Door Latches

 Well i did promise an update ASAP regarding fitting the door latch. I had fitted one previously on the offside but i didn't get any pictures i was happy with. So here is a little write up of the nearside.

With the door card in position and held in place with the latch (very important as it spaces the latch off the door skin) i started by firstly checking that i could get a nice close on the striker. I did this by cutting some blocks of wood to hold the striker mounting plate up against the inner lip if the door slam. This can be a little tricky as you are trying to get a good close position so the door gap is even all the way round and the height of the door against the front and back scuttle. For me the nearside was simple but the offside will require a little more prep work before a paint finish.



Once i was happy with that the striker plate is bonded on using a good splodge of P38/P40 (P40 here) to bridge the gap and add some strength. The wooden wedges put back in to add the support, then close the door, adjust all the alignment and leave it to set. Do not be tempted to have a bash at opening/closing the door. You will just knock everything out of place.

Once cured off i then wanted to beef up fitting of it all. In my opinion the doors getting closed puts allot of stress into the striker and mounting plate, so if i did as the manual suggested and just used the P40 and wooden wedge then i just feel it wouldn't last long before working its way loose. Not forgetting it will have the road vibration as well as the door opening and closing so needs to be fairly solid.



So once the P40 had cured i could remove the wooden wedges and i simply drilled a hole through the door panel and the striker mounting plate (one below, two above) i countersunk the heads so they wont be visible once the door seal goes on, and also they will be painted when it goes into paint. I secured them with some nylock bolts and spreader washers so now with these tight even if the P40 does split, the striker wont move back or forth. Now to test the door latches nicely..... and it does!!! Happy Days!!

 Last little bit on this task is to secure the rest of the door card. Again because i don't want any fixings showing or ripples under the leather i just am holding it all in place with some self adhesive velcro. This is really sticky M3 bond, unlike some of the cheaper stuff from hobby shops, and it holds it all lovely.

So another task ticked off the list. one stage closer to completion.... but still a long road ahead of me!!!

I'm still saving for the money for the wipers, so that will hopefully be my next update!

Door cards and latches.

Time to start fitting the door locks/latches. In order to do this i need to make and fit the door cards as they act as a spacer between the door skin and the latch (about 5mm)

I have decided to do my own interior trimming as its something i enjoy doing, and can have superb results if done correctly. I will probably still go with the seat shells from AK simply because i like the fitting of the headrest (now mandatory for IVA) and trim them myself in a gorgeous deep red leather. 

So i started off making a template in card of the door card. This is just smaller than the door skin, as so the rubber door seal will mate up against the door as opposed to the leather of the door card. I'm not a massive fan of pockets in the door cards, i just find them useless in a car with no roof and is just a place to keep clutter... so no pocket = no clutter. In theory! As you can see its a very simple shape to trim with the only cutout for the striker and latch securing holes, so its just a very simple and enjoyable task of covering the hardboard in some nice cloth.

 I have gone with a nice black leatherette/plether and will compliment the black carpets (when i get them) and the dark carbon fibre dash. All the hardboard and cloth set me back a grand total of £10, so this is a very cheap part of the build, and necessary in order to progress with fitting then door latch.

The cloth is bonded to the board using impact adhesive, which is mega stuff to work with it smells superb and if used correctly sticks like sh*t to a blanket.

 The door card when fitted is held in place via the latch as that bolts through the door card into the door, nice and secure. Towards the front of the card and bottom edge, I'm simply holding it to the door using Velcro. this means no fixings to drill or uneven surface under the cloth and easily removed without damage.

I have decided against padding the cards with foam as i want a nice flat smooth surface, as the dash is also non padded so i want to keep the same style/theme throughout the interior.

So the door card finished in just a few hours work.
It looks very good and I'm very happy with the end result, very cheap to do also!

I have put a video below to show the door lock in action with the card fitted. I will do a separate post on how i have fitted the latch and how it works, but i simply wanted to fit one first (and be happy with it) before i start the other side with a photo write up. As you can see in the video i have not got the rubber door seal fitted and obviously no carpets, which will hide all the bits and pieces and the striker fixings.

