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Finished shaping a paper template for the instrument binnacle. As the fibreglass is quite messy around the instruments, the plan has been to put a sheet of something behind them to cover up the grp. I recently found an excellent source for this - the case from my parent's old dead video recorder. Thin steel with a matt black finish is just what I wanted, and it still has its original protective plastic coating on it, so should be free of any markings. To check whether the coating would flake off easily I cut off a corner of the case and drilled through it, but it seems fine. The only problem with this will be handling it carefully enough so that none of the visible areas end up getting scratched. It won't be a huge problem if it does end up like that, as it can just be sprayed, but it has a decent finish already so it would be a shame to mess that up and have to paint it.
Made a start on a paper template for around the dash switches. The long flat section of the dash that the switches are in is better than the area around the instruments, but not good enough to leave uncovered. So, I'll be making another plate to go around the switches from the video case, then probably fill the rest of it with a bit of the green carpet, as that is thin and dense enough to hopefully look alright.
I also dropped it onto its wheels for the first time in ages, so that ground heights can be measured for the rear fog light.
2/6/2002
We spent quite a while trying to measure the centre of the car to get
a starting point for mounting the fog light. The problem is that the
bodywork isn't symmetrical, and the rear wheelarches are different
shapes, so the widest part on one side is slightly different to the
other side. Also, there is no way of knowing how accurately the
position will be measured during SVA, so we have to measure it
accurately just in case.
A couple of different methods were used, which both gave the same result. One was to sight down and line up a block of wood on the floor (using a set square and spirit level to get it vertially under the widest point of the wheelarch), then measure between the blocks to get the width. The other (more sensible idea that we should have thought of first) was to line a plank up with the wheelarch using a spirit level to make sure it was vertical, then mark on the floor and measure between the two marks.
Anyway, we ended up with an accurate centreline, which of course doesn't line up with the pair of bodywork brackets on the rear low chassis rail. Thankfully the brackets are both slightly off to the right, so to make it fit the fog lightly will just need moving to the right which is the correct side of the car it needs to be on. It might end up looking slightly off to the right as the recess for the boot isn't central, but it shouldn't be too far off.
After measuring the dimensions of the fog light and a rough idea of the slope needed to match the curve of the rear bodywork, my dad had made a thick plywood disk to mount it with. We had a go at shaping this block to fit the light, but unfortunately it had been cut too thin at the top, and started to break away when it was filed, so another block will be made out of a few bits of thinner layer ply, and it will be shaped so that there is a thicker section at the top. This means the light won't sit flush with the body at the top, but it won't be much.
So, an accurate template for the shape of the rear bodywork was made from cardboard, and a vertical line was drawn on it so that it can be shaped as accurately as possible without the bodywork to work from, then fettled to fit exactly when its brought down here.
I also sanded inside the alloy heater ducts, so that they can be painted black. This is just to stop them shining through the vent slots in the dash.
3/6/2002
Today we worked on fitting the doors, starting with the passenger
side. First we worked out where to mount them, which to start with
will be across the door at the front and back edges on the
bottom. Once they are done, then further mounts at the top can be made
to stop any twisting of the door or bodywork.
So, we decided on the wood to use as a spacer between the door and body, and marked and drilled holes in the door for the bolts - one at the front and two at the back. The door was then spaced up using bits of rubber and blu-tak, and the bolt holes were marked onto the body. With the door still in place the heights of the door from the bodywork were measured so that the wooden block sizes can be worked out. As there is only one hole at the front then the angle will just have to be worked out from the rear block, as the door and body seem to be fairly flat.
The door was then removed, the bodywork holes drilled, and the wooden blocks cut and drilled. It was all put back together and amazingly enough seemed to be about right. If this side was easy then the other side is bound to be difficult...
Four alloy plates were cut and drilled to match the wooden blocks, which will go inside the door and under the bodywork to support the grp, with a thin bit of rubber to match the shape of the rough side of the grp.
