All Quiet on the North East Front..... NOT!!!!

A small update for all those who follow my progress.
   I left you all last time waiting for my seats and interior, and i still don't have them.... but not much longer. I have however managed to get the interior carpet fitted and lots of other little jobs done.

First off with the carpet fitting was a problem where the bottom of the dash didn't sit low enough to touch the transmission tunnel. A small void would have been OK as the thickness of the carpet could have made the difference up, but as you can see on the image i have had to bridge the gap with a thick 18mm plywood which i have PVA sealed due to the exposure to the elements and potential of getting wet. This is all now trimmed and covered in the black carpet along with the rest of the footwells.

    I started fitting the carpet in the passenger side footwell following the build manual guide. It was very much a case of cutting bits and dry fitting first before getting any glue near the carpet. Some sections i made cardboard templates first but overall it was a very logical and simple procedure to fit. My only advise to anyone about to do anything similar is to make sure the knife blade you use to cut is razor sharp (i bought a bulk pack of stanley blades of ebay for £5 for 100) and renewed them often when cutting. The blade would blunt very quickly when cutting the carpet against the fibreglass body tub.

 Secondly i would advise to ignore anyone who recommends using the spray can of adhesive.... what a crock of shit that stuff is. I have used the standard evostick impact adhesive before and have loved it. It gives a solid and durable bond between the two surfaces, but i found the same branded adhesive in the spray can to be utterly useless, and with some of the carpet bending round some tight curves and radius, it would just lift up with the pressure, so i was re applying with the proper stuff from the tin. Along with the problem that the spray adhesive would spray everywhere and i would have little control over the area it was being applied to.

   Next on the list of jobs was to fit some nice looking and legal pedals. They have to have a non slip surface on them and more importantly have to look good, as you can see they are very visible when looking at the car from the back. The biggest problem i found was finding some that didn't look like they have just fell off the first chaved up saxo that drove past, and not branded in such a way that had "Turbo", "Sports" or "Sparco" embossed into them which in my opinion looks tacky. So you can imagine how surprised i was to find the ones i have fitted from off the shelf in Halfords..... of all places. Some might ask as to why i was in Halfrauds in the first place, but i was getting desperate to find some. 

Another tip to anyone building a car like this is to fit the fancy pedals prior to fitting any carpet. I started the task on a lovely sunny day with the car pulled out the garage, and the carpet in the drivers foot well covered in a big towel. But with the extrema British summertime it wasn't long before the heavens opened and i was hastily pulling the car back inside the garage which pulled up the cover towel and spilt the metal swarf all over the lovely fresh carpet...... which is a total bitch to clean out and get rid of. 

 I have also refitted the door cards, all be it temporally, as they are a little to big now. When the door is closed the rubber seal sits on top of the leather door card as opposed to the door itself, so the overall door card needs to be cut down by about 5mm, to give a neater finish. The fit of carpet round the door seal does look good mind, which is another niggle in viewing these cars.... if the interior looks tatty it just brings the overall appearance down and can look poor. I only have a few visible joins on the transmission tunnel, which should be covered by the seats......... when they get here!!!

The last bit of the interior to fit will be the leather back bulkhead, which will also arrive with my seats, along with some matching black leather to re trim the door cards. So now all i can really do is to keep vacuuming the carpet and cleaning the body work.

I have a few odd jobs to do prior to IVA such as my front nose opening and a rear view mirrors, but that will be in my next update.

Lastly for this write up a big thanks to Ian, Geoff and new to the group James for coming over to "Chez Tommy" today for a mini meet, it was very inspiring to see all the cars (including mine) on the driveway and even better to get a blast round in Ian's Sumo a few days back... thanks for coming guys. Great Fun!!!!