Overall happy with the one side so far, a good solid clunk (sounds much better than a Golf) and the echo will go once the carpets are fitted.

A Visit from Mr Cockup!!!!

 Well before i introduce you to Mr Cockup, I'll quickly show you the addition fuse box. AK make no provisions in the loom for additional circuits, such as radio, alarm, power take off (Cig lighter socket) etc.. So pictured right is the secondary fuse box iv fitted myself. This is basically running form the battery feed on the starter motor. This gives me a number of feeds available to fit whatever accessory i feel i want. Although im not intending to fit a stereo at a later date i might just run a small amplifier with a concealed iPod connector so i can have some tunes when i park up... after all a stereo is pretty redundant with no roof and side pipes i would have thought??

 So my visit from Mr Cockup starts when i was pressuring up my brakes again. I jacked the car up and as it raised the back end i saw the rear wheel drop and have a huge amount of play in the hub.... ??? not good. So after a quick strip down of the rear hub (2-3 minute job now) i was confronted with the picture on the left. As the splined drive shaft enters the hub i have not had a flat surface for the oil seal to mate against. The shaft itself has a radius edge that has been chewing the oil seal to bits as I've been rolling the car in and out of the garage, and the first drive (about 10 meters in total) 

So as you see here (excuses the dust) the yoke of the drive shaft is threaded one end for the castle hub nut, and the other end has that radius edge which needs a contoured spacer shim on that then gives a flat surface for the hub bearing and oil seal to mate to as its torqued up.... with me not having this previously will explain the ridiculous amount of shims i had to put in between the drive shaft and the brake disk to give an acceptable camber. 

 I stripped the rear hubs of the car and gave them a good inspection because of me being a dickhead and not paying 100% attention during the strip down of the donor parts. But after some new oil seals and getting hold of a couple of the spacers... i was ready to start again with setting up the back end.... Pictured below you can see how, when fitted this gives a flat surface to the drive shaft against the hub/oil seal. If you compare the picture below with the picture above i must have been fricken stupid to have fucked this up!! I was always concerned with the excessive amount of shims between the diff and shaft and also why i couldn't get the diff output studs to penetrate the nut more than 3-4 rotations before getting tight. Now this is all sorted and i now only have 2 shims on the one side (as opposed to 8-9) and 1 on the other.

 Below on the left shows the new oil seal ready to be fitted against the damaged seal that was removed.... you can see how the seal has had a groove cut out where it has been rubbing against the edge of the drive shaft.

Below right shows how iv had to clean all the crud out of the hub, before it penetrated the bearing, this would have reduced the life of the bearing and could have potentially been a disaster waiting to happen!!!

So with the camber adjusted again, all was looking good. This picture shows the face of the hub measuring 89.8 (about 1/4 degree negative camber) which is what is required as stated in the AK build manual. This measurement is mirrored when the build wheel is on and a reading taken from each edge of the rim.

I will be checking this again when i get my wheels and tyres, just to be 100% sure its set correctly..... but im 100 times happier with this now, compared to how it was previously.

So job done..... next is onto door cards and door locks, along with dash recover to hide the nibs in the carbon fiber.

Spark in the Dark!!!

Well there has been some progress since the last update... all be it slow, but iv had a mental few months. I had left it last time with me a little miffed with the loom i received from AK, all has been resolved as when i contacted Jon i was asking for some identification of some of the dash wires and he said "its all very simple, it tells you on page 14"....... "page 14 of what??" i replied, and then the penny dropped!!! So a couple of days later i had also received the key/guide for the loom identification. Without the pun it was like someone turning on the light!!

