Dasboard part 8 (final ??)

 Dashboard all done now apart from wiring the speedo and Tacho .

Never  got any wiring with the gauges but downloaded them from the smiths website and then got even more confused as there are 5 wires on the speedo dash  harness and 7 on the plug 

5 wires on harness 

7 wires on the plug 

This resulted in a call to Andy to clarify 

The red/blue goes to the green /orange ,  black/yellow needs to be earthed

and ignore the brown/slate wire and the red wire   the others are straight forward .

Same problem with the Tacho 4 wires on the harness and 6 on the plug 

4 wires 

6 wires on the plug 

again from Andy red/blue wire goes to white/slate on loom 

ignore the brown /slate  and white/black wires..

again the other 3 are straight forward 

As a dissclaimer this was for my smiths instruments and  yours could be different . 

Fuel tank

 fitted the Fuel tank  and it secures with 2 straps held down with self tapping screws .

Wasn't happy with all that weight  being held with self tappers so used M8 bolts 

Tank secured with 8mm bolts 

 The tank seder has 2 wires needing attached to it so used a 6mm p clip to one of the bolts and connected that 

Tank sender connected 

then on to the fuel pump this has different size connections  presumably so they will only go on one way but i had to crimp the cables so still possible to get it wrong.

the fuel pump nuts dont come with spring washers so replaced those with nylocks  remembering to put the cover on the cable before crimping . smeared with Vaseline and fitted.

fuel pump cables fitted pipes still to sort 

Boot wiring

 Again before the final fit of the fuel tank wanted to secure the boot wiring ,this has to be done with clips no more than 300mm apart .we used p clips and self tapping screw to secure the wire .

The fuel pump wire was the starting point as that goes though a hole between the 2 fuel pipes, i used a 20mm plastic fitting to grip the wire ,my idea was to leave the fuel wires as long as possible so i could fit the fuel pump wires to the pump before fitting it back ( not a lot of room ) and be able to take it down if needed 

fuel pump wires threaded though 

initially i planed to route the cable round the outside edge of the boot but the self tapping screws would be seen , so opted for straight across and protected the wire with so 15mm foam .

amongst the wires are cables for heated screen and boot light which i don't intend to use so will tuck those in the gap at the side of the fuel tank ,apart from the obvious cables that feed the lights there was also a another connection which is the number plate light I plan to take that up the side of the car to the boot hinge ..

Boot Fitting

 Before the final Fuel tank fit needed to fit the boot first as would be impossible to climb in the boot with the fuel tank in place .

First job was to fit the striker plate .I found the center of the car and marked and drill the plate.

Next job was to fit the boot lid ,I am using the newer type hinges so a bit easir to line up everything with no bending .

Hinges fitted with cap head bolts the same as the bonnet  

Steve graciously volunteered  to climb in the boot to check the position  of the clasp  which should line up as i had the holes drilled in by Andy at GD .

Unfortunately the clasp did not line up at all , the reason was that i had placed the clasp in the middle of the car and it should be 3mm off set ( as mentioned in other blogs so no excuse really ) .

Steve's welding skills to the rescue  again as he moved the catch 3mm so now the catch will line up.

Again in the boot and the catch was fine now .

Secured  the catch with self tapping screws and moved on to the handle.

The handle has 2 locating pegs which have to be drill out to stop it turning 

Marking the locating holes 

Then it was a case of fitting the handle again with self tapping screws .after shorting the bar to the correct length

Steve came up wit the idea for added security to drill and tap the bar so it cant come loose which sounded good to me so drilled and tapped the bar 5mm and secured it to to the latch

latch with the bolt fitted 

Roll Bars Final fit

 Removed the cover plates as not happy with the machine marks and using Autosol and trusty Dremel now a lot better .

Applied a little bit of silicon to the under side of the rubber and then finally bolted then down .

To finish off put in the eyebolts for the seatbelts and the head rest bars .

Test fitted the eye bolts to see how they would sit and by moving them about managed to get all but 1 to line up ,that one need a bit of carful filing on the roll bar to make it line up .

Once sorted applied stud lock to the eye bolts and the headrest bolts and secured.

Stud lock applied 

Fuel tank

 Today decided to tackle the fuel tank ,wanted to get this in place and all the connections right before removing it to fit the boot as not sure there will be enough room for me and the fuel tank in the boot .

First job was to sound proof it to try and stop it drumming, quite an easy job with the self adessive sheets I bought.

sound proofing applied 

Also following advice from Dale took out the fuel sender and hovered out anything that might be in there to save the filter later on .

Then came the interesting bit ,trying to get the bulkhead fittings in the right place as there is not a lot of room .

2 ideas were forthcoming and as Steve's was the better idea we went with that so ... marked the center line were the pipes naturally wanted to go then removed the tank and bent the pipes to a nice curve before measuring the distance from the bottom of the tank to the center of the pipes this gave us 115mm and 180mm .drilled these holes for the bulkhead fitting ( larger one at the bottom ) 

holes drilled and bulkhead fittings in  

 

Fitted the bulkhead fitting with the long thread to the front to give us more clearance for the pies from the chassis.

then it was a case to see if the tank fitted 

tank in and happy 

Can't put the tank central as not enough clearance for the connections but only 5mm off and it will be covered with carpet .

Next was to see how the pipes will fit on the other side.

answer:- not good ..

the fuel system has the fuel feed from the bottom of the tank which is a straight pipe so no issues there but  the fuel return is an elbow fitting and needs the be at the same angle as the connections so the pipe is not  twisted mine was no were near so fuel pump had to come down and be altered .

fuel pump and filter /pressure regulator 

the fuel feed is the short pipe and the return is the top pipe and the angle is critical .

altered now so the top pipe elbow is 90 deg 

all ready to fit now but going to leave this for another day as wiring the fuel pump will be a lot easier before refitting .