Prop shaft - first attempt

With a project as complicated as this you can guarantee there will be highs and lows along the way. Rolling the car outside on its wheels for the first time was a high. As was fitting the body, fitting the engine and starting the engine.

I think yesterday morning was definitely the lowest point. So close to the finish, most of the things on the car work but it still doesn't move under its own steam. I ordered the prop shaft back in March and this morning it finally arrived.

Here it is. We have remarked several times how short the prop shaft will be. Observe the shortness:

Now observe the not-so-short distance from the gearbox to the diff:

After almost 6 months of waiting and the prop shaft is nearly 5 inches too short. One of the most annoying parts is that I've seen this happen before from Dax in someone's blog and I thought maybe I should check so the same thing doesn't happen to me, but I didn't.

We consoled ourselves by making progress on a number of other things but I have been making preparations to book the IVA for mid-October and this is a serious blow to that target. After almost 3 years it's becoming a struggle to force ourselves into the garage and get the remaining jobs done, and that was before this set back.

 Anyway, stuff crossed off the list today:

Speedo bracket has been made, fixing holes drilled and just waiting for paint to dry.

Air filter studding cut to sensible length and nasty wing nut swapped for a shiny dome nut.

Wind screen estutcheon plates where the windscreen pillars go through the body have been sealed with silicone to stop the rain getting in.

Passenger side heater vent glued back on after I snapped it off accidentally a few weeks ago

Passenger footwell front/side/other side carpet glued in.

Diode added from fog light feed to headlight feed so when the rotary light switch is on "fog", the headlights stay on.

Diodes added to indicator dash light. Left + right go into a single lamp on the dash and this connection meant when you indicate left or right you get 4-ways. I bought a bunch of Zener diodes (3W, 24V breakdown (zener) voltate) which I put on the feeds from L+R to stop the voltage "leaking" undesirably into the wrong indicator circuit.

Took the dash off to make carpeting easier and did some minor loom tidying on the back of the dash. Good job I did too as I noticed some of the fixings for the gauges had come loose, presumably from running the engine. I had a lucky dip bag of shake proof washers which I liberally applied on every fixing I could see.

Edited 13/10/14 to update with picture of speedo sensor bracket: