Ahead by a nose

Time to fit the nose cone grille. Strangely,  no one seems to have used the cheap and nasty grille that GBS sell so I was on my own in terms of deciding how to fit it.

The grille has 4 locating pins/pegs (just the ends bent at 90 degrees) so I marked the locations and drilled small holes. I had to make them a bit bigger with a file to get the grille to fit but once in,  it was quite firmly in place:

However,  I couldn't just leave it held in place like that obviously and I had a,  hopefully,  good idea. I drilled 4 small holes on each side,  fitted a cable tie through,  round the grille and back through the hole,  with a small washer for extra strength:

Nice and firm and almost invisible from the front - I'm quite proud of myself.

The grille gaps are a bit large and aren't  going to stop small stones but it will help cooling as it won't restrict air flow,  so swings and roundabouts - I'll have to consider changing it at some point in the future.

Also tonight,  fitted plugs on the front indicators and swapped the wires on the fan - I had it sucking hot air out of the engine bay through the radiator which isn't going to help :-)

A Dremel engraving bit also arrived and I tried engraving on a scrap bit of metal using a plastic stencil.  Not great results but the scrap metal piece is pretty rough,  so hopefully it will work better on the smooth chassis rail. First,  I've put a coat of Hammerite on the rail and I'll try the engraving next time.