Boxed in

Well,  tonight turned into quite a significant session.

I really want to try fill the coolant system and check for leaks before I go much further but to do that,  I really need the firewall in place and that really needed the pedal box fixed. I realised that I've gone to some effort,  like others,  to use rivnuts for the firewall to make it easily removable in the future BUT unlike others,  I've got a header tank and a brake fluid reservoir bolted to the firewall,  so removing the firewall in future,  even with rivnuts,  isn't going to be that simple. Ah well...

Spent a while staring at the pedal box,  trying to work out if I could safely rivet it in place. Pedals done,  clutch and accelerator cables in place,  brake lines in place - couldn't think of a reason not to,  so out came the gunk and rivets.

After that,  I went a bit nuts and bolted the firewall down and fitted the pipes for the brake fluid as well as a few small jobs - bent the clutch cable bracket a little to give a better angle, grommet in the firewall for the brake fluid level wire and fitted the final pipe in the cooling system,  from the top of the thermostat to the top of the header tank.

All looking pretty good:

Good evening all round - always nice to finally tighten something.

Turned the key and...

... yup,  the steering lock does work. Sorry,  didn't mean to get you all excited :-).  Yes,  the reason I couldn't turn the boss was that the steering lock (a little metal block) was stopping it. It never occurred to me that's what it was... good to know it works.

The accelerator pedal turned out to be very fiddly.

First,  I had to enlarge the hole in the top to M5 size for a clevis pin but,  crikey,  that metal was a nightmare to drill through. I had to do it in 0.5mm stages as my cobalt drill bits just couldn't seem to get through it in one go.

GBS had sent me a diagram of how to best fit the accelerator pedal which required trimming the side pieces where the bolt goes through. Unfortunately,  I took too much off - luckily,  I was able to retrieve the bit I hacked off from the bin and just fitted it on the bolt as if it had never come off. Genius,  me. In fact,  it was very helpful as it allowed me to put an extra penny washer on that side,  to keep the pedal away from the side of the pedal box.

Anyway,  took a couple of hours but I think I've finally sorted it:
                                  

The clevis pin hasn't arrived yet and that isn't the final nut on the bolt,  in case you notice.

Dashing ahead

Sneaked another hour or so in the garage and continued with the dash. Before I decide where the gauges go,  I need to clarify where the steering wheel goes and cutout the dash for the steering column to fit.

Loosely fitted the firewall,  scuttle and dash and marked up where the steering column comes through. Not sure of the best way of cutting fibreglass but reading online, it seems to be a mix of saw and sanding drum on a Dremel as the easiest combination,  so that's how I started:

Another technique is to drill lots of small holes close together and then saw through them,  which worked well. But the sand drum in my drill was the best - on a slow speed,  it is very precise and quick,  although messy. After a few sand-fit-sand repetitions,  I had a pretty decent result:

It doesn't even have to look great as it will be covered by a shroud eventually.

That steering boss is only loosely on as I can't quite work out how it fits (posted question on GBS forum).

Months ago,  I ordered a special shroud that GBS offer as I didn't have an old Sierra one. However,  as I'm not using column stalks any more,  that shroud is no good to me (and anyway, I can't see how it would fit with that boss which I also got from GBS). So,  I'm going to make my own - shouldn't be too tricky,  I hope.

The loud pedal

Next up were holes in the firewall for the battery cables. The wiper motor arrived and I sited and drilled holes for it in the firewall. That will now wait until after IVA to be fitted.

With that sorted,  I could decide where to put holes for the battery cables. The grommets that come with the cables are pretty huge so the holes had to be as well,  much larger than any drill I have. So out came the hole cutter set I bought a while back. This was supposed to be for the dashboard but I thought I could try it here as well. Worked OK for the first hole but it's not a high quality kit and the second hole didn't work well - ended up having to use my largest drill and then a file to extend the hole. Had to use a smaller grommet for the second hole as I couldn't be bothered to spend an hour filing and the first hole was too large for the grommet,  so I had to order one larger one. Weirdly,  even though it said it was coming from China,  it arrived the next day! Anyway,  2 holes finally made...

Good news on the dash instruments wiring - GBS have found a 20-pin flying loom and will make me a 18-pin one for about £50. Not bad,  considering just the plugs I ordered cost £25 and this way saves me having to crimp 76 pins! I'll have to try get a refund on the plugs...

Next up was the throttle cable and the accelerator pedal. The cable needed a bit of modification at the body end,  from this:

... to this:

Basically needed 2 cm or so hacking off the 2 pieces,  to allow full travel when the cable is pulled.

Tried to make a start on the accelerator pedal but I seem to have mislaid the bolt I need. Either I've lost it or I used it somewhere else - I'll have to go and get one tomorrow. I had previously trimmed some width of the pedal but looks like I need to do more.

