Engine Bay Louvres - 2

That's the other one done then:

Next job is to fit the stoneguards - hopefully this weekend - no driving as rain is forecast:

Engine Bay Louvres - 1

Fitted one of the engine bay louvres tonight. This was done using four M3x30 button head allen bolts self tapped into 2.5mm dia holes. The Louvre was spaced off the back of the rebate by passing the bolts through some small diameter aluminium tubing (again painted matt black). I'm quite pleased with the end result:Looks quite convincing...... could almost be the engine bay behind the vents.... not just a matt black painted rebate! You have to remember that on the GD you can't really have "proper" vents as these would provide an opening into the footwell compartments.... which would be OK if you guarantee you would never drive in the wet.

The good old days!!!

Having picked up my engine bay louvres and stoneguards at Stoneliegh I once again had some jobs to do on the car..... just like the good old days! You'll remember that I fitted blanking plates for the SVA test and crudely bodged them into place with silicone adhesive. I ripped the plates off to be confronted by the remaining silicone:It was at this point that I remembered what a bugger silicone can be to get off anything - not to mention GRP. However off I went to my local Screwfix Direct (3 miles away) and in exchange for less than three pounds got a little pot of this:Tried it out on an off cut of GRP - no reaction. Applied it to the remaining silicone - waited 20 minutes - applied some more - waited 20 minutes and yup..... No Nonsense..... Just scraped it all of with an old credit card. No silicone and no scratching or marks to the GRP. A quick roughing up with some wet and dry it was ready to paint matt black:Here's the finished article ready for the Louvre.... when I've got me hands on some M3x30 allen head bolts that is:Simply repeat for the other side.

Trying not to think about tyres.......

Still some small jobs to be done:

The SVA test requires that the clutch and brake pedals are non-slip, mine obviously are not:No problem though as I've got some of this stuff:It is like (Very) Coarse sandpaper on a rubberised adhesive backing. That bit has been stuck on my vice for two days and is pretty difficult to get off!! So after one last time in the footwell.... job done:I have yet to fit the engine bay dummy vent louvres... mainly because GD don't have any in stock. If I did nothing then the rebate in the body has a contactable edge which is a borderline fail being just less then the 2.5mm radius required. This was solved with some 0.5mm aluminium plate and some silicone: This converts the edge projection to less than 2.5mm in which case it only needs to be "blunted". Problem solved. I probably could have spent a bit longer making the plates fit "Exactly" but to be honest I couldn't really be bothered!

One thing I haven't yet tested is the fuel gauge. Fortunately the last time I ran the engine it ran out of fuel. So I added five litres - Moved up to below empty: Added another 5 (10 in total) - Moved a bit closer to empty - honest!!:

Added another 5 (15 in total) - Moved above empty:

Added another 5 (20 in total) - Moved above 1/4:

At least it moves I suppose. I'll keep adding 5 litres at a time ('cos I only got a 5 litre fuel can!) and note the gauge positions so that should give a good idea of what's left in the tank - somehow I think E - 1/2 - F might not be that accurate!

In fact it won't be. The gauge is marked for a float arm that drops below centre and moves up an equal amount above centre - you can see this from the non-linear markings - i.e. 1/4 is nearer to E than 1/2 and 3/4 is nearer to F than 1/2.

My sender is top mounted and moves through roughly 70 degrees up to just below the horizontal, and from my experiments when fitting the sender the resistance did not appear to change linearly with the float arm. So it's anybody's guess really!

So far... E = 12 Litres and 1/4 = 18 litres. It's around a 50 litre tank so looks like I might get to F before 50 litres?

Wiper Motor and Demists

Onwards and upwards. I tried installing the wiper motor and mechanism as per the GD build photos - only it would not fit without fouling the underside of the scuttle and the bundy tube wouldn't line up with the wiper wheel boxes without putting a tortuous s-bend in it???? I turned the wheel boxes upside down (compared to the GD build photos - but the way I had them originally - and altered the position of the motor and then everything started to fall into place:Fitting the wiper motor was another "upside down effin' & jeffin' in the footwell" moment. The mechanism is a good old fashioned bundy tube affair which can be pretty noisy if not set up correctly. I tested the whole lot with a power probe on the motor socket - and after a bit of tweaking it was all running sweetly.

Flushed with success I moved on to fitting the demist vents and escutcheons - another top tip - paint the inside of slot (i.e. the cut face of the fibreglass) with matt black paint - after filing it to match the cut out in the escutcheon.I even spent a while polishing some M5 button head bolts so they were as shiny as very shiny thing to match the escutcheons:

In the above the photo you can see the benefit of painting the inside of demist slots matt balck.

Hopefully my new longer bolts will turn up tomorrow so I can finish fitting the screen stanchions. Not exactly sure what's next on the agenda?.... probably the dashboard?

