Thanks to the superhuman building ability of Max, loads of stuff was done this weekend. Before that though, I fitted the side vents a couple of weeks ago but I don't think I've put a picture up until now so here's the driver's side one, taken before I fitted the side repeaters:
Right then. Max has lent us his engine crane which should just about do the job so thats stowed safely away in the garage awaiting its moment to shine. Most of saturday was spent getting the doors on. The procedure appears to be 1) cut nice big holes in the door to allow adjustment of the hinges, 2) put door on and wedge bits of cardboard until you get a nice even gap 3) nip up all nuts and then do final adjustment with a big hammer.
This process was mainly as follows: "up a bit, back a bit, down a bit, RIGHT NOBODY BREATHE!".
We were hoping to get the door locks on but it occurred to us that the door trim needs to be on as there is a cutout for the lock in it, so we had to abandon door lock fitment and just settled at some nice looking doors (i.e. much better than in the picture above). It amazed me how good the final fit looks at a glance. Obviously Max and I know where it could be better, because we did it, but the casual observer would think it was pretty good. Then you go and look at any production car and you can DRIVE A CHUFFIN' BUS through most door gaps on any car, even supposedly well-built German cars.
Next was a bit of electrical work which was tedious but ultimately absolutely critical and very rewarding when it worked without making fire. The fog light was a separate switch but its now on the big rotary headlight switch and we are now using the full functions of the left column switch. With the Lucas rotary switch I had no headlight flash unless you clicked through position 1 and 2 (sidelights + dip beam), which is less than satisfactory. Now though, we have saved the need for a separate fog switch on the dash. The rotary switch is now wired pos 1 = sidelights, pos 2 = headlights (which then goes to the left column stick for dip/full/flash) pos 3 = fog light (connected with a diode to pos 2 so the headlights don't go out when the fog light comes on).
This satisfies the IVA requirement that the fog light only comes on when the headlights are on, and goes out when the headlights are turned off, seeing that you have to click the rotary switch through the headlight on position to get to the fog lights. The fog dash light can then be positioned next to the fog position on the rotary switch. We can cover up the holes for the fog switch and original fog light position with a bit of tape and Max informs me this will be invisible as he found loads of extra holes in the old dash on his Gemini that didn't show through.
This was all good work but didn't really lend itself to photos as its just a bunch of wires. One of the outcomes of all this electrical work is that the loom behind the column will eventually be far tidier once I put it together and all the wires going to the dash will be contained on three 11-way connectors instead of a multitude of 6 and 8 way connectors. We did check the fog light actually works, and the reverse light while we were at it.
Next it was our old favourite, the fuel tank. I hadn't actually checked it for leaks since having it re-welded to the right size so we took it off and had a close look at the welds. I did this with the welder who modified it and he filled in a couple of pinholes but I had never tested the tank with fluid. We poured in a few hundred ml of white spirit and sloshed it round a bit and couldn't see anything so that's about as good as we can do. I'll rinse the tank out with petrol later.
This was a good opportunity to paint the tank straps which is my job for the evenings next week. I had an extra bit of triangulation welded on to make them a bit meatier but in the process they had to grind off the plating to weld it, so I'll slap some Hammerite on.
With an hour left to kill we got one last job done, fitting the fuel filler. Fairly straight forward, we used the gasket as a template and got busy with the Dremel as I have no hole saws.
As the tank is on the floor because the mounting straps are dangling from the ceiling while the paint dries, the filler isn't actually connected, but its one less part in a bag cluttering up the garage. Obviously the gasket was later fitted and not just forgotten about.
