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The 2 side radiator shroud panels were then fitted, along with the clips, and the 2 petrol tank rubber strips were stuck down. The front and left rear wheelarch rubber strips were fitted, held in place with a wide flat bit of ply pressing some crumpled newspaper against the rubber, themselves supported by a bit of wood wedged against the floor at the rear and some alloy channel and an old car scissor jack used at the front. Extra Wurth and silicone was put on the side bulkhead panels, so the tops of them should stay in place.
3/11/2002
Stuck down a corner of the front lhs wheelarch rubber which had ended
up being folded back when the newspaper had been stuffed in. The rear,
left side and left tunnel sections of carpet were trimmed to fit
properly, and the seatbelt bolt hole was cut out in the tunnel carpet,
as I don't want to forget about them...
4/11/2002
Cut the seatbelt hole in the left side carpet, and then trimmed the
right tunnel carpet to fit properly.
5/11/2002
Trimmed the lower edge off the rear panel carpet, and got most of the
right side done.
6/11/2002
Finished trimming right side carpet to shape, and cut the seatbelt
bolt hole. Cut out and shaped the rhs trailing arm cover, and made
some minor adjustments to the lhs trailing arm cover.
9/11/2002
After looking round a few places, I found some pipe lagging which will
fit around a 1.5" chassis rail, to go on the long one which goes
across the width of the car under the dash. It fits on quite well, but
now I just need to figure out a way of covering it up and filling the
gap between the bottom of the dash and the chassis rail, while
allowing access to the relays and fuses...
Removed, cleaned and sprayed the windscreen supports. They had been fitted to hold the side bulkhead panels in place, but with the amount of silicone around it had made one of them rust quite a bit, so they needed painting to stop any more starting.
Sanded down the radiator shroud panels, then painted them black, along with the visible bodywork bolts so that they don't stand out as much.
Filed off the top edge of the rear top alloy panel where it is attached to the grp, as there is a fairly large step which the carpet will have to cover, so filing it to a wedge should help the carpet stay in place.
Fitted the boot lock steel plate and alloy cable end stops, which just rivet to the rear alloy panel, and then removed the rear section of copper fuel line which joins the 2 tanks together, as this won't be needed for a while.
10/11/2002
Fitted the horns permanently, now that the radiator shroud has been
fitted, and painted the fog light block. Also, the top edges of the
rear alloy panels were painted, so that if the carpet doesn't sit
flush, there won't be bright silver showing up underneath.
After temporarily fitting the boot lock (which was incredibly fiddly, having limited access to the back of it), I shortened the boot cable outer to the right length, and also trimmed the left cable to fit after using solder to try and stop the end from fraying. It sort of worked, but I'll only shorten the other cable when it has been fitted just in case the end frays too much to fit through the outer. I then made some alloy clamps for both of the cables to hold them onto the boot releases, and tested the release. Thankfully it worked, though with no grease on any of the moving parts it was a little bit stiffer than I was hoping for.
The alloy cable clamps were cleaned up and polished, then I polished the two front brake pipes coming out of the master cylinder, as they are fairly close to the 4th exhaust header, so making them shiny should help to reflect a bit of the heat. Hardly any effort was needed to make them nice and bright, so I spent a bit of time on the exhaust pipe as well, which was a bit more work. The plan is to put a small section of heat wrap on the top section of all 4 headers, as 1 and 2 are near the alternator, 3 is close to the clutch cable, and 4 is close to the brake pipe, but they will all be polished first as well to help keep a bit of the heat in.
12/11/2002
Made a start on sorting out the tunnel carpet, using some offcuts
first to play around with. I ended up with a narrow bit that runs all
the way along the top of the tunnel, and a small section to go on the
rear left side. This avoids most of the compound curves, so both bits
can lie pretty much flat.
13/11/2002
Taped down the top tunnel section so that it can be used as a
reference for the side sections. Chopped up the paper tunnel template,
then used that to get the basic shape for the front left side section
before cutting the carpet to fit.
14/11/2002
Got most of the right side carpet shaped, though the top edge is
incredibly fiddly to get right. The rear bit where the tunnel follows
the angle of the chassis will be a separate section, as the carpet
just won't follow all of the curves round the angle.
16/11/2002
The rocker box clips for the throttle cable and hoses were bolted in
place, using threadlock to make sure they don't rattle loose. The fog
light mounting block was given a second coat of paint, and some holes
were drilled in the gear remote bar to save a bit of weight as it is a
bit hefty.