Aaaarrrgh! Me Bloomin' Arms Ache

Early Start and 8 hours hard graft gets you this:

Nuff Said!

Wiper Spindles

Having fitted the windscreen yesterday, today it was time to remove it! - But not before marking the holes for the centre stay bracket:

Having marked out the positions for the wiper spindles yesterday it was now time to cut them. Having drilled a hole, this needed to be opened out to fit the inclined wiper spindle. Using one of the spindle spacers I measured the angle - cut a piece of MDF to suit and taped the Dremel onto it:

The Dremel with a small sanding drum made light work of opening out the hole and the first spindle was easily fitted (you will need to cut the spacers down to suit):

And then repeat for the other side:

Whilst I remembered I made a template for the screen stanchion fixings and drilled some new holes in the column support bar:

The final job of the day was to do three gel-coat repairs on the scuttle roll and one on the bonnet reveal - these should be cured for finishing tomorrow (Heater in garage now after last time!)

Now the forecast looks dry for Saturday do that's the day I'm planning to finish compounding and polishing the body. I going to do it outside this time after the mess in the garage after the last time!

So jobs to do are to sand down the gel-coat repairs I've just done, remove the front lights, put the wheels back on and jack the car down off the axles stands and cover up the engine bay.

The garage could also do with a clean out when the car is not in it!

Preparing for the Windscreen - Another Cunning Plan?

With the arrival of the windscreen only days away it was time to start thinking about how to install it. The problem lies in the fact that the GD body has threaded inserts moulded into the body and the centres of these inserts need to be transferred onto the "legs" of the screen when it is in the right place. However the "legs" of the screen will cover the inserts so some method of transferring the centres is needed???

I came up with the idea of taking some lengths of steel flat - drilling them for the screen fixing bolts, screwing them to some blocks of wood and bonding the blocks of wood to the inside of the body with Sikaflex:

When the Sikaflex has cured the bolts can be removed - the windscreen slid into place - and the holes marked directly. The gubbins can then be easily removed by unscrewing the flats from the blocks and cutting through the Sikalfex with a sharp blade. Well that's the theory and it should enable all four holes to be marked and drilled in one go. Below shows the arrangement on the drivers side:

On the passenger side the relays get in the way so a slightly different arrangement is needed:

Once the screen has been fitted, the wiper spindles can be marked out and cut. This then represents the end of cutting / drilling the body. So after compounding & polishing the front of the car it will be time for a big clean up!

All that then remains is to fit the wipers, heating / demist gubbins, dash, connect the electrics and a bit of trimming.

Did I really say "all"!

Christmas Comes Early!

I had two phone calls today:

1. From Speedy Cables to say my gauges were ready and would be delivered tomorrow.
2. From GD to say they had a windscreen for me.

What more could you want?

Off to GD on Tuesday to get the screen - then I should be able to crack on! SVA in Feb / Mar is looking realistic once again.

Starting the Dashboard

Today I started on the dashboard, after a bit of trimming width wise and some careful marking out I cut the holes for all the switches (which I now have):

I've started marking out for the gauges but I'm not going any further until I get my hands on them - hopefully later next week.

In the meantime it was time for another odd job - this time it was fitting the footwell extension. The extension panel was prepared quite a while ago (See Here) but could not be fitted until after the body was fitted as it would foul the chassis when trying to fit the body. Obviously therefore the panel needs to be removable to permit removal of the body. The closed cell neoprene foam bonded to the panel should be enough to weatherproof it, but just in case it isn't, a bead of sikaflex was run round the inside edge and smoothed out after fitting:

Hmmmm, this should make the carpeting interesting!

Re-assembling my rear end !

The local sweatshop hasn't finished altering the last piece of carpet yet!!! so I set about putting back the things I had taken off previously:

I took the opportunity to add reflectors - these are needed to pass the SVA test but as I am not fitting the rear nudge bars there is nowhere handy to fit them. Instead I fitted them to small aluminium plates that slip between indicator and brake light housings and the mounting rubbers. Neat enough for SVA and easily removable later - for show purposes only obviously.

I also finally fitted the tailpipes - these slip into the rear silencers (sealed with High Temp Silicone) and fixed with a stainless steel self tapping screw:Drilling through stainless steel upside down is definitely not in my top ten list of favourite pastimes!

When finished out came the tape measure and I decide the exhausts were not central (again!) - it is really obvious against the reversing and fog lights. It is simple enough to adjust by slackening off the six mounting bolts on the rear rubber hanger - it is just difficult to get in there to reach them easily. In hindsight the axle stands should have been higher but I would have needed a bigger jack to get the car up there in the first place. No matter, it's done now.

