Hood

The final major item required to finish my build is the fitting of the hood and tonneau cover.

I took the car in my new race shuttle to Intertrim at Telford on Monday and was able to go and collect it yesterday. As the sun was shining, I couldn't resist driving the car back on trade plates and wow - what a satisfying feeling.

Hood up, no side screens, bright, cold, dry afternoon the sound of my big V8 roaring through the lanes and B roads back home - roll on the summer and lots of hot sunny days.

This was the first time I had driven the car on public roads for more than just a mile or two up the local lane and there is still a bit of adjustment needed to the suspension set up in my opinion. The car still seems a little stiff, particularly on the front end and seems to skip over the bumps in the road rather than absorbing them. Also, there seems to be a rattly noise coming from the diff/rear axle under low revs which will need looking into.

My other dilemma following the driving experience was the steering wheel. I have gone for a Mota-Lita wooden rim and it looks a million dollars but it is very thin and so different to a modern wheel. I might end up swapping this for a leather trimmed wheel on track days and long drives.

Really pleased with the work done by Graham and his wife at Intertrim and certainly recommend them to any body else needing trimming work. While the car was with them I asked if they could fit a piece of carpet to the rear bulkhead inside the boot. I have always felt that this made the boot area look a little unfinished. Graham duly obliged and cut and fitted a piece for the princely sum of a tenner in cash!!

Carpets 3

Some more photos of the carpets going in...

I still had the drivers side of the transmission tunnel carpet to fix in place. The chalk line shows where the carpet needed to be cut to allow it to fit into the extended footwell. This then needs some final trimming using offcuts - I will get on to that at a later date,

After fitting the transmission tunnel and rear bulkhead I moved on to the side panels. These are a little tricky to get right and you ned to make sure that you have trimmed the door edge down to 12mm. You also need to trim the leather edging as there is too much surplus and then where the bends are you need to cut nicks to avoid it puckering. A little ticky but all that was needed was a little trial and error.

The pieces that fit in the footwells against the front bulk were next. As the piece on the drivers side has to accomodate the pedal box, there were two options. One, I could cut around the pedal box or two, I could just cut the holes and then bolt through. I decided on the latter method. and got the positions by drawing around the holes on the bulkhead (after taking the pedal box back out) with chalk and then positioning the carpet panel in place and pushing against the holes. The chalk then transfers on to the back of the carper where I was then able to use a punch to make holes in just the right places.

Glue the carpet down and refit the pedal box hopefully for the last time, although you will notice the brake light switch is attached to the pedal box but I haven't as yet fitted the switch to the cluthc pedal that needs wiring into the loom to prevent starting without having the clutch depressed. I'm hoping I can retro fit this if I decide to go down this route without removing the pedal box.

When I first fitted the pedal box what seems like many months ago now, I was concerned that the pedals sat too high off the floor of the car. I bought some 20mm expanded foam off eBay and cut this to size to put under the carpet. At the moment I haven't glued this down as the footwell carpet is also padded so it might not be necessary after all.

Once the rear carpet was in the passenger side, I couldn't resist putting the seat and harness in pace and resting the leather panels I have to cover the transmission tunnel and rear bulkhead to give me a proper feel for what the interior was going to look like when finished.

Carpets 2

Made a start in fitting the interior carpets today - this needs to be done before the seats, harnesses and handbrake can be fitted.

The main sections are fairly easy to identify and I test fitted them without using adhesive to start with just to make sure they would fit ok.

Test fitted

I had already made the decision to fit sound proofing materials to the transmission tunnel and front and rear bulkheads so i was a little concerned how the adhesive would take but it turned out to be fine. Once again I followed advice in other blogs and glued a section at a time (see below) starting with the rear of the transmission tunnel.

Being glued in separate sections

I then did the front of the tunnel.

Once the transmission tunnel was sorted I moved on to fitting the rear bulkhead carpet. Before this can be fitted you need to cut away a couple of pieces of bodywork to allow the carpet to wrap round into palace. The sections marked on the photos below show this.

Overall I was pretty pleased with the result but there is some work to be done to get the side walls of the transmission tunnel perfectly flat, the section around the extended footwell also needs sorting and the end pieces of the rear bulkhead may have to be held in place with screws inside dished washers.

Roll Hoops 2

Having sound proofed the rear bulkhead inside the boot I could now move on to finishing the roll hoops.

The legs pass through the carpet that sits on top of the rear deck and tank so this needs marking and cutting fairly accurately - I've seen a few cars where the final fit of things like this really let the car down so I want mine looking right.

The first task was to identify which bit of carpet actually goes where. I decided to empty the box out and lay it all out where I thought it would go (a bit like Ryan did with his build)

Once I had identified the correct piece, I was really disappointed to notice that the carpet was badly marked and the pile was virtually cut through in a few places. Trying to make up my mind whether to reject the piece, which would delay the build, I positioned the carpet in situ and the damaged area is right where the legs go so I was erring towards putting up with problem. I decided before making a final decision I would try a trick that I was shown years ago that gets indentations out of household carpets where furniture has flattened the pile. This is to put several ice cubes directly onto the affected area and for some strange reason this then lift the pile back in to place. Well... I tried it and it worked perfectly and you would never know there had been a problem!!

Again following Ryan's method I marked around the tops of the holes in the boot floor using chalk and pressed the carpet into place - this left a mark on the underside of the carpet which would effectively be where the hoops pass through.

I then took the centre point of the hole positions, and pierced through the carpet. I then stood the legs on the top side of the carpet and marked around them to give the maximum diameter. The next step was to cut a star shape in the carpet that would be pushed through the holes in the boot floor with the legs.

The legs were filled with expanding foam (damn that was a messy job) which GD recommend you do to stop any resonance transmitting from the chassis through the hoops. A warning to other builders, this stuff really does expand quickly and gets everywhere. Make sure you put your fixing bolts back in place or the threads will be covered up and need re-tapping. Keep it off your skin too or it leaves marks for days!!

Carpets

Needing to get the roll hoops fitted I had to fit a piece of carpet in the boot. This is the piece that goes on the top deck and the roll hoops pass through the carpet.

Its important therefore to get the holes cut as accurately as possible so i followed a tip I had seen in Ryan's blog and marked around the holes in the boot floor wiht chalk and then put the carpet in place pressed down and it marked the hole positions on the underside of the carpet. I also passed the roll hoops through the holes in the rear scuttle and positioned them roughly in place and marked around them. As luck would have it both sets of markings lined up and I was confident enough to cut the holes.

This I decided to do by simply cutting a series of crosses from the centre point of the hole position. That way, rather than cutting big holes the legs would push through making a better seal around the base (the holes still need to be filled with silicone form the underside to keep them watertight).

So the carpet was laid in place and the hoops passed through and secured to the chassis. I will go back and glue the carpet down at a later date when I have sorted out which bits go where in the boot!!!

The lumpy bit on the right hand side is the fuel hose that needs re-routing