4/6/2002
The whole procedure was repeated for the driver's door, but as
expected didn't quite go as smoothly. The wooden blocks ended up being
slightly wrong, and the angle for the front block was different to the
rear block. So, extra wooden wedges had to be cut and glued to the
initial blocks before they could be shaped to fit.
While the glue was drying, we made a start on cutting up the video case to go around the instruments. The nibbler snips ended up being the best thing to cut with, so after drawing round the template the oval was cut out and trimmed/filed to shape, being very careful not to scratch it.
Once it fitted in the dash, the instrument and LED holes were marked and drilled out, again drilling a row of small holes around the edge of the instrument holes rather than using a hole cutter of any kind. The edges of the instrument holes are left very sharp and difficult to file out without bending the narrow sections of metal that are left. So, my dad will be taking this home and trying to use a small grinding wheel in a drill to take the points off and get the holes to the correct size and shape rather than trying to file it all out by hand.
5/6/2002
My dad ended up snipping out all of the instrument hole centres and
made a start on filing off the points. He also started shaping the
blocks for the driver's door now that the glue has dried properly.
6/6/2002
My dad finished off shaping the door blocks, and scraped away some of
the inside edge of the dash instrument binnacle so that the surround
will sit a bit flatter. We also scored round the instrument holes
again using a sharpened nail this time instead of a pencil, just to be
certain of their positions before he takes it away.
7/6/2002
Finished off the template for the panel around the switches, and cut
it out from the video case.
8/6/2002
Finished trimming the panel to shape, then marked, drilled and filed
out the holes for the switches. This basically took all day, as the
lip on the push switches is very small, so the hole has to be just the
right size to let the switch through, as if its too big it will show
past the lip.
9/6/2002
Painted the inside of the alloy dash vect ducts with gloss black, and
scored and painted the lower radiator shroud panel. I also chopped out
a small multiway connector from the video to be used for the dash
LEDs. Due to the way they clip into the holders, it would be pretty
much impossible to remove them if the dash has to come out for some
reason, so the LEDs will all be fitted to the dash with their own
mini-loom, then a connector will join them to the rest of the
loom. Hopefully the dash will never need to be removed, but its best
to take the precaution. It should also make fitting the LEDs to the
dash a bit easier as it can be done with the dash out.
10/6/2002
Checked the connections for the dash LEDs to work out how many wires
are needed. For the 8 LEDs I need 10 wires, one common ground, one
ignition supply (for the alternator and brake warning lights), and
then 8 others for each of the warnings.
I then had a go of soldering onto the connector I'd removed from the video. Its just a bit too small to solder onto the pins of the connector as they are only 2mm apart, but its easy enough to connect to two at a time, so I'll need to dig out another connector from the video so that I have at least 20 pins.
11/6/2002
Gutted the video and chopped two suitable connectors off the circuit
board, an 8-way and a 13-way, which when the connections are doubled
up will give one spare so I'll probably give the common ground three
pins.
Filed down the edges of the eight alloy plates to support the door bolts so that there won't be anything sharp against the grp, then countersunk the holes for the top plates to match the countersunk M6 bolts that will be used.
12/6/2002
Cut some inner tube to go under the alloy plates, and bolted both of
the doors in place to check the positions. I then found out something
that hadn't been thought about - the chassis rail under the door gets
in the way of three of the lower alloy plates, as the wooden blocks
are sat above it and just over the edge. So, these plates will need
the ends trimming before they will fit.
Worked out roughly where to put bolts through to secure the tops of the doors, as just being held on the bottom isn't enough because they wobble around a bit due to flex in the doors and bodywork. Getting the holes drilled should be easy enough, but its going to be very awkward to get more wooden blocks shaped to fit, as the bottom of the door will need to be bolted in place each time so that the door is in the right position. As the rear wheels and exhaust make fitting the rear bolts awkward, its going to be much easier with the rear end on axle stands and the wheels taken off again.
