What I am doing!

[JonathanT]

Quite! Discovered little dent tonight Fortunately I can rub it out from the back easily.

 

[JonathanT]

Handles on strike plates on too.... Lots of fiddling ! Door rubbers next

 

[Paul Narramore]

Quite! Discovered little dent tonight Fortunately I can rub it out from the back easily.

Every single panel on my car bares a dent, even the roof. With three previous women owners, am I surprised? Anyway they are part of her history, so let's call it patina

 

[JonathanT]

Found them!!! The lost hub caps turned up at the engineering company that made the adaptors for me......couldn't wait to fit them so put them on at lunchtime having zoomed home from work in my half hour break!

 

[JonathanT]

It's still looking a bit high isn't it! Only front seats and side windows to go in....can't be that heavy. Thinking it looks high at the front. Will wait till it all settles down before I tinker

 

[JonathanT]

Well this evening has been a diversion. My mate Steve came round in his newly restored campervan. It's beautiful! So a burger and a few beers have been downed. So that has probably scuppered burning the midnight oil in the shed with Womble..

 

[JonathanT]

Decided the safest policy is do the contemplation rather than do. So thinking ahead for the final challenge .....fitting the old style dashboard and modifying the wiring and stuff.
The dash fits well and the column is fine but will need the switch mounting plate cut off it . The choke is fine in its GTL position and I can make a little screen plate to hide the wiring alongside it too. The ingnition switch fouls the dash a bit and will need cutting carefully. Maybe I should sort the wiring first before modifying any of the mountings etc. The wiring looks fairly formidable

 

[JonathanT]

A long day and I just kept plodding along ...... Only this afternoon Rolemin came to see me in his newly aquired R4 . Stupidly I didn't take a photo.

I managed to get all the door rubbers on Womble. This was challenge enough. Tried rubber gloves but gave up as I just kept sticking myself to the car. It has to be aligned really carefully as there is 90deg edge that must be sit tightly in the edge shape of the door. The rear door was particularly difficult especially at the lower edge. It was too long so I had to trim it. Also The profile pdidn't fit evenly against the boot shape. But I managed it in the end. Now completely knackered

 

[JonathanT]

Oddly the pack of four rubbers ex der franzose had one odd one Lower in profile was a really good fit and not too big.

 

[JonathanT]

These little buggers have had my finger tips so many times

 

[JonathanT]

I also got all the remaining Windows in . Got in a right mess with black mastic

Came up with An idea to improve the finish of the chrome strips. Having cleaned the rust off they can be covered in aluminium tape .looks good but sadly didn't work on the curved ones

 

[JonathanT]

Boy gets girl?....that's just fabrication.(see feeling dim) ...and onto fabrication of another sort ...
Following Azzazellos measurements I first made a paper model. Now in process of making a stiffer model from depron (pizza base packing) looking at the underside of the dashboard I can check the shape out. It's easy to see that these duct things are handed. Asymmetric -smaller on the outside sides than the middle sides.(tapered) So Paul you are right they cannot be swapped left to right . More tomorrow I'm off to bed completely knackered.

 

[JonathanT]

Well it's been very hard work today . Those air ducts are quite different from each other. Started out by folding the template the other way so I would have a left and right hand pair. But it's more complex than that as they extended further into the dashboard more on the Speedo side. The Speedo is also mounted on one of them and this needs to be strong Enough to support it.

 

[JonathanT]

All the while I had to Keep trying the dashboard in situ. On and off on and off like a fiddlers elbow! Then I painted the air ducts and fitted them on with pop rivets and mastic.

 

[JonathanT]

Seeing that cute little Speedo in situ really made my Day. Very difficult getting it to line up correctly but it all worked well in the end .

 

[mr-reno-139]

You are very keen ☺
Bet I could of found you a pair by asking Andrew Lewis on here

 

[JonathanT]

The speedo has the little silver trim around the edge and the lettering on the dashboard itself is also silvered. This had worn off. So I came up with a plan to print the silver paint back on . I used a socket set as a roller. spray paint on a flat tin lid. Then picked up the paint like a roller and printed it on to the speedo and Lettering

 

[mr-reno-139]

Different speedo cable needed too or have you discovered that already ☺

 

[JonathanT]

Different speedo cable needed too or have you discovered that already ☺

Hi Paul yup I noticed but I still think the existing can be made to work. What I hadn't reckoned on was the fact the cable is in the wrong place and I need to drill a new hole (s)

 

[JonathanT]

You are very keen ☺
Bet I could of found you a pair by asking Andrew Lewis on here

From what I can tell originals won't fit as the bulkhead seems to have taller holes and different shapes . So mine are hybrid