Thursday 22 January 2009

Bonnet fitting.

As with the boot, the shut lines and panel height need to be set. This didn't take as long as I had already drilled holes and set it before. However I never got the chance to set the shut height. Basically the panel wants to sit at the same height as the body, easier said than done. Some bending and tweaking of the hinges are needed to get close, I then used various shims to either raise or lower the panel via the hinge.

Next came the support stay. Same as the boot, so some more stainless brackets made up.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

Polishing Bonnet

Yes I must be mad to polish it now. Thing is I don't feel I can progress until the panel is polished before fitting the next bit. e.g the boot had to be polished before fitting the locking handle. bonnet needs polishing before the scoop and locks can be fitted.
Farecla is the Dogs Bollox for this, you do need a polishing machine really. Oh and plenty of covers to stop everything getting covered in white spray. Farecla can also be used by hand, but only in straight lines and will take a lot longer. It can be done that way if your not lazy like me and want arms like popeye.

Starting with Farecla G3
Takes out the scratches and restores the shine.
Once all scratches are gone, use Farecla G10 to remove swirl marks from the Compounding foam
Same process with all panels.Not bad eh?

Thursday 15 January 2009

Cracking on & Boot lid wiring

Christmas and new year a distant memory now.

I was planning on ordering the chassis early Feb. But things haven't quite worked out with funds just yet. Never mind for now.

I have been busy tying up loose ends.

Pedal box was removed, to drill hole and slot to accept the throttle cable in the pedal.
Not the easiest thing to remove and reinstall by yourself. Bolts in footwell, nuts behind bulkhead wheel arch.

Next, Rear number plate light wiring. This is supposed to feed through the boot lid and hinge. I firstly decided to cut the loom in the boot and add spade connectors to both ends. This gave me about 1.5m to play with trying to get it through the boot lid and also enables the boot to be removed at a later date by disconnecting the loom.
Getting the cable in was a little tricky. Managed to get a pilot wire through eventually, but then found the main loon a little bigger than the space in the boot skin. Eventually got it through by smearing cable with grease and soldering the pilot wire to the 3 wires in the loom. I then realised that I still had to go through the hinge but had crimped that end with spade's. oh well, cut crimps, thread cable through hinge and crimp on new ones.

Fitted the boot lock with nylock nuts behind M5 screws rather than self tappers. I just felt the boot would be a little more secure.

Fitting the boot, took a while as the shut lines needed adjusting as one side the gap was 2mm opposed to 8mm the other. This unfortunately meant I had to remove the hinges and open up both sets of 4 bold holes to enable more adjustment. Snip the crimps again. Good job there is plenty of wire! :)
All fitted a few hours later. Once set It came off for the last time..... (Going to regret saying that) for final polishing. (saying that too)

Next day I decided to fit the boot support stay. I would have preferred to go with gas rams, but the standard lock stays are sufficient enough for the little use they get and thinking about it, they wont be forcing against the body all the time like gas struts would but gas struts do look good. Got some brackets made up, had to bend them to shape and drill.... bosh... done.