13/6/2002
One of the alloy heater ducts was clamped onto the dash, then the
battery and heater hose were connected up and the vent was
tested. Even on the slow speed plenty of air came out of the whole
vent, even the ends, so the holes don't need making bigger and there
isn't any need for something in the middle to force air to the ends of
the slots, which saves a bit of work.
Before attaching the ducts to the dash, I thought it would be best to try and clean it up. The pen lines were removed with some meths, but this left a strange residue which needs taking off with a toothbrush and some washing up liquid. Also, the whole of the dash has little spots of release wax on it, which hopefully will be removed at the same time. The biggest problem is that it is furry, with little bits of fluff all over the place. Its a bit difficult to tell if they are stuck on or in the dash, but after I've scrubbed over the whole thing I'll need to check if they are still there. If I just can't get it clean at all then it will have to be painted, but I don't really want to have to do that.
14/6/2002
Worked out what size the lower door alloy plates need to be, and cut
them to the correct shape.
15/6/2002
Spent a while working out where the rear door bolts should go, as with
the huge variations in thickness of the grp inside the door and inside
the wheelarch, clamping it either side with a bit of flat plate isn't
easy, so I ended up with positions that should be fairly flat. I also
put the back of the car up on axle stands and removed the rear wheels,
as this gives much better access to the door bolts.
16/6/2002
Drilled out the upper door bolts in both doors and wheelarches, and
cut and glued some wooden blocks to create spacers that are large
enough to fit. It took quite a while to do this - double checking
measurements, then working out how thick the wood needed to be etc.
The insides of the doors were sanded to remove all of the sharp bits of glass that are all over the place, especially near the corners where extra layers of glass have been applied. I will eventually paint the insides as well, as this will help to reduce the amount of dust that stays in them.
17/6/2002
Now that the glue has had time to dry, I made a start on shaping the
first block to fit. It was made longer than needed, so that there was
enough to file away to get it to the right shape without it being a
loose fit. A short 6mm hole was drilled in the door side, which was a
tight fit on a M6 bolt so that I could hold the block in the correct
place to work out what shape the end needed to be. The door side of it
was then filed to shape, and the right shape of the body side was
filed, but its too long so needs shortening.
18/6/2002
Finished shaping the lhs rear block and shortened it to fit, marked
where the bodywork hole was needed (which wasn't in the centre), then
drilled through at an angle to join up with the shallow hole on the
door side of the block. It was all bolted up, and definitely reduces
the amount of movement in the door, but it should be improved once
there are alloy plates on either side so that the bolt doesn't move.
19/6/2002
Cut, drilled, and filed the corners off some alloy plates for the lhs
door bolt, and shaped the rhs block to fit the door.
20/6/2002
Finished shaping the rhs rear door block to fit, and drilled the hole
through at the correct angle. Spent some time cleaning up the rough
side of the grp around the rhs lower door bolts and filing down the
alloy plates so that they all fit together better.
21/6/2002
Made the alloy plates for rhs rear door bolt, and filed to match the
shape of the grp it will sit against.
22/6/2002
Went round all of the alloy door bolt plates to check their fit
against the grp, and filed them to shape so that they sit as flat as
possible, with bits of rubber in between them.
With some body filler, I filled in the hinge holes left in the lhs door and bodywork, the huge holes in the top and rear edges of the rhs door, inside the rhs door around the rear bolt hole to make it flatter, and also in the lhs wheelarch around the lhs rear door bolt as there is a large step in the grp which would have taken ages to make the alloy match its shape.
The wooden door blocks were then cleaned up and painted gloss black, and the rear light blocks were filed away a little bit to make them a snug fit, and I also checked that the lights fit through the blocks when they are in place.
23/6/2002
Spent a short while cleaning up the filler around the rear door bolts,
checking that the alloy now sits flush with the grp.
The door blocks were painted again to touch up the spaces where I had been holding them the first time, the rear light blocks were painted, and then I also did inside the doors (to stop loads of dust continuously coming out of them), around the rear wheelarch (where I'd stuck extra grp on to strengthen the crack ages ago), and over the boot hinge support bars.
