Roof fitted and back home

 Picked up the car From Andy's 

Roof all fitted and suspension set up and ECU all set up with cut outs etc 

Looks great 

Hood fitted ( side screens still in the boot) 

Going for the roof fitting

 After the GD  owners open day it became apparent that most owners let Andy fit the roof  as it has the potential to go horribly wrong .

With this in mind I was allocated a slot to have the roof fitted and at the same get Andy to set the suspension up for me .

Car was booked in on 14th November wooly hat and gloves and off I go in convoy with my son who is going to bring me back .

Stayed dry but a little bit of road spray caused me to stop off at Macdonald's for a windscreen clean and a coffee .

Outside Lincoln Maccies 

Doors

 On to the back door finishers ,not straight forward from pictures from other cars they seem to be bent round the door ,expecting issues with this as stainless doesn't like to be bent and has the potential to look rubbish 

as supplied from GD 

After consultation with Steve we decided to cut the excess off and shape it round the door 

tail cut round to fit door 

Doors

Time to finally fit the doors already had the doors on so knew they would fit however need to fit the door cards first ,stuck the supplied clips to the card first 

Then made a cardboard template  to know were the hole want to be 

note circled hole more on that later 

then transferred this to the door to drill the holes 

holes drilled 

Had some spare sound deadening  left so put in on the back of the door as it might make a differance ?

On to the other door figured i could just turn the template round and it would fit but no the holes are similar but not the same hence the circles on the card so i kew which ones to avoid on the second door 

once done came to fitting the door handle couldnt find anything to fit the thread not metric nor unf ,call to Andy and he tells me it BA !! and advised me to tap it out 5mm .

Put the handle on first to stop the square spreading and tapped out

tapped 5mm 

then realized that the hinge covers will be easier to fit now so fitted them with self tappers ,found that the return edge caught the hinge so had to shorten it slightly 

one on 

then its time for the door finally 

one door 

I had bought the door finishers from GD and set to to fit these (well Steve did) 

They fit at each end of the door trim ( no surprise there then) 

the front one is straight forward .

fitted 

But the hinge pushes the carpet when shut and catches this ,going to have a think about this but one thought is to shaape the bracket like the mark but more on that later .

The second one seems a bit more complicated so enough for today and a beer 

Wipers

 Easy job i thought just fit the wipers  however they needed some fettling to make them follow the contour of the windscreen 

First job was to confirm that the wipers still parked the right way ( just in case ) and they did 

they are also adjustable but mine did not adjust far enough so had to cut off 25m and bend in the vice 

looks  good  

just need to bend the tab over 

Indicator Stalks

 wanted to trail  fit the stalks and the housing before sticking the leather to it and realized that i had left the stalk cables too long and had loads of cable to lose but hey ho .

All fitted on the steering coulomb so happy ,fitted the leather with the join at the bottom and pushed the front on and left to dry ,leaving the leather long at the moment until i see what its looks like on 

waiting to dry 

When we offered it up it didnt fit as well as we wanted ,biggest issue was that the surround it cut out for a key and i dont have one .this tends to make the leather crumple in ,solved with a piece of plastic from a paint tray to fill it out now looks better 

final fit 

  

undertrays

 Now the dash is in and all the gauges are also in speedo was really fiddly time to final fit the undertrays 

I have quite a lot going on with the trays as on the left one i have a aux socket and switch  floor light speaker and a switch for the usb charge point behind the seat all fused from a cable from the battery 

a lot going on 

Try as i might i couldnt get it to fit and line up ,i knew it fitted as i had already pre drilled the holes in the frame for the self tappers . 

After a lot of cursing it transpired that i had fitted the USB switch ( just in the picure on the left ) right in the way of the dash bar .

I moved this and covered the hole with plastic and voila fits .

Fitted note the whoops hole 

Reflectors

 Realised that i needed reflectors to pass the IVA and didnt want the expense of buying another 2 standoffs so copied another users blog and made a bracket to support the reflector off the indicator s ,a bit of a fiddle to make but hopefully worth it 

found a piece of stainless hanging around 

The slot was there on the metal i acquired but will be hidden by the reflector ,once i got the indicator to fit I spaced the refector with a 5mm drill spryed black and fitted .

look better than i thought might even leave them of after IVA 

 

Ops propshaft

 Completely forgot to grease the propshaft before the body went on and kept putting it off , Bribed Steve with a Subway and he "volunteered!" to grease it ,apparently not easy according to the swear words  sorry Steve !

 

Half a Steve 

 

Last bit of leather

 Fitted the leather and the back of the seats found the easiest way was to use velcro 

straight forward 

finishes off nice 

Headrests

 Fitted the head rests   for the final time didn't want the leather to look trapped so made sure the head rest was in the right place by filing  the socket until they were level 

tight and screws level 

I then pushed the cover past the sockets and once the rests were ight and Loctite in slid the cover back happy days  

all fitted 

 

Storage pockets

 After trolling though other peoples blogs I noticed that a lot of owners fit a map pocket for the passinger .

I ordered these from e bay and 3 came instead of 1 .

with 2 spares in hand came up with the idea to fit them behind the seats as bit of  extra storage .

Also put one behind the drivers seat as well 

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  

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 .

More wiring (boot)

 The number plate light gets its feed from a connector next to the fuel tank and goes in the boot at the hinge, I thought i could combine the two and place a boot light in the circuit  .