So i started to wire up the dash loom first, the main loom was layed out in the body tub and so just required fine tuning and connecting to the terminals in question. The dash loom went together fairly well, I'm not happy one bit with how tidy it looks, but its working and so shall be ok for the moment. I have made some changes to the dash loom as i have fitted an oil temp gauge, which i have just used one of the fan speed wires and then cut the wire on the loom side of the multi plug and rerouted a wire from that to the sender down by the clutch slave. I used one of fan speed wires because i only intend to have the fan set on one speed, i don't see the point on having a 2 speed heater fan on a car with no roof.

 Now i started to make some terminations for each leg of the loom. Wiring is very logical and its just a case of start at the start and work your way through. So i started at the front offside and extended the loom to the headlight cluster and indicator, then worked my way back to the side indicator, brake line pressure switch (brake lights) etc..

I extended the headlight loom to reach the cluster, and made the connections to each side,dip and main beam. I'm using the blue plastic cheap connectors, which i don't like, but i might upgrade them at a later date. After all so long as they do the job required and are safe, they will do for the moment.

So after a most of the connections were made it was time to connect a battery and start testing some of the circuits..... fire extinguisher on stand by.

I didn't tighten the battery terminals, just in case i had to quickly kill the power, even though everything is fused, I'm not taking any risks. So first things first ignition on, and the oil pressure light lit up (good start) handbrake on and red warning light came on... two in a row. So going for a hat trick and side lights on and all the gauges lit up and sidelights came on.

Also with the side lights was the rear lights and a quick push on the brake pedal and on came the brake lights. Hazards also working 100%, i had a few issues with the earth points and how it affected the rear indicators, linked through the common ground for the brake lights, but after some logical thinking and testing all was sorted fairly quickly.

I haven't made any connections to the steering column yet, as i don't have any multiplugs on that bit of the loom and so will have to get some systematics and trace each wire, so i cant test main beam, indicators, washer fluid or wipers yet... but fingers crossed.

 
One thing that i am extremely pleased with is my choice of headlight. The P700 tripods look superb with the crisp white light of the h4 xenon bulbs. There are debates regarding these lights and the use of them for IVA because they are not "E" marked. This is because they have no area within the glass lens for driving in Europe and main beam dazzle when driving on the left. However as advised and researched through the IVA rules, so long as the beam is adjusted correctly to give the correct light pattern, they do not need to display the "E" mark.

Here is a little video which shows me testing some of the circuits. This video also shows what a ridiculously small space I'm trying to build this car in, and how tight it is getting in and out. However who cares, car making progress, radio on, brew in hand... and its not raining = happy little me.

Since i have done these few electrical bits it has left a superb sense of achievement, the fact i can now press a button and on come the lights etc... makes me feel quite please (Sad i know)



And probably the most satisfying experience of all is the test of the starter button, or the "Go Baby Go" button in my case. Pressing the button makes the beast roar!!! enjoy!!

Gauging my intrest

Well i spent some more money...

Gauges are seriously important to "gauge" the conditions of the engine during running and driving. I had already decided a while back that i wanted to get the "Smiths Cobra" electric gauges. I know allot of people say these are not as accurate as the wet line gauges, and there might be an element of truth to that. However the electric will give a constant reading, and if anything starts to miss behave from normal running conditions, then the gauge will display that... i hope!! Most important gauge of all IMO is the oil pressure gauge and light. So as long as i have a light which comes on at the correct time before any serious damage can be done then that's fine for me. My light should illuminate at 18psi or lower, so that is a sufficient safety net. keep in mind that on your normally everyday road car, the oil light will come on at 5psi or lower..... by that point the damage has been done.

With the picture here i think i will have to get used to looking at the fuel gauge like this!!! however petrol is currently at 128.9 lt and diesel 133.9lt best its been for months. It cost me just under £100 to fill my Range Rover and i haven't done that since i got it in Feb 2011

I have dropped a bollox and gone with an ammeter, this is being rectified to a voltmeter.