Great news! A screw-up...

A minor screw-up; the silicon pipe to the bottom of the header tank is 2cm too short,  meaning that it won't quite reach the header tank when it's bolted to the firewall. Luckily,  metal crafting genius (me,  in case that's not obvious) to the rescue... I love doing these things.

Art and hacksaw skills to the fore:

                                  

... And then some panel-beating/bending:

Attached to the header tank:

And then riveted to the firewall:

... along with the remote brake fluid reservoir. I've riveted and bonded the battery tray in place so the whole lot looks like this:

The wiper motor should be delivered tomorrow and that goes on the other side of the firewall and will determine the battery position (more precisely,  where the battery cables can come through the firewall).

I also,  scarily,  started work on my fibreglass dash. Having never touched fibreglass in my life before,  I decided to do the small holes on the edge that will match up with the rivnuts in the scuttle inner panel. Trickier than I expected - eventually used a ratchet strap to hold the scuttle in place,  put the dash on and drilled pilot holes through the rivnuts from the rear. I then took off the dash and did the holes with a 6mm drill. The best result was when drilling at a slow speed and the holes are pretty neat but whether they're right is yet to be seen.

Started thinking about the wiring loom for the instruments - I'm doing my own instrument loom as well. The plugs on the GBS main loom are  something specialised which I can't find on the Internet to buy (!) and GBS don't have them to sell (they don't make the looms in house). So,  I'm going to chop them off and use standard plugs,  which are on order.

PS: a minor milestone; this is my 100th post!! As I tend to post after every garage session and my sessions average 2 hours,  this gives a rough idea of how many hours my build has and will take.  Allowing for the fact the first 20 or so posts were pre-build, I've roughly spent 160 hours on my build so far.

Pottering

I decided to be sensible and get all the gauges done before contemplating starting the engine. With that in mind,  I created a plan for the next few steps - the first aim is to get the firewall and all the associated parts that fit on it,  done.

So tonight was a few tidying up jobs before that; first was the starter motor wiring. The wire on the GBS loom for the starter solenoid,  for some strange reason, has a spade terminal on it,  despite the GBS-sourced starter needing a ring terminal. So quick change to crimp on a ring terminal and solenoid wire connected. Also tightened the main power cables on the main starter motor.

For the firewall to go on,  the battery tray has to go on. But for the battery tray to go on,  I needed to finalise the wiring underneath,  as the tray is going to be riveted on (although having second thoughts on that now - maybe rivnuts?). So,  out came the cable ties:

Quite neat,  I think. Drilled some holes in the firewall for the fuse box and spent the usual 15 minutes scraping panel protector off the battery tray.

Thought I'd done more than that but obviously not - time flies...

28

28? Days in February in a leap year? 66.6% of the Meaning of Life?

Nope... the number of jubilee clips I've used on my cooling system! That's 28 possible leakage points... I may live to regret this 'cost-saving' process.

Anyway,  depending on your outlook,  it is almost a work of art or an utter pigs ear of a job - you decide:

                          
                                

If it works,  it's genius... the eagle-eyed may spot one missing clip (JNIT) and I haven't done the header tank yet.

Ah,  just remembered I've forgotten the last small pipe from the top of the thermostat to the top of the header tank,  so that will be 2 more clips!

For reference,  this is the setup I have,  with the exception of the small green pipe from the top of the radiator :

The pipes are a calling

I've been waiting all week for a couple of pipes to finish off the cooling system but they haven't arrived - a weird failure of the courier system.

Desperate to get my fix of garage time,  I did some odds and ends; completed the TPS plug:

... and the coolant sensors:

I'll probably tidy up those wires later on.

I realised there were a couple of pipes that could be tidied up - I've trimmed the silicon on the cold bypass that will be underneath the hot exhaust manifold,  so that only the ally pipe will be directly underneath,  just in case there is an issue with melting silicone.

I put the firewall loosely in place to locate the header tank and realised I could finish off the pipe from there to the lower T-joint (sorry,  forget to get any pics -  next time). Only thing missing are the 6 jubilee clips I need - need to buy them.  Hopefully I can get them from Homebase and not rely on a delivery...

Scarily,  I'm not too far from an attempt at an engine start.... assuming I can do that without gauges wired up?

CAT scan

Just to be on the safe side, I took the car for a CAT scan:

Results were purrrfect :-).  Sorry...

With the answers from GBS on the coil pack wiring,  I finished the plug and connected it up. Also got an answer from Emerald for the coolant sensor and did that as well.

Got some more pipes for the cooling system but still a couple outstanding. I might break a record for the number of Jubilee clips in one engine bay,  at this rate.

Once those other bits arrive,  I need to put the firewall in place so I can work out where the header tank has to go.