Steering

As the dash is back out, its important I get all the various bits and bobs in and around this area sorted before doing the dash final fit.

An area that was left really rough for Blyton was the steering wheel/shroud set up. Ive been using an old Vectra steering wheel while the car is still in build and I had planned to just cover over the centre boss with padding for IVA as I have a nice wooden Mota-Lita replica wheel to go on once everything is finished - for some reason you cant have a wooden wheel for IVA - but I'm seriously thinking about buying a leather trimmed wheel for use on track days. If I go with this option I will use this for IVA rather than the scruffy old Vectra one.

Old Vectra Steering Wheel

For Blyton, I had fitted the column shroud in place without trimming in leather and it was a bit of a tight fit so I have opened up the hole for the ignition barrel and the deburred the apertures that have been cut for the wiper/indicators stalks. I also had to cut an opening for the column rake adjuster. It looks like GD have enhanced the shroud lately as some of the earlier builder seem to have had to cut all of the holes out.

Note aperture at rear left for the steering column adjuster stalk

In order to trim the shroud, I taped the joins together and then sprayed all over with contact adhesive. I then lay the leather (starting at the bottom so the join wouldn't show) onto the shroud then slowly wrapped it around. I then trimmed the edges where they met and waited for it all to dry before fitting the stainless facia to see what it would look like

A slight concern I have now is how i actually fit this over the column with it all in situ :( Oh well a problem for another day..

Talking of problems, another one identified at Blyton was with the way I had fitted the dash and steering column there was no room to allow the column to tilt and as a consequence the wheel was sitting much too high and partly blocking the driving view. This will be rectified by putting spacer washers between the steering column and screen support bar. The aperture for the steering column in the dash will also be opened up by cutting a lower bottom edge of the opening before doing the final trim.