 When i ordered the gauges i was always been under the impression that the ammeter will give a far better reading of the charging circuit/alternator. In fact the ammeter is a little out of date for most cars now as it will only give me a reading of how much charge the alternator is producing. Now if i had a dynamo not an alternator that would be fine, but when was the last time you saw a dynamo on a car?? well for me that was today to be fair as i have an old Rolls Royce with one, but also wiring the ammeter into the cobra loom would be stupid it would need a 50amp+ gauge wire from alternator to battery. This would mean routing the cable behind the dashboard which is allot of amps to have through the gauge on the dash, also if it failed in anyway poor terminal connection,break in the wire, connector comes loose etc... then my battery would not charge and risk of short circuit from the 50amps+ behind the dash.

So the gauges were delivered and after a stress full (grumpy toddler) holiday in Portugal, i was glad to be back home and start cutting my carbon dash. I spent an evening masking off and measuring up i had decided on the gauge layout a while back after i posted a thread on the Cobra Club forum regarding advice on possible visibility issues with a set layout. But as so not go over old ground again, some people (mostly keyboard warriors from overseas) get very very emotional about the dash layout.

Of course i can no longer just get on with a job on my own. My little mate is always on hand to touch things hes not supposed to, or even run away with bits I'm using, then throw a hissy fit when i claim them back.

Cheers little mate!!

So after i had everything marked out and was happy, time to man up and get cutting the dash holes. I had ordered a hole cutter on line (another cheep tool lesson learnt) and when it turned up it was huge. I wanted an adjustable hole cutter so i could do the 52mm gauges and the larger102mm and the one i got could cut holes up to 300mm wide, picture that spinning round in the drill. The cutter i received would best be suited to a pillar drill.....but i don't have a pillar drill, just my old faithful handheld black and decker. Either way the theory was cut stupidly undersized and open up slowly with the dremmel..... good theory, as all went very well and the gauges were mounted in no time. Even my neighbours knew it was a fairly easy straightforward job, as i got comments saying "i saw the garage door open, and couldn't here any swearing???"

With the gauges in i could finally start to see what i had visualised for my final finish theme/colours. The carbon fibre will follow along the top of the door cards which will be finished in a black leather, with contrasting black carpet and dark ox-blood red leather seats.

The ammeter is in here simply to fill the hole but it has now been returned awaiting the replacement voltmeter. Lots of comments on the "Go-Baby-Go" button, little cliche but i love it!!

 This side of the dash excites me as much as the front, sad i know.

I have started to wire up all the gauges, but you will have to wait for an update on that as i want to spend some time tidying up all the wires and making it look neat and tidy, also awaiting the voltmeter to allow me to finish the dash loom wiring. This is one of those jobs where if i spend the time planning and prepping all the terminals and checking the feeds, it should all light up first time with no issues and faults to find and rectify......fingers crossed.

I have also taken delivery of the full wiring loom from AK, this i thought would be a fairly easy out the box put into position, connect and off we go.... errr no.
It wasn't cheep from AK and not that I'm saying anything negative about it, but i do feel that this could be a little better for the money i paid. Not the quality but certainly the support. Although each leg of the loom is identified from AK eg Leg1,Leg 2 etc... i would have though that each individual wire would have been identified, or a key supplied eg, red/blue side light feed, red/yellow main beam feed etc...

I was left scratching my head and after a cry for help (it was the weekend so AK were closed) i spent a full day on the phone to Paul, who i seriously owe a drink to.

Paul is also building an AK and is nearing the IVA test and (lucky for me) has done his wiring already, and noted what/how he did it. Paul went through every leg of the loom and identified every wire and its use with me over the phone. This was a massive help and so i was able to get the loom offered into position and getting ready to make some connections. I am having to make some changes to the wiring as i have decided to use a oil temp gauge also, which is not accounted for in the AK loom. But should be easy enough to wire up.
The picture here has had some comments of my mates saying "is that a stupidly wide car or a stupidly narrow garage?" the answer to that being both!!! i must be crazy doing all this in a single garage.

Some more updates soon as when i have the loom completed i will be able to sit in, start up, move the car forward/back and run the engine up to temp. This will be exciting for me!!!

Stonleigh 2012

Well its been a month or so since any progress, due to lack of funds mostly and utterly disgraceful weather making garage time very unpleasant. However with the national kit car show looming on the horizon i was keen to stock up on some bits and pieces to save on postage if ordered on line. I had some old early 30s trophy cups in the loft which had belonged to my uncle, and when he died he had left them to me. He had won them many many years ago for hedge laying, sheep sheering and dry stone wall building, all were 925 silver so worth a bit. I had no use for them personal and after digging them out i was shocked to find the price if weighed in at the jewellers was over £1500. I kept hold of one with his name engraved on it for sentimental reasons, but i did sell the rest although feeling very guilty for doing it. The money isn't going to be pissed up the wall... as this car is an investment, i will always get my build cost back if i ever choose to sell, so i hope he would of approved.

So off to Stoneleigh with some cash in hand, and first stop was "SandJ" a superb company that manufacture some quality parts for the AK kit, AK use them themselves for factory build cars. On the shopping list from them was a set of bonnet locks. These are cut through the double skin of the bonnet and secure the bonnet via a cam on the underside, a lock barrel within the handle keeps the IVA man happy. When fitting the locks i needed a centre line off the bonnet, keep in mind that when a pain finish with stripes is done, anything off centre will stick out like a nun in a sex shop. So measure 50 times, mark out, get ready to cut... then bottle it and call Wendi at AK to check i was doing it right.

After i grew some balls i made the first cut. my centre line was good, however the centre support of the windscreen wasn't dead on my measurement, so some adjustment was made to allow for the cosmetic look. First i drilled a small pilot hole and slowly opened it up to allow the lock to drop in. Because the bonnet is double skin the locks are held in place with some self tappers, and the securing cam is held onto the main shaft with a grub screw.

So with the locks fitted, just some fine tuning was (and still is) needed to allow all the bonnet panel gaps fit nicely. I was also fitting the bonnet rubber seal around the edge.... this involved a serious amount of sanding and grinding away at the bonnet lip throwing tones of fibreglass dust all over my shinny engine. Bugger!!!

In order to please the IVA man, and so i don't hurt anybody if i run them over the bonnet locks and all external brightwork must meet the 3mm radius test. The lock would fail this due to the top flat 90 degree angle where the lock barrel is. SandJ overcome this by fitting a blanking plug with the required radius as so to pass the IVA test. So the bonnet is locked and the blank plug in. pedestrians are now safe. if i run you over in my car, rest assured that you will NOT get hurt due to the 3mm radius

Also picked up at the show was some windscreen demisters. These are from Chris at Brasscraft, we had spoken about these when i ordered my windscreen. but didn't want to bite the bullet until i had seen them in the flesh and was happy with them. 

So to fit the vents i also needed some vent plenums and ducting. I got all that from good old Car Builder Solutions and so once delivered i started fitting. Again same as the bonnet lock measure twice cut once. I started of with a nice thin slice cut out and slowly opened it up with the dremmel. The dremmel i got for B&Q nearly 10 years ago for £15... some tools are worth their weight in gold (some are not eg. Cheep Rivnut setter off bloody ebay)  The holes pictured look a little rough but they need to be tidied up with some sandpaper and the louvred vent will cover 90% of it.

The demister plenum is bonded under the dash scuttle and these need a little heating and bending to allow for the curvature of the body. Good thing is these are fairly narrow so will take up less room behind the dash and allow less chance of the back of the gauges fowling them. 

A nice good splodge of Sickerflex should hold these in permanently. Sickerflex is magic stuff it sticks anything to anything, remains flexible and seals the joint also. lovely stuff!!!!

And in it goes, never to be seen again. I left this overnight to cure and its now stuck good and tight. If doing this yourself remember these will be taking hot/warm air and cold air so the bond has to be capable of handling temperature changes

So with the plenum fitted under dash i fitted the louvred top plate from Brasscraft, again this needed a little bending to accept the curved body tub, but this is easy to do.. trial and error little by little. Looks canny from this side just need to duplicate the process for the other side and that can be ticked off the list. 

