Monday 23 May 2016

Diversion ahead

Well,  I have done a little work over the last week, finishing the holes for the warning lights on the dash.

I've then spent a few hours trying to sort out the wiring design for the all the dash instruments - Jeez,  that opened a can of worms. I assumed that as I was just swapping column switches for rocker switches,  it would be simple but,  oh no! It has actually been quite fun but it is properly complicated. I have a wiring schematic of epic proportions which I will add to his blog but I'm just going to try get it checked by GBS first. The wiring for the hazard switch is looking particularly onerous...

However,  there may be a delay in proceedings as we're considering moving house and have spent the last week bidding on a house with,  get this,  a DOUBLE GARAGE!! So,  the next week or 2 is working on our house to get it ready for buyers. It all may fall through but I'm very excited...

Sunday 15 May 2016

Baptism

Time to anoint my car - OK,  I mean add coolant. I bought some pre-mixed water and anti-freeze which,  handily,  is pink so should make any leaks more obvious on the white paper I put down:


Gingerly poured in all 5 litres - immediate leak at the bottom of the header tank because I had forgotten to tighten the clip there - Doh! Small leak further down - clip tightened and it stopped. Added a couple more litres of water (run out of pre-mixed stuff) and looks OK so far. I won't have any water in the pipe from the top of the radiator to the thermostat - that will have to wait until the engine is started and I get some heat into it to open the stat - but the theory is looking OK as no other leaks at present. Will check it tomorrow...



I also drilled the holes in the dash for the 2 main dials. I took a risk and used the 76mm hole saw to make the required 80mm hole - fortunately it worked well and it just needed a small amount of sanding to get the dials in.

I started on the holes for the warning lights but these need to be 14mm wide and my largest drill bit is 10mm. I couldn't think of a safe way of extending the holes (I don't have any sanding drum that small) so I've ordered a conical drill bit to do the job with. I also used a scrap bit of fibreglass to practice doing a square hole for the rocker switches I'm going to need for lights,  hazards etc. Took quite a while on do one and it wasn't very neat - need to have a think about a better way of doing them (I need 5).

My plan was also to put those down the right-hand edge of the dash but there isn't a lot of space there - I'll need to trim pieces out of the metal back plate that the dash rests on. Need to think about whether to continue down this route or try putting them elsewhere...

Also bought and fitted the battery,  which is fairly major - hints at Frankensteins monster coming to life soon?



Wednesday 11 May 2016

Dial-up

Time to start making irreversible holes in my expensive dashboard - no pressure then.

I bought a cheap hole saw kit which I didn't have 100% faith in,  so to make the 52mm holes for the smaller dials,  I started with the 44mm bit,  working on the assumption that I can make a small hole big but not vice-versa. The kit has a 51mm bit but I didn't trust it to not make too large a hole,  which would be a disaster.

So,  nice and slow,  managed to drill 4x44mm holes and then used a sanding drum to extend them out to the right size by sanding a bit then holding the gauge to the hole. First one:



... and an hour or so later,  all done:



Looking good...

Tip if you're doing this yourself - use the largest sanding drum that will fit in the hole. I started with a smaller one and you can see the cruddy shape of the 2 holes on the bottom compared with the 2 on the top:


Luckily,  the dial surround will hide any gaps.

Monday 9 May 2016

The Wanderer returns

For the first time in many years,  I've been properly ill - some sort of virus followed by a chest infection - loverly. Damn annoying because it meant I missed the Stoneleigh show and I really wanted to see some other builders cars and get a few bits.

Still not fully over it but desperate to do something,  I started marking up the dash ready to drill holes for the dials: