MadaboutKitcars

Yes you are right about the single coat theory!
Its brilliant isn't it?

Handbrake and Headlamps

Scottie

Good to talk yesterday.

I thought I'd post pictures of the above as my descriptive powers are somewhat wanting.

The only bit of the handbrake mod not shown is the half inch bar which joined the tag in the first picture to the lever. The hole in the tunnel had to be that size to manoeuvre the completed mechanism through for connecting to the primary cable. The cover plate is held in place by M6 dome headed bolts which also go through the lever support and tunnel with a couple of pop rivets tidying up the top. The lozenge shaped hole is for the seat belt.

The headlamp pods stage one picture shows the aligning bar held cunningly in place with a bungee whilst the fibre paste goes off - high tech or what! I'll post one of the P700s in situ when I've taken one!

Nice progress Scottie. It seems like you and Nick share ideas about dashboard clocks

Tuesday

Cheeky bugger y cymro!

That's not a dash board clock! Its a Westminster chiming clock.

You've gone and done it now! I can see WCA badgering me to give it to him for his car!
Unfortunately he broke that really nice one he had.

Talking about clocks, I could have fitted a Jaguar rev counter with a built-in electric clock, but ,

a: The XKSS never had that,and
b: every time I operated the battery cut off switch, the clock would stop.

So I don't have one.

Today was more fiddly work, but it all has to be done.

I have a huge pile of small fiddly jobs in my head that came under the title of

" Oh, I'll do that later"
Well, later has now come around to being NOW, so I got stuck in.

The panel light housing needed finishing off, a bulb fitting and wiring up to the panel switch.

I also wanted a stereo control switch, so I did not have to fiddle under the dash if I wanted to use it.

And I needed a wiper switch fitting.

All these things are much easier to do on the table rather than try to do it when the dash is in place.So I did.

And here are some pics:

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It really does look original. Excellent.

Seeing those pineapples on the window sill made me invent something totally new - at least I can't find anything like it on Google.

A solar powered rotating fruit ripen-er!

You put your fruit in and it slowly rotates them to get all round even ripening. The more sunshine, the faster they ripen and the faster it rotates.

Just off to the garage....

WCA I'm speechless!

Got the design diagrams ready, who needs CAD

Nice work scottie i really like the look of that dashboard. As I think everyone would agree albeit fiddly and small it is exactly these jobs that will separate yours from anyone else's builds.

I go away for a few days and you leapfrog me on the door front (in total agreement with the primer-motivator trick!) and WCA finally hits on an idea to make his millions! Typical...

Never take your eye off the ball..............

Scottie - As others have said, your dash really does look the part.

Good luck, Paul.

Maybe I Should Have Been A Gynecologist?


Seconded! Whilst browsing my quite extensive collection of D Type literature I had a good look at the XKSS dash pictures and have to say that Scottie's is a masterpiece!

Today, Matthew, I was Harry Houdini working on the wiring in my boot space which, now that the body's glued on, is only accessible through the 'letterbox'. I made ally tags and strategically Five Minute Araldited them along the route the loom was to take. Lots of cutting, crimping, extending and continuity testing later my neck is cricked, but the wiring's now completed.

Hope you don't mind my hijacking your thread Scottie, but it seems daft to start a new one when I'm already ??% of the way through.

Mick start a thread! Be great to see another one being built.

Seconded, a new thread for a new build..

Scottie - see if Chris can spare you some paint for your van conversion - you are trying to make you existing van into a camper van...


.. it would look suitably camp painted this shade

Thursday

Mmmmmmn, I don't agree WCA, besides a camp look is not really what I had in mind.
Although it is a camper van, there is a subtle difference between looking like a cool camper, and looking camp. ( Looking camp could perhaps attract the sort of attention some would wish to avoid)

By the way, how is the fruit-ripener coming along?

And how many rocking chairs have you managed to sell so far?

Enough of that, moving on...........


Today I did some smally-jobs, the main one was making and fitting an anchor point for the bonnet stay.

So now the end of the bonnet stay will sit against a steel plate, and not wear its way through the fibre glass one day.

Not a lot I know, but as Tes*es says, "every little helps" and doing a small job like that is still better than receiving a good kick in the crutch with a divers boot.

Some pics:

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I love that kind of detail and your bonnet looks proper, as does the engine.

The biggest disappointment when I pop the bonnet on mine is the engine bay is stock BMW including plastic engine cover. I tried removing the cover but that still looked crap and prossibly worse so I put it back on.

I may mock you but I envy both your skills and your project and am so please that people like you exist with these skills

WCA, I had not realised that you were mocking me!

I must have mistaken all that stuff for hero-worship! Shame on you!

Seriously though, can you perhaps, remove that engine cover thing, and maybe make a dummy Ferra*i fibre glass engine top?

I had thought of doing something similar to hide my crappy little Triumph 1500, and make it look like a Jaguar twin cam.

But it is very labour intensive at a time I don't need it to be, and I think I may have clearance problems with the height of the bonnet.

I believe on some of the more detailed Ferra*i's, that have such a dummy, it may be a manufactured item, and as such, may be possible to purchase one?

Worth looking into?

Later

WCA has got me thinking.

Opening the bonnet on my car once it is finished is going to be one of the worst experiences I could have I think!

So the short answer is never to open it in public!

"I'm sorry, it wont open, the cable has snapped" sounds about right.

Here's what it should look like:

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A bit of 3D printing?

May be you need to look into removing the bmw identity in the engine and the large expanse of black plastic....so from this

You need to go to May be powder coated covers ..red/black with silver highlights a Maserati badge over the big BMW tag.the inlet manifold have powdercated in a chrome or satin nickel ..even a bronze colour? Take a look at the Alfa ..ok so it has alloy covers but for not a lot of outlay I'm sure you could get get your engine bay looking more the part.


May be purchase some ebay spare covers and have them done and then the car doesn't have to be off the road.

Of course if money was no object this chunk of bling would be a good start
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E36-325i-328i-323i-M3-Z3-E39-528i-Intake-Manifold-M50-M52-M54-/281577140431

That's good stuff redratbike, that's the sort of thing WCA needs to be looking at doing I'm sure.

Perhaps one day I will try something similar under my bonnet!

I think it could be made a whole lot better for not a lot of money.

As for yours so you will never pull off the straight six but maybe a nice period rocker cover ,some blinged up,carbs chrome dashpot covers ...nice retro air filter ....would look good.
One of these filters looks good

Realistically I know you are right, I just have to tart up what is there already, and make it look shiny!

With the exhaust I made, it already sounds like a big straight six!