Cant really show this well in a picture because I'm tyring to take it through the windscreen looking in. but the leading edge looks neat and once the body is painted will look perfect. Many people when fitting the demisters cut the dash scuttle and have a basic stainless escutcheon plate surround. I wanted to avoid this as i wanted the louvred style as they will direct the airflow onto the screen... not just out into the open cockpit. It seems a little daft i know in a car with no roof, but I'm confident these will be allot more affective than just open cut holes. 

Final little bit for the demisters is the air flow from the back of the heater matrix. This white bit of fibreglass will be sealed around the matrix forcing the air through the flanges on the top, to the relevant area. Two for the windscreen and two to some vents that will be mounted under the dash to heat you legs/feet should you ever need to. The flanges were from Screwfix, they are just standard waste pipe blanking plugs and cost 99p, opposed to Car Builder Solutions @ £3 + VAT and postage. I blanked of the spare two with tape and put a temp seal around the edge and wired up the fan to a cordless drill battery.... very very happy with the air flow, as i wanted and predicted the louvred vents throw the air out direct onto the bottom of the screen at a good rate... not just like blowing through a straw. 

I have also placed my order for all my gauges. This if you have build a car like this will know that they are very expensive, but cheep gauges make the finished car look terrible IMO. One thing i remember when i first rode shotgun in Simons GD was how lush the gauges looked with the crisp white lettering against the black face. So have faith another update soon!!! i hope

Something to stop the fly's hitting my face.

Been on the cards a while now and with some funds still left over from Birthday and Christmas i placed the order with Chris at Brasscraft for the windscreen. Chris supplies 95% of windscreens to the Cobra kit car industry and they are built of the same frames as the original AC cars so altought a fair whack of cash you are guaranteed a superb product and quality craftsmanship.

So two weeks after officially placing the order i received my screen. Speeded up significantly because Chris had a screen all ready to go that was for AK and after a quick phone call it had the shipping address changed to mine...... hahaha cheers Jon & Wendi!! 

 Fitting the screen was a fairly pleasant and simple job to do with a big overall effect to the appearance when finished. When the screen was delivered it was a simple job of fitting the side legs with the screws supplied then offering into place via the pre drilled slots from AK. As the frame legs slide into the tub you can see that they then offer up against the interior scuttle box section. The legs need to be clamped ether side to hold into place temporally whilst the pitch of the screen is adjusted to the correct angle.

In order to get the screen sat at the correct angle you need to get a distance of 36" from the top centre of the screen to the lip in the centre of the back of the cockpit. I simple did what AK recommend and cut a length of wood to exactly 36" and used that as my guide. Once all was secure and in the rough position i took measurements in various places to check the screen was sat level and even. Some small adjustment was needed then all secured into place.

I secured the screen using 4 x M10 bolts with nylock nuts straight into the box section of the inner tub chassis. These i believe can be just tapped to thread the bolt in, but i feel my way is more secure and its all held into position nicely. Attention must also be paid to the position of the front water seal, when the screen is first offered up its best to have the seal reversed back onto itself (its natural position) then when the screen is fixed it can be easily pushed forward to create a nice tight seal against the body.

Now i had to mark and fix the positions for the centre support bar and the frame escutcheon plate. I just unscrewed the screen from the frame legs and removed out of harms way. This then gave me access to slide on the escutcheon plates and fix down (i will use a dab of silicon when finally fitted also) I also fitted the bracket for the centre support. I did have to change the angle for this a little which was easy to do with just a big set of clamps, but covered in a cloth first as its polished stainless. All fitted back together and looking absolutely stunning. The screen is a true work of art with its finish and construction and future business to Brasscraft is a definite from me for the  screen demisters, fuel cap, overiders etc... anything brightwork basically.

Dash it all!!!!

  Still hasn't warmed up outside yet to get really stuck in, so time to make a start on the dashboard and the final finish. Iv been having some ideas knocking around my brain on final finish and what i wanted as an end result and after having a play around with layout using printed gauges and switches i started putting my ideas into practise.

