Well 5 months later and not much has changed.....
HA Ha - loads has been done, albeit some of it rather minor.
With the unusual mild winter, I was driving the car up until the beginning of December, never done that before. A prompt from ebay and I was bidding on a new steering wheel. I won it and got it on quick.
disappointingly I don't like it as much as I hoped. The spokes are yellowing plastic and the rim feels thin, it is better than the old one but it probably wont stay for too long.
The next thing to be addressed was the woeful headlamps, lets face it there are a lot better alternatives to 7" sealed beams these days. Halogen replacements have been sat on a shelf in the garage for over a year so I got those installed.
Compare - halogen on the left, sealed beam on the right. I am considering an LED bulb set to reduce some of the load on the wiring but I need to make sure there is enough clearance behind the headlamp first.
After some careful thinking I started work on the door caps. Using a material I feel confident in working with, I stuck to steel. I folded a strip that hooked over the top of the door card and into the window channel and fitted snugly.
I trimmed it to shape and covered it in black tape whilst I decided how to finish it off.
My wife suggested I try covering it in carpet to match the bottom of the door, with nothing to loose I gave it a go. to my surprise, it looked ok. With both sides made, they finish off the interior nicely.
With the doors complete, the mess that was the parcel shelf was next on my hit list. With no template to go off this involved a lot of cutting, measuring, swearing and cutting again. And just when I had got it to fit, I found that it prevented the hood mechanism from folding flat. Not good! With some strange shapes cut out of it it now covers the back of the interior and works its way around the hood frame neatly.
With the weather warming up recently, I was finding it hard to put off fitting the new roof. With all the work I have done over the years, this was something I was really worried about. There is very little margin for error when gluing the header rail and making the holes for the fixings, I did not want to screw this up.
First I fitted the refurbished frame with new webbing. The webbing helps to support the roof and to help the roof bars sit in the right place when you raise the top.
And a better view of the parcel shelf.
Then I had to start making holes in my new roof. I made a hole punch and started to carefully fit the rear retaining bar.
I don't like popper fasteners as in my experience the tend to pop off of there own accord so I fitted a set of Tenax fasteners to keep the hood down at the sides.
Then, having taken a handful of brave pills, I glued the front of the hood to the header rail.
Fortunately it seems to have come out ok.
I have also replaced all the window rubbers and secured the passenger window so it doesnt fall out if you try to wind it down.
So there you have it, up to date. I have driven just over 1200 miles since the MOT in August which is good going for me, and I have been to a number of meets. Now the car season is in full swing I should be at a few more.
HA Ha - loads has been done, albeit some of it rather minor.
With the unusual mild winter, I was driving the car up until the beginning of December, never done that before. A prompt from ebay and I was bidding on a new steering wheel. I won it and got it on quick.
disappointingly I don't like it as much as I hoped. The spokes are yellowing plastic and the rim feels thin, it is better than the old one but it probably wont stay for too long.
The next thing to be addressed was the woeful headlamps, lets face it there are a lot better alternatives to 7" sealed beams these days. Halogen replacements have been sat on a shelf in the garage for over a year so I got those installed.
Compare - halogen on the left, sealed beam on the right. I am considering an LED bulb set to reduce some of the load on the wiring but I need to make sure there is enough clearance behind the headlamp first.
After some careful thinking I started work on the door caps. Using a material I feel confident in working with, I stuck to steel. I folded a strip that hooked over the top of the door card and into the window channel and fitted snugly.
I trimmed it to shape and covered it in black tape whilst I decided how to finish it off.
My wife suggested I try covering it in carpet to match the bottom of the door, with nothing to loose I gave it a go. to my surprise, it looked ok. With both sides made, they finish off the interior nicely.
With the doors complete, the mess that was the parcel shelf was next on my hit list. With no template to go off this involved a lot of cutting, measuring, swearing and cutting again. And just when I had got it to fit, I found that it prevented the hood mechanism from folding flat. Not good! With some strange shapes cut out of it it now covers the back of the interior and works its way around the hood frame neatly.
With the weather warming up recently, I was finding it hard to put off fitting the new roof. With all the work I have done over the years, this was something I was really worried about. There is very little margin for error when gluing the header rail and making the holes for the fixings, I did not want to screw this up.
First I fitted the refurbished frame with new webbing. The webbing helps to support the roof and to help the roof bars sit in the right place when you raise the top.
And a better view of the parcel shelf.
Then I had to start making holes in my new roof. I made a hole punch and started to carefully fit the rear retaining bar.
I don't like popper fasteners as in my experience the tend to pop off of there own accord so I fitted a set of Tenax fasteners to keep the hood down at the sides.
Then, having taken a handful of brave pills, I glued the front of the hood to the header rail.
Fortunately it seems to have come out ok.
I have also replaced all the window rubbers and secured the passenger window so it doesnt fall out if you try to wind it down.
So there you have it, up to date. I have driven just over 1200 miles since the MOT in August which is good going for me, and I have been to a number of meets. Now the car season is in full swing I should be at a few more.