Some more alloy plates were made, this time for inside the boot for the hinge bolts. Thankfully the grp is fairly flat here, so it didn't take much time to get them the right shape to fit.
The grp trailing arm covers have some edges that stick out quite a lot, so these were trimmed back, which should hopefully make the carpeting over them slightly easier.
As the battery isolation switch has 10mm terminals, and the leads I have use 8mm ends (and 6mm holes in the battery terminals...), a short steel block with 8 and 10mm holes in was made to join the lead to the switch.
When I moved house there were various things left in the garage. One of them was a mostly empty spray container of Armor All interior polish, which I recently found again after digging around in the garage, so I decided to give this a go on the dash and see what sort of a difference it makes. I tried it on a tunnel off-cut first to check that it didn't have some strange reaction to gelcoat, but it seemed fine so I did the whole dash with it. The result is that the dash looks much more black than it used to, and a bit shinier as well. It recommends 3 coats, leaving them overnight, so I'll apply another two and hopefully that should make it look good enough.
I then made a start on some paper templates for the interior carpet. Once there are templates for all of the separate sections, I can work out how to arrange them on the roll before anything is cut, just in case I run out (though there seems loads more carpet than I'll need, even though I had measured it all up before I bought it).
25/6/2002
Fitted the fuel sender to the lhs tank, using blue Hylomar to seal it
all off. I also put a large bead all the way round the outside edge of
the sender, so hopefully it shouldn't leak...
Gave the dash another polish, and it doesn't look too bad now. The only problem is some of the scratches that were in it when I got it (just chucked in the back of the van, and wasn't wrapped up or anything), which are impossible to do anything with due to the textured leathercloth finish, so I'll just have to put up with them.
26/6/2002
Painted black inside the dash slots, as with being cut they are grey
and can't be polished. The alloy vents were then stuck on with a load
of silicone, and with some tools placed on top of them were left to
cure overnight. The rough paper door carpet templates were trimmed to
fit properly.
27/6/2002
After looking around for ages, I managed to find some black plastic
pipe a similar diameter to the front indicators. As the angle of the
bodywork at the front is a bit too steep to mount the lights flat
against, I wanted something to make them vertical. Without major
fibreglassing (which I don't want to do), the simplest solution is to
use a bit of pipe with the light at one end, and the other end cut at
an angle to sit against the body. It won't be particularly easy to do,
but it should end up with a better finish than making a block of
something else up.
To make sure that they don't blow themselves off the dash, the alloy vents had a few bits of glass stuck round the edges to hold them on, as I don't trust the silicone to be enough on its own.
To reduce the number of shiny things on the car even more, the visible sections of the filler necks were painted black - the edges and the outer bit of the top, though leaving the middle free where the cap sits against it.
More paper templates were made and shaped for the carpets - the whole of the left side of the passenger area, both footwells, and both trailing arm covers as they will have to be made separately otherwise they'll end up being a bit messy.
I then started shaping a couple of bits of alloy to block off the hole in the driver's footwell for the steering column to pass through. My brother had attempted this a while ago, but they didn't fit very well at all so I basically had to start again. The difficult bit is getting the profile of the column right seen as it goes through the panel at an angle, and also the bend in the footwell panel doesn't help...
28/6/2002
Did a bit more work on the steering column hole cover - filed the
holes out further so that the two bits of alloy meet each other, and
cut them to shape.
29/6/2002
Cleaned up the bit of black plastic drainpipe to see what sort of a
finish it has. There are a lot of very small scratches, which are
quite regular so have probably been put on during manufacture.
Hopefully these will polish out, but there will be plenty spare to
test with.
Made the initial carpet templates for the driver's side and the seat back.
30/6/2002
Shaped the driver's side and seat back templates to fit.
Total hours this month -
67.0
Total build hours -
1207.5
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