First thing i wanted to do was to blank off the glove box, i don't really see the point of it on a car with no roof as it will never be secure and anything that get put in would just rattle about and piss me off. So firstly removed the glove box molding off the back and set about filling it in. I did this by simply using some ridged card bonded to create a back then some skims of fibreglass bodge, not a professional way of doing things but its going to be covered so just has to give a little strength as opposed to a big void in the dash.

I also had to fix the dash into the tub, so that i can get some accurate width measurements. As the dash comes from AK it was short ether end by an inch or so and so i needed to make up some width so that the door cards line up nicely when they are fitted. AK probably make them a tad shorter to allow for padding and leather finish. I also needed to fine tune the fit around the steering column cowling. This is one of my little gripes with Cobra reps... poorly fitting round the column really gets me annoyed. So time was spent again firstly creating a paper template and then building up layers of fibreglass and cutting to shape.



All this fitting to shape is fairly tedious as its constantly trial fitting then adjusting to suit. But after getting a good all round fit it was time to start flattening down and making everything blend in nicely. This whole process takes hours but is very worthwhile as the final finish is only as good as the prep work. I found it very useful to spray the whole dash in black with a bit of left over rattle can to act as a guide coat this then showed me any high / low spots to concentrate on.

Once i was happy with all the prep work i did another quick guide coat, simply to act as a consistent colour to the dash in case i bodged any of my carbon fibre cloth i didn't want it too obvious when it was all finished. This now was not needed as i did the layering well and its a good finish, but certainly good practise for inexperienced fibreglass users.

So onto the start of the finish. I wanted a real carbon fibre finish as opposed to the vinyl affect carbon. Absolutely nothing wrong with some of the vinyl but i have never seen realistic carbon fibre with a gloss finish (which is what i wanted)

I found a local company "north east fibreglass" http://www.ecfibreglasssupplies.co.uk/ who stocked everything i needed and also offer a course on skinning and fibreglass layering a tad expensive i think so declined that. I took a trip over with the dash in the boot to get my stuff and ask for any advice they could offer. I'm very confident working with the material as i have done many many fibreglass projects before ranging from full ICE boot build to small Sub woofer enclosures (in my younger days)

So after setting up in the conservatory as my work area i started preparing the cloth for fitting, this involves roughly cutting to shape and making sure enough cloth is available to take all the contours of the dash. The cobra dash is originally a flat panel and the AK dash is very similar, but with a radius curved bottom edge and curved return where it meets with the transmission tunnel.

The process is to then start building up layers of epoxy resin, this is mixed with a hardener and rolled onto the cloth with a which then cures to form the cloth to the given shape of the mold or part you are covering in the cloth. This is a slow process as to get best result you need to allow the epoxy to cure short pile mini paint roller, before building up another layer, this takes 12 hours (overnight) and with a 3 coat finish this dominated a fair amount of space for a week and smells IMO great, but not to everyone taste in my house.. ops!!

Once i had built up about 3 coats of the resin and allowed all to cure it was time to start flattening down and then a gloss finish could be achieved. Its good practise to flatten down each cured coat of resin to eliminate air bubbles in the resin starting with a medium grade to a fine grade. You have to be careful after the first coat as so that you don't penetrate the resin and ruin the weave of the cloth.

The picture here shows the dash hanging from my garage after getting hours of sanding from various grades of wet n dry. After i got to this stage it was time to start getting a gloss finish, This can be achieved by ether using a cutting compound straight with the epoxy resin or in my case i used a rattle can of clear lacquer. This can be put on fairly think and when dried, a nice cutting compound to shine it all up.

arghhhh!!!

So happy for the time being with the overall finish of the dash. I like the contrast of modern alloy switches blended with sporty carbon fibre and will eventually have my classic style Smiths gauges fitted also.

What i intended to do was to get the carbon fibre finished dash and in the future if i change my mind it can always be covered in whatever fabric i decide. however i cant see that happening as although I'm not 100% happy with the finish i think it look ace!!!