Apologies for not posting much recently - I have had a lot on my plate and have simply not had the time to get into the Manroom to do more. I took the week off and spent 2 days cleaning the place up (and boy did it need it), before deciding upon 3 things: Find the bonnet catch and fit it, continue sorting the dash top and also finish off the gearchange assembly.
Having been through various boxes, trays and tins, I found the bonnet catch. Which was broken. Something large and heavy had fallen on to it and had snapped one of the tangs that holds one of the springs. Under tension, this piece had gone "sproing" and disappeared off the end of said spring, which was still miraculously attached to the rest of the apparatus. I did think about replacing the whole the thing, but I am nothing if not resourceful, so I shaped a small (and much thicker) bit of metal and welded it to the remains. It certainly won't win any competitions as my welding is barely passable at best (it took a couple of attempts before I got the settings to work!), but it's nice and strong and nobody's going to look at it that closely... I will get round to cleaning and fitting the catch next time I am in the garage.
Next up was the dash top. Having skewered my hand on some of the very sharp and hard fibreglass, I figured that the dash top I had created would be better off as a mould. As it stood it would never be good enough as it was a bit lumpy despite the fact it's likely to be covered. I then spent about 20 minutes being as careful as possible using all my interior trim panel tools to split the fibreglass from the original buck. Eventually, after much persuasion it came free undamaged. I checked for fit then carefully taped the underside up. I got some more fibreglass resin plus borrowed Tink's bog box of csm offcuts and once again set to work. So far I am about halfway through.
Finally I did get round to fitting the gearshift mechanism properly, including the gear lever itself. I wasn't happy with where the mechanism was siting so I decided to pull it all out. Which all went nice and swimmingly (including the roll-pin!) until I got to the bolt which fits to the gearbox casing. As I have fitted an LCB exhaust manifold, there is not quite enough room to remove it. Much swearing occurred. I loosened off the entire inlet/exhaust manifold assemblies and *just* managed to get the bolt out. When on the bench I tapped the housing to take the KAD Quickshift extension and greased everything up. Fitting really was the reversal of removal this time! Gearstick looks good in place, but typically I had fitted my "old" pair of mounting bobbins as the new ones were of such poor quality they'd split. The ones on there are currently too worn to work properly, so new ones are on the list of things to get.
Finally, I changed the plastic wiper plinths for metal ones once I'd painted them. More soon!
Broken bonnet catch repaired with some ugly welding. I shall do some grinding with the Dremel to clean it up.
Splitting the fibreglass from the first mould. This took a LOT of patience.
Checking for fit - it was too lumpy to use so it became the new mould.
Taped up ready for more fibreglass
First lot drying out
The refreshed (bo) selecter ready for fitment...
...and in place. Nice!
And metal plinths replaced the plastic ones on the wiper mechanism.
