Windscreen

 I was all set to fit the dash when I realized that the windscreen needs fitting first so.

We had already fitted it once, so it was a relatively easy job (but a bit scary as a lot of money) windscreen was fitted and then rechecked the measurements to make sure it was still right .930mm from the windscreen to the back i had 931 mm so good enough for me.

the 2 covers were placed on the pillars, and it becomes apparent that they need bending to the shape of the car, did this with a piece of decking wood a 1/2-inch drive extension and a vice, nice smooth bend.

other blogs seem to use self-tapping screws to secure these plates but wen i drilled the hole for the outside it was so close to the station hole i was worried it would split 

I have opted for 4mm bolts 

the outside ones need to be 50mm due to the curve, ordered these so hex head fitted for now.

once these were fitted, removed everything again and applied black silicon to the gap and underneath the plate then refitted te plates and windscreen.

once the button head bolts arrive i will be able to swap one at a time without disturbing the seal 

All fitted and waiting for the silicon to cure 

Just checking his head was below the roll bar/windscreen  

Wiring and undertrays

 Had a bit of time so went for wiring the undertrays, pinched an idea from other blogs and wanted an aux socket but wanted it hidden, Also wanted to be able to charge the battery from this point. Didn't want to overload the wiring so took an extra feed from the battery with an in line fuse and broght it though with all the other wires .  

Its quite tight for room but can just get it all in ,the main feed from the batt come to the extra fuse board and then feeds the aux socket sends a fed to the drivers footwell lamp.

I have decided that phone charging is going to be an issue so opted to hide a usb outlet behind the pass seat .

usb twin port behind the pass seat 

now all the wiring is in should be able to fianlly fit the dash.

Mirrors

 Next job was to look at fastening the mirrors .

From the CD the 5mm threads need to be on the ceter line and bottom one 10mm down from the second windscreen hole and the second 38mm up from that .

Expected it to be hard drilling but it went surprising easy ,drilled 4mm and tapped to 5mm (should have need 4.2mm but only had 4mm drill) 

removed the mirror from the box and quickly discovered all i wanted was the shell and the glass ,removed the glass and the securing bolt and fitted to my pillar.

fitted and checked that the bolts do not show through 

Left the glass out for now as they have to come off to fit the windscreen .

Leather

 First piece of leather to fit is the transmission tunnel top cover ,was dreading this so needed moral support in the way of Steve .

Marked the top of the gear stump with grease and placed the leather on top to give us a clue .

then cut a small hole just big enough for the shaft .

Cutting out the small hole 

It would then lay on the transmission tunnel in the right place ,between us we came up with the idea of replacing the bolts with sharpened studs which will mark the fiberglass backer 

sharpened studs 

this worked very well and gave us the position of the three holes  then using the ring we could calculate the diameter and position of the gearstick hole .

This was drilled out with a hole saw and then the leather was cut with a knife .

The gater was eased into position and stretched until it fitted in the ring and then screwed down.

sure, he hates me 

the finished effect looks brill thanks Steve 

the back of the leather lifts up but that should be trapped by the back piece and if not going to glue some velcro tape to the back which will stick it to the carpet .

Steering wheel

 Got the steering wheel out of the box and surprise its doesn't fit, quick call to Andy and he tells me that the splines on the housing need to be filed a bit or i can just force it on .

Didnt like the idea of forcing anything as knowing my luck i would need it off, using needle files set to and filed each spline until it fits, assembled the steering wheel 

idea was that the Column can be moved back and forth until it is fixed in place so wanted to make sure the driving position was correct.

Wheel in the correct position 

Now i know where the column wants to be i can sort out the cover and fit the dash .

More Fault finding

After the excitement of the start it was time to get   on to the issues found .

I noticed that the fuel gauge reads full and I know there is only 4 gallons in there.

when I took the cables off the sender the gauge went to empty so appears to be a sender problem 

When i looked further the sender is reading wrong should be high resistance when empty and low when full but mine is the other way round

empty should be reading high 

full should be reading low 

One for Andy GD to sort 

Next 

Ignition warning light ---now lights up but still not charging so strip down and see what going on there 

Wipers -- ok changed over the park and now ok but very noisy in operation so might have to bend the tube some more 

Washer -- now working bad earth (my fault)  

Brake fluid light -- now working Lamp blown  

Reverse lock out --ok

Boot lights work with side lights 

and big one for me the start button illumination goes out when engine starts 

First Engine start

Well it was time to try and start the engine, I had pre lubed the engine a while ago and Andy from GD recommended unclipping the coil packs and turning the engine over to get the oil circulating ( i have running in oil in so it's like water ) 

Did this and all seemed well so then went for a start  the live video footage is below please note: - There is swearing, and bad dancing involved!!

