 🙂 )and electrics with a line drawn under them
Then the list will indeed be smaller. In not that long I need to think about when to book the IVA, especially if there is a 2 month wait. book the IVA, words I never thought id; say…