I just need to finish off the carpet and fit the boot rubber and I think that will be the back done - time to move onto the cockpit?

Windscreen News

Spoke to Andy at GD today- A supply of acceptable windscreens has been sourced, with delivery estimated in 4-5 weeks. So come the end of November / Beginning of December it should be full steam ahead!

Shiny Shiny!!

Day off work today and an early start in the garage - 7:00!! As I mentioned before the plan now is to get the back of the car finished whilst waiting for the windscreen.

So armed with an electric polisher, some Farecla G3 and G10 liquid, buckets, sponges and chamois I set to work. Check out paints4u.com for all your polishing needs with next day delivery. Whilst an electric polisher does make light work of compounding - after a couple of hours it will make your arms ache!

After cleaning down the back end of the car I set about compounding those areas of scratches acquired during construction and the gel coat repairs with G3 liquid. Then the entire rear area was treated to compounding with g10 liquid which is effectively a swirl remover. After a jolly good clean up (clean water only) then a nice thick application of Auto Glym Deep Shine Wax was applied and eventually buffed off by hand.

After 5 hours work (knackered now!) here's the final result:

And just for good measure I polished up the Aston Filler Cap and fitted that:
Somehow I need to change the settings of my camera - photos keep giving the body a pink tinge!

Gel Coat Repairs - 3

Thought I'd have a go at the repair on the top of the rear wheelarch. So off with the clingfilm and a wipe over with some acetone:

Next rub down with 400 wet & dry to remove the bulk, followed by 800 then 1200 wet & dry with plenty of water. Each successive finer grade is run at right angles to the previous grade:

Smooth as a baby's bum..... it just has a matt finish. So 5 minutes work with Farecla G6 followed by 10 minutes rubbing hard with Farecla G3 gives you this:Now I can't seem to find the repair?It's in there somewhere?

I have also concluded that you can't take decent close up photos of shiny red surfaces!

Gelcoat Repairs - 2

I had to admit defeat today.... with the current temperatures the gelcoat I mixed up was under-catalysed. So much in fact that most of the repairs just wiped out with acetone. So this time I mixed up another batch and added an extra drop of catalyst:

I also used a small halogen heater - moving it around between the various areas - to try and bring the temperature of the repairs up to around 20 degrees C.

After about an hour the left over gelcoat was beginning to harden and after 4 hours was getting pretty solid with only a slight tackiness due to the exposure to air. I'm pretty sure this time it will be OK.

Looking around for other jobs to do I fitted the battery leads in the battery compartment and added some additional power connections:

The smaller red and black wires coming from the studs are the direct supply to the Mallory 6AL Ignition Box.

The smaller red and black wires coming from the battery terminal clamps connect to a socket which will be place somewhere under the dash / passenger footwell and will allow a battery conditioner to be easily connected - as opposed to having to get into the battery compartment. The thick brown wire is the ignition feed and also fits to the battery terminal clamp.

We'll see how the gelcoat repairs turn out tomorrow.

It's cold up North...... Brrrrrr.

Well as luck would have it - temperatures plummeted last night - max / min thermometer in the garage showed a minimum of 5 degrees! and it was still cold this morning. As a consequence the gel has not fully gone off yet. So heater on and time to fine something else to do.

I got my hands on another intermittent wiper relay - this time off a Vauxhall for a bit of compatibility - and using the info supplied by Andy I revised the wiring diagram - this time to include a wipe feature after using the screen wash (fingers crossed that is):

And after a little bit of re-wiring the job was done:Just needs testing now.

Gelcoat Repairs - 1

Right, this will either turn out to be a "How to" or a "How not to" guide!

Here is a picture of the chip on the top of the rear offside wheel arch caused by me knocking the bundy tube for the wipers out of the loft - it dropped end on onto the wheelarch (this was quite a while ago - I've been keeping it quiet and can only just talk about it now!):The first step is to make it much worse by grinding it out with the dremel to chamfer off the sides and then cleaning the area up with acetone:Then I masked the area off just in case I got carried away with the gel:There were also three other areas on the back - another scratch caused by me by inadvertently pushing the car back against the garage door handle! The other two low down ones were slight blemishes from the mould - and looking at them now you would not notice them normally! These were all ground out and masked as above:

The next step was to mix up some gel - one teaspoon of gel to three drops of catalyst (I have experimented before with this). Too much catalyst will cause small air bubbles to appear - as will mixing it too vigorously:

This was then brushed into the areas leaving them slightly proud (the gel does shrink slightly) and the area was then covered in clingflim as air needs to be excluded for the gel to harden:

So.... looks like some sanding and cutting to be done tomorrow - assuming it is not too cold tonight and the gel goes off - don't throw away the left over gel - it will tell you how well the gel is curing.