Some minor adjustment was made to the narrow alloy panels that fit over the gap between the chassis and the bodywork just under the doors, and then they were fitted with plenty of silicone used to fill the gaps. The hole at the front between the bodywork and chassis was then filled with more silicone, and some small gaps around the side bulkhead panels were filled in, so now the whole of the passenger compartment should be sealed around the edge.
The main right section of tunnel carpet was finished, and the small rear right section was made.
17/11/2002
The throttle cable outer was cut to length, and a bit more was filed
off the alloy cable clamp so that it fits a bit better.
The pipe lagging was cut to fit, with lots of little recesses to fit over the dashboard brackets, tunnel front support, and steering column chassis supports.
The tunnel was put into the car so that the bits of carpet could be fine tuned to make sure they fit in the car properly. Some minor modifications were made, but they all now look good enough to cut some proper bits of carpet which will be exactly the right size. The front left corner was also trimmed a bit, so that it avoids the heater.
The black footwell carpet sections were cut to shape, and a few things were painted including the fog light mounting block again, all of the bodywork mounting bolt heads and washers, and the tunnel top and heater where they will be visible from the inside.
19/11/2002
Made templates and then carpet for the front flat section of the
tunnel, and the front and main bits of the handbrake recess.
21/11/2002
Marked and cut out new tunnel carpet sections from the roll using the
original templates, and adding on any extra bits to the edges that are
needed.
23/11/2002
To try and reduce the heat a bit, I polished the first few inches of
all of the exhaust headers, before covering them with exhaust
wrap. This is to protect the alternator, and the clutch cable which
both sit very close to the headers.
A support bar was added inside the rear of the tunnel, as the rear section where it has been cut and put back together is a little bit weak near the join, so this adds a bit of triangulation and seems to have made it much stronger.
The tunnel hole around the handbrake was then trimmed, as the lever got quite close to the tunnel in a couple of places.
24/11/2002
The vacuum connection to the distributor was tidied up, with a 3rd
suppressor thing added in and a p-clip and some zip ties to hold it
all in place.
An exhaust rubber strap was fitted to the rear chassis rail under the tailpipe, as there was only a few mm clearance between the chassis and the exhaust.
A rubber lump that was originally removed from the rear handbrake cables was reshaped to fit onto the gear lever. This creates a small platform that the gaitor can sit on, as there is nothing on the lever to allow this. The hole for the gear lever in the tunnel was then enlarged a bit to give a decent clearance all the way round the lever's movement, and I made a template for the gaitor.
I tried a paper one to start with, but this just ended up ripping itself to bits, so using an old rag a large circle was cut out, with a cut up to the middle allowing it to be overlapped creating a cone shape. This was then taped together and fiddled around with until it fitted onto the tunnel and had enough slack in it for the lever to move everywhere. The edges of the cloth were trimmed to match the hole in the tunnel, and I ended up with something which will be converted into vinyl when I have access to a sewing machine.
I then had a quick look at doing a gaitor for the handbrake, but this will be a tad more complicated, so I'll have to have a look through magazines and websites first to get some ideas.
The lumps of polystyrene were put into the chassis, and I checked the fit of the under-seat carpet templates. They both needed some minor adjustments, including cutting slots out for the seat support bars.
26/11/2002
Finished sorting out the under-seat carpet templatess, and cut both
bits of carpet to fit. The slots for the seat support bars were also
cut out of the left side carpet.
27/11/2002
Finished off shaping the rhs under-seat carpet. Had a look at the grp
upper windscreen insert that I got with the bodywork. It was chopped
in half to fit over the rear view mirror bracket, but as with the rest
of the extra bodywork bits its such a bad fit that its just not worth
using. I'll have to try and figure something else out to fill the gap.
Filed out one of the seatbelt washers that I picked up from the scrappy so that it would fit over an M12 bolt. The washer was around 11.8mm internal diameter, so only slightly too small, and M12 is a good fit through the roll hoop rather than trying to get an imperial equivalent.
28/11/2002
Filed out the 2nd seatbelt washer. Made a 2.5mm radius scraper from a
small steel offcut, and started checking the edges of the bodywork.
The ridge above the left headlight was scraped to the correct radius.
30/11/2002
Spent most of the day working on the handbrake gaitor, including
enlarging the hole in the tunnel for the handbrake.
Total hours this month -
64.5
Total build hours -
1492.5
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