Can't believe it started first time so pleased.

Had a few issues which will need to be looked at 

1:fuel gauge reads full all the time 

2: oil temp gauge not reading 

3: water leak coming from the header tank area 

Plus the other electrical issues mentioned before but all in all a good day 

Steve came round to see the car and we did another video which doesn't have me acting like a child which is below 

 

Fault finding

 After a disastrous day yesterday thought i would start at one problem at a time so, started with the Headlights, using GD dash wiring i traced everything out and found that were the stalks plug into the wires have been fitted wrong !!Know that not Andys fault as he sources the wiring out but it took me most of the day to sort it ( and a few very choice words)

similar blue wires in the wrong plugs 

Now it all makes a bit more sense and checks out with my meter .

so now time for next power up . 

- Side lights --ok 

-Dip lights -- ok 

Main beam --ok ( and indicator works ) 

Flash --ok

Gauge back lights --ok 

Fog light --ok ( only when head lights on and indicator works

- heater both speeds --ok ( i wired the switch backwards so always working on speed 2  duh) 

Reversing light -- ok 

indicators lhs plus repeaters   - ok 

Indicators rhs plus repeaters   - ok  

Hazards   - ok 

horn -- soft tone only -- ok ( loud disconnected as in the garage) update bloody hell that loud 

Ignition warning light --- NO 

Start button lights up -  ok 

fuel pump runs then stops   - ok 

Wipers -- ok (parking on wrong side ) 

Washer -- NO 

Brake fluid light -- NO 

Reverse lock out --ok

Brake lights --ok 

So a lot better just a few bits to look at before a start 

powering up ( and down again)

 Time to power up 

so connected the dash up put all the fuses in and connected the battery no bang or smoke which is a good start .

first check was 

heater --only works on one speed

side lights -- all work 

head lights - no  no full beam  but flash works 

wipers -no on first speed then on second works but head lights come on !!! 

no point carrying on so enough for today out with wiring diagram.

Dash Wiring Stalks

 Final part of the wiring quite easy once i had marked cables and photocopied the supplyed drawing to make it bigger for old eyes !

Son in law came round so gave him the job 

All done thanks Adam 

Decided to alter the wiring slightly as not having intermittent wiper so moed the wiring so

 intermittent is now speed 1 and speed 1 is now speed 2 ,i also had to link speed 2 to speed 1 other wise when i went to speed 2 the wiper would stop .

link wire added 

Boot Carpet

 Went on to something easy after the exhaust .boot carpet seems straight forward  4 side pieces  2 bottom bits and a back bit .

As i was fitting the carpet i remembered that i have earthed the tank to the filler but then thought the tank is sat in a fiberglass shell and completely isolated ! Decided  to run an extra earth wire though the roll bar gap and secure it to an earth .

Earth wire from tank going down 

Carpet fitting was straight forward started with sides.

one side on 

then the bottom ,I appear to be luckier than other bloggers as my carpet already had the cut outs for the roll bars and the carpet was already fitted with velcro to secure it back after fitting .

bottom fitted 

the only fiddly bit was once the last piece was fitted needed to refit the boot catch and that traps the carpet ,very carefully drilled up to make holes in the carpet and then temp helf in place with an allen key until i got the bolts in .

All fitted 

Exhaust (Hokey Cokey) o

After much deliberation  still couldn't get the exhaust to fit always seemed to be the left side sticks out more than the right 

nearside sticking out 

After measuring everything found that the only difference was the  pipe marked nearside was 37mm longer than the drivers side.

After  a call to Andy he told me this is for the off set of the "V" engine (which makes sense) but should only be 20mm !

This all started to fit in to place now as when i fitted the pipes one of the pipes stuck though the rear mounting 18mm more than the other one .

Confident i cut off 17mm off the pipe at the cat end ( didnt want to touch the other end as there is a kick welded into the pipe .

pipe marked with masking tape to get level cut 

Now it all fitted and was level  my next issue was the drivers side was further out than the other  resolved this by notching the back plate to allow me to slide the exhaust over 

Driver side notched to slide over 

Finally all fits and level  just need to witness mark it all and then take it down once again to apply exhaust sealing paste but that's for another day.

Dash Wiring Stalks

 Final bit on the wiring was the stalks .