Started by glassing some wood each side of the boot and then a bit a 10mm heating pipe to hide the wires .

one side done ( hard to glass upside down ) 

Then moved on to the other side ,used p clips to secure the wire up to the light and all done

 

Handbrake

 Fitting the handbrake leather cover was next ,started off easy put a tie wrap on the top bit and then folded over to make it look right ,

Then i could see no way of securing the gaiter ,look at other blogs and they had a bracket which i haven't got, and figured that no one will see it anyway so .

brainstorming we came up with the idea that by welding the the 2 bolts on the handbrake could then use those to trap the gaiter .

bolts welded by my welder 

Then the gaiter could be fitted and using wad punches to make holes in the leather 

Holes in the leather 

in place 

Steering Assembly

 Tackling the steering which seemed straight forward ( o silly me )  

There are three bits to the steering  so started with  the lower section  removed the nut slid it over the spline and re fitted 

Lower section ( courtesy of Dales blog )  

Then to the middle section which has a rose joint that needs to be pushed on and fits in a pre drilled hole in the frame .

It soon became apparent that the heater isolators that I had fitted earlier were now in the way and had to be removed .

So not to be beaten Steve came up with the idea of moving them to the stainless steel pipes that go across the body so that's what we did  just in case i get too hot .

front section so close to the pipes had to remove the isolators 

isolators now in the cross pipes 

The last section fits on the bracket but can be adjusted up and down as well as in and out .

the issue here is that once the column is secured it can no longer move.

This will have to be left  until the dash and seal is fitted so i can see were the wheel wants to be  

I bought  a steering wheel from the scrappy so i could see were it would sit and my nice sister in law supplied me with a "cute" cover for it !!!

No words are necessary 

Heater Vents

 This was going to be a bigger job than I thought .From a previous blog i have decided to fit Bluetooth speakers for use when the engine is off !!! .this has made a tight space even more tight .

The first issue was that there didn't seem to be enough room for the pipe coming from the screen vent to turn with out kinking or sitting on the tray which i didn't want  .

Second issue was that I wanted most of the heat to be in the footwells so had to devise some way to do this 

Third issue is i have a aux socket on the passenger side so want to put fuses on the undertray for the reverse lock out the Bluetooth and the aux socket.   

After brainstorming with Steve and buying a selection of fittings we (Steve !) came up with a plan . we found out by chance that the solvent plastic fitting are smaller than the push fit ,

First we cut the screen heater pipe as short as we dare .

heater screen cut down 

and then a male /female bend just went in with a bit of persuasion  .

 self tapping screw to hold in place 

next was the floor vent again using solven fittings 45 deg this time it gave us a sweeping bend 

the final challenge was to try and get as much air to the floor, idea was a equal tee on the pipe with the straight though going to the floor ,so if screen was required I can shut the floor vent .( if it works )   

finished  and repeated for drivers side 

 

Think this has gone in really well considering the room we didn't have .

Door carpet and Door

 After the Bathroom replace its back on the car !

In order to fit the door properly figured the carpet will need to be in as this might alter the fit of the door 

fitting the door carpet is quite straightforward with a bit of pulling and stretching to make the carpet sit right with the rubber ..

door carpet fitted 

Could only fit partially as needed to adjust the hinges so a bit of a mess about but happy

moving on to the door card and it comes pre drilled with the hole for the handle  

hole cut were the cardboard was pre cut 

when trying to fit the door card to the door the hole seemed to be in the wrong place and would make the door card sit wrong when the door is shut .

solution was to move the door handle to fit the card .

door handle fitted on the bracket also drilled/ tapped the sliding bracket to stop it moving 
 

door handle moved to fit the door card ,

now it fits the card and the card follows the contour of the door .the door card sits on the door with the normal push fit door fasteners so fitted those and then mad a cardboard template so i can tranfer this to the door .

card template 

door masked out ready to be marked 

Bits and Bobs

Bonnet 

 Fitting the Bonnet catches next again measured on a recent trip to GD and using the wiper arms as a reference marked the bonnet and made sure both sides were the same before drilling and fitted with self tapping screws ,The bonnet is double skinned and the handles carry the weight of the bonnet so might change to button head bolts yet .

Handles fitted 

Moving into the engine bay marked a parallel line from the catch and measured down 25mm and that was the first hole for the catch , then made sure that the catch followed the curve of the body ,fastened with button heads.

drivers side fitted 

Moving on to the transmission tunnel needed to fit the gear cover ring again had to be careful not to snag the carpet so went for drilling backwards which seemed to work .

Like button heads better than the usual self tappers 

Fuel Tank 

Needed to fit the fuel flex pipe as not long away from needing fuel .Had already taken the tank to have a earth stud welded on courtesy of  Mirus Engineering So after socking the pipe in hot water to make it forgiving fitted that together with an earth wire from the filler to the tank .

pipe and wire fitted ( thanks Connor ) 

Undertrays 

There are two undertrays that fit under the dash and i know its probably a complete waste of time but i have decided to fit Bluetooth speakers so needed to cut out for this and the reverse lock out button .

Drivers side cut out and sprayed ( both sides because i sprayed the wrong side first )  

Centre tray 

After fitting the center tray  could finally fit the ecu  this was not as easy as i first thought as there is not enough room when the dash is fitted to fit the ecu to the panel .I overcame this by only securing the ecu with the front screws and making sure that it was pushed back as far as it would go . now i have enough room .

ECU fitted

The pink wire hanging down needs to connect to the bared white wire above it as that is the fuel pump supply .