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2/7/2003
Trimmed and stuck down the end of the left front tunnel carpet
section. Glued most of the main right side section, and trimmed and
stuck down the small right rear carpet section.
3/7/2003
Glued the front part of the main right tunnel carpet section, only
using a small amount of glue on the top edge so that access to the
holes to allow adjustment of the gear remote bolts shouldn't be too
difficult.
4/7/2003
Worked out how I was going to edge the hole in the top tunnel carpet
for the gear lever, and then trimmed the hole a bit to make it more
even, and cut out some vinyl strips to be attached.
5/7/2003
Called in at the local police station to check that its legal to drive
to an MOT before SVA, which they said was fine as long as the MOT was
booked and you went straight there and back. As this is one of the
things that seems to vary around the country, I wanted to be totally
sure it was alright.
Modified the Sierra throttle cable bracket on the inlet manifold to work with the current cable, by drilling a hole in the lower part of it and fitting a bit of thick alloy to keep the cable outer in position. It seems to work alright, and saves me having to buy a Sierra throttle cable. The cable outer was then cable tied to various things on its journey around the engine bay, and I worked out the cable travel. The Dellortos needed about 45mm travel, but on this one around 43 is only on the first choke, with up to 67 using the 2nd choke as well. To get the extra, I just removed the throttle pedal stop bolt that I'd fitted a while back, and this gave enough clearance, but with the top of the pedal hitting the chassis directly now instead, which isn't a problem.
Filed a bit more out of the front of the gear lever hole in the tunnel, as something must have moved to make the lever touch a little bit when in reverse. I then worked out the positions of the gators, trimming a few little bits and marking where they go on the tunnel. Some folds that were needed to take up some of the slack were glued together, and the ends of the vinyl for the tunnel top carpet gear hole were folded over and glued.
6/7/2003
Glued both gators to the tunnel, glued the top edges of both front
tunnel carpet sections, and fitted the left rear tunnel carpet over
the handbrake gator.
I then started sewing (by hand) the vinyl around the gear hole in the top tunnel carpet section. I'm glad the rest of the edging was done with a sewing machine, as it would have taken weeks at the rate it can be done by hand... I got the 4 sections around the square hole sewn on upside down, so they are ready to be folded over and sewn again.
8/7/2003
Folded over and sewed the front and rear edges of the gear hole.
9/7/2003
Finished trimming the gear lever hole.
10/7/2003
Worked out the final position of the top tunnel carpet section,
trimmed the edges of the handbrake recess bit, and then glued the rear
part.
11/7/2003
Glued in place the rest of the top tunnel carpet section, and fitted
the two side stainless driver's footwell panels.
12/7/2003
Carried on scraping round the windscreen frame to make it match the
shape of the glass.
13/7/2003
More windscreen frame scraping.
14/7/2003
Yet more windscreen frame scraping.
15/7/2003
Finished the scraping, as the screen is now resting on the surround
all the way round except for the left half of the top, which is up to
4mm away. As I'm almost through the grp in a couple of places, the
only thing to do now is build up the gap so its a bit closer. The
surround is fairly flexible, so when lifted up does reduce the gap a
bit, but not enough to be safe, so it'll be best to try and get it as
close as possible.
16/7/2003
Cleaned up the car, getting rid of the lumps of grp and gelcoat and
all of the dust that was on the sheets I'd covered the interior with,
then vacuumed up the bits that found their way past. Worked out the
lengths of glass to stick on the top left side of the windscreen
frame, then wiped it down with some acetone to make sure it gets a
good hold and slapped some resin on. I used 3 bits of chopped mat, so
that its a bit thicker in the part that needs the most adding. Its
hard to tell how much height it'll add for each layer, so I'll just
have to keep on piling it on until its about right.
18/7/2003
Put another few layers of glass onto the windscreen surround, and
trimmed the top left corner of the dash while it was curing.
19/7/2003
Checked the fit of the screen, and it seems like its just about
right. There were a few lumps in the newly applied glass that needed
filing off, but other than that its a pretty good fit now.
While the screen was in, I checked the fit of the wiper arm and blade as I'll need a replacement. One problem is that the wiper arm is a bit too long, so to stop it wiping over the top of the screen a short blade would have to be used, meaning that there'd be a large unwiped bit in the middle of the screen. If a shorter arm was used, then I'd be able to fit a longer blade and cover more of the screen. Due to the way its put together, there's no easy way to modify the wiper arm, so I'll have to try and find a replacement from a scrappy.
Did a bit more scraping of the windscreen surround, as there was a step in the lower middle edge where the whole layer of gelcoat had been peeled off, so that was smoothed down to hopefully reduce any strain on the screen.
The front edges of the windscreen uprights were painted with black gloss, both the grp and the edge of the carpet, as they'll be visible through the screen due to the black printed edge not being very wide.