GD supply the stalks with a nice SS bar that screws in 

Started by cutting off the stalk ,then drilling and threading a hole in line with the stalk 

cut 

Tapped and ready to fit 

The Wiper Stalk was more difficult as it was hollow behind  for this i used epoxy first and the drilled and tapped as normal 

Other makes are available !!

Then cam on to the wiring using the tech files from the disc the wire numbers and colours  can be found ,I used the dash wiring diagram to confirm the wires and numbers 

The wiring was straightforward as there was a key for numbers and colours 

The wiper was slightly more complicated ( or i was being thick ) 

There was no wire mark for the wash or the horn ,going back to the drawing of the dash i could then work out the 2 missing cables for W and WH ,

I don't intend to have intermittent wipe on my car as hoping the wiper never get used so plan to make intermittent connection (J) speed 1(53)  and Speed1 -speed 2 (53B)  ,i am considering joining speed 1 and 2 together otherwise if i select speed 2 by mistake the wipers will stop .

need to think about that over a beer  

Dash wiring (IGN)

 Last couple of jobs before i can go for a power up is the Ignition switch and the steering stalks ,

The ignition switch is the Lucas type ,It threw me at first as i expected the switch to be

 OFF-AUX-IGN-Start  however it isn't mine is AUX -OFF-IGN- Start  

there is no wiring diagram in the box and nothing i could find in the web about wiring so after a bit of time arrived at 

Contact 1 also being at the top ,

I looked at the cables in the loom and they are 6mm so figured should use the same ,with the GDkit comes the spades and the housing for the plug so that was easy and soldered them for piece of mind however on the switch end that was another issue should have used yellow crimps due to the size of the cable but, as i was presented with double connections came up with another  idea 

first i split the cable into 2  then put the insulation back on  , I could then use 2 blue terminals on both of the connections 

insulation slides back on (note the heat shrink) 

crimped up 

Once crimped i the put heat shrink on the join , repeated this for the AUX and IGN 

heat shrink applied 

Completed 

Exhaust(ing) Time

 I have opted for the unbalanced system  so comprises of 2 straight pipes with a cat down to the rear axle 

seemed to be straight forward and fitted easy .

Put the A clamps on the top to help with ground clearance

The silencers also seemed to be easy as they just slot on the ends of the pipe and the cherry bombs on the back of that 

Only problem i have now is the dvrs side is straight but the passenger side is pointing outwards 

Enough for today time for a beer and a think ( and Steve's input ) 

+++++++++++++++++++

Update silencers went back to GD as one of them was not quite right when put back on the jig 

That should help to square things up (hopfully ) 

Wiring ish

 I decided that after speaking to other owners  there is a small type of people that have no respect and open door of there cars !! how rude 

to combat this i have  installed a very simple alarm the idea being that once switched on (with a key switch)  as soon as the door is opened an alarm will go off . adding to this i also thought that i would install Bluetooth speakers for when i am stopped 

I purchased  a motorbike sounder as it is loud enough and draws little  current when activated 

 

sounder behind the dash 

i was planning to use the courtesy switches which then reminded me to look for the connection 

i found it in one of the multiplugs that connect the dash as there is no dash wire for this i took the wire out and joined it to mine.

courtesy wire joined the other two are light feed and spare 

 

This is work in progress so more to follow  wiring diagram 

i also intend to fuse the aux socket separately and run a new wire to it so i can use this as a battery charger if reqd  

 

Steering assembly part 2

 Once i had fitted the steering wheel it just looked too low  and I couldn't get in the car very well.

GD open day was coming up so good time to catch up with everybody and have a measure .

My steering hub was 50 cm from the floor and on the gd day everybody elses was 55 to 57cm 

eventually realized what i had done .

i have fitted the steering hub under the bracket as it wouldn't fit on the top but .... it needs to be on the top

In order to get it to fit i had to cut off the corners of the steering hub 

red mark shows were i cut ( forgot to take another pic ) 

It then fits on the top and my height is the same as all the others very happy and great to catch up with all the owners .

fitted 

Now of course nothing fits on the other end 

I had 2 choices one was  to push in the steering shaft in so the rods would still fit  which i was reluctant to do as then the bracket to hold the column would then not have enough meatal to grip or 2

cut down the shaft by 30mm 

i chose the second .

Again Steve's welding services to the rescue 

Needs shortening by 30mm 

He did this by removing the socket shortening the bar and then assembling it all back together 

Just a pile of bits 

Looks the same but now 30mm shorter 

Fitted in finally together with the bracket that seems to be different to all the other cobras i saw 

Enlisted the son in laws help to fit the bracket 

Bracket fitted just need to fit the alumin surround 

Happy all in