DashBoard Part 4 and Bits

Its leather time , Was really dreading this part as it could go wrong very quick and is the focus point to the car .Started by laying the leather at the bottom and making sure that the bottom was going to fit
I glued the bottom in place and let it dry .
Next day came to the rest and started by stretching the leather up which seems to require 3 pairs of hands ,By good fortune had to leave for another task and came across a local furniture upholsterer,the conversation came round to my dash and a asked for any tips ,His reply was amazing ,bring it in and I'll do it for you. So I did and he only charged me beer money .

All my own work !!

   Another couple of little jobs tackled  was to blank off the two unused  ports on the engine .

Jubilee clip added to stop the cap falling off

Spare air box connection

This one I tapped with a 6mm tap and then stud locked a 6mm grub screw .

Also managed to finish off the heater pipes .

just grommets required

Radiator and Airbox

the Air box just jams in above the radiator and s held in place with the radiator bracket.
First fitted the air box and secured it in place with the top radiator bracket and found that it rattles which is no good took it down and placed draught excluding foam on the top ( sorry no picture ) and then refitted it with no rattle ..
when I came to fit the radiator I found that the fan housing was catching the air box and wouldn't fit .
solution was to move the air box towards the back of the car as there is a cut out that has to line up with the fan .
At the bottom of the rad I inserted some rubber sheet to make sure that didn't rattle either .

Air box fitted with foam rubber just visible
 

Once the radiator was fasten down could fit the pipework .

rad fan now clears the air box pipework

cooling system part 1

Fitted the radiator  but didn't have the fixing kit (2 bits of pipe!) so used 16mm grommets which seemed to work so I could figure out haw the pipe work went.
Again Dales blog to the rescue
And I realised that the header tank needs rivnuting  to the cross member ,used 8mm rivnuts  and made sure the pipe was in line from the engine .

Header tank fitted with pipes still loose

Then it was just a simple task to fit the other side again only loose as it will all have to come off when I collect the heater pipes .

Pipe fitted but will need trimming level

 

Fitting the Cooling Fan

I Bought the fan from GD together with the kit and it was a 16inch one that can fit in front or behind.
After studying thermo dynamics on the internet and confusing my self it doent appear to matter were the fan goes but slight favour to the fan sucking the air though !!


 So I decided to fit one fan behind the radiator.

Mounting the fan

 The kit comes with 2 stainless bars pre drilled for pop rivets and has bolts welded for the fan

The principle is to fix the bars to the radiator, then fix the fan to the bars.
First issue I had was the fan has curved blades and clearly marked as "pushing"  but I wanted to suck
so simple job of reversing the blades  


Blades reversed and now will suck to the cardboard

Next the cheek nipping bit. I fitted the fan to the bars  placed the fan in the middle of the rad marked the position of the bars and drilled the holes corresponding to the holes already drilled at the end of each bar onto the radiator frame. All the blogs I have read say that you cant go into the radiator but it looked to me like there was a chance so very carefully drilled the holes and fitted pop rivets .