Made an alloy collar to go round the carb inlet, shaped so that a bit of mesh of some sort can be tied to the top to act as a filter. Heven't decided what to use yet, but something fairly fine which is flameproof would probably be best, just in case it spits back.
20/7/2003
Trimmed, glued, and then trimmed again the top section of carpet on
the windscreen surround. The original plan was to glue the rear edge
into the slot, then to glue it on the main flat bit as well, but just
gluing on the flat was enough to hold it in place, and much easier to
do. The front edge was trimmed to line up with the grp, and the
corners needed lots of extra little bits of glue to keep them from
sticking up. I was slightly worried about it wrinkling due to the
compound curves involved, but its gone on smoothly so hopefully will
stay like that.
Decided on the position for the rear reflectors, and then drilled the bolt holes for them. I had planned on putting them to the inside of the lights, but this is very borderline on the 400mm maximum distance from the outer edge, so to be safe I put them inbetween and underneath the indicator and outer stop/tail light. As always, the grp was a totally different thickness on each side - about 4mm on the right, and 8mm on the left, which was just enough to fit in a thin alloy washer on the back.
While I was doing this, some kids I'd never seen before were walking past and asked if it was a Ferrari Tiger Storm. Very surprising that they knew what it was, but I was a bit insulted at it being called a Ferrari. This isn't a huge lardy lummox of a car with the most annoying exhaust note in the world next to an original Beetle...
22/7/2003
Decided to check the fit of the MDF footwell panels before gluing the
carpet to them, and then remembered that they will need the edges
trimming to account for the carpets that are now stuck on the sides of
the footwell. So, 5mm was trimmed off all the way round the panels,
and they give a nice snug fit now. However, I also realised that the
polystyrene blocks will also need trimming, as (stupidly) they were
made to just fit into the bare alloy interior without thinking about
the carpet thickness.
23/7/2003
Glued the top side of the MDF to the carpet, and started trimming the
edges where they fold over.
24/7/2003
Finished trimming the edges of the carpet, and then glued the folded
over edge on the passeger panel. Also glued the lower edge of the
driver's footwell end panel carpet, as originally this was going to be
held in place by the polystyrene and MDF panel but now that I'm not
using the polystyrene the MDF isn't thick enough to hold the carpet
down properly.
26/7/2003
Glued the folded edge on the driver's side footwell MDF panel. Trimmed
all of the polystyrene blocks to fit again, and trimmed the rear floor
carpet sections that go under the seats. Also stuck down the lower
edge of the passenger footwell end panal carpet.
Gently hammered over the edges of the stainless panel for the floor of the driver's footwell so that they are rounded without any sharp edges sticking up, and then drilled the corners and screwed it into the MDF panel.
Polished the rear bodywork, fitted the fog light and mounting block, and then started rubbing the bodywork down again on the left side behind the front wheel
27/7/2003
Carried on rubbing down the left side of the bodywork.
28/7/2003
Carried on rubbing down the left side of the bodywork, making it up to
the door.
29/7/2003
Further rubbing down - did all the way along the edge of the door
recess on the outside and under the door (as due to the huge shutlines
a fair bit will be visible underneath), and made a start on the rear
wheelarch. Also tidied up the insulation on the LED mini-loom, as it
hadn't been done very well the first time.
30/7/2003
Carried on rubbind down above the left rear wheelarch.
31/7/2003
Trip to Ipswich VRO (or DVLA Local Office as they are now known) to
try and sort out SVA application and getting the car inspected. It
turns out that they can only inspect the car after SVA, and won't do
any paperwork until after SVA either, which is a bit annoying. I got
the required forms from them, but this means that there will be a wait
after SVA before the car is registered. Grrr.
Fitted the rear reflectors, bolted the boot in place, and fitted the boot latch pins. Then found that the left side wasn't engaging in the latch properly as it wasn't pushing it down enough to lock. So, I started scraping the bodywork lip around the boot hole where it was touching the boot to try and lower it a bit, but this didn't make much difference. Removed the left latch pin and bent the bracket to lower the end of the pin a bit, but this moved it too much sideways so it totally missed the latch, so removed and reshaped it again. After more reshaping and scraping of the grp, I finally got it to engage properly.
The bike brake cables were then bolted to the chassis to act as stops to keep the boot from opening too far, and the numberplate wire was then fed through the boot and out of the hole at the top, with it cable-tied to the hinge so that it doesn't move around.
While I was doing this, I'd organised for someone to come round and see if the changes I'd made to the windscreen frame were alright for getting the glass fitted. The only extra thing he suggested was sanding down all of the unscraped bits and the fresh grp on the top left so that the surface was keyed to allow the glue to get a better hold. I wasn't sure whether the glue would work better with a rough or smooth surface (after all, the glass it'll be stuck to is very smooth), so after he'd gone I got the frame sanded. He'll be back round next Thursday to fit the glass.
Total hours this month -
64.5
Total build hours -
2030.5
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