Hiya Terry.
I've been at the workshop most days, but not a lot of progress worth photographing for a while.
Loony's been busy with other vehicles, plus had a few days away from the 'shop, so I've been pottering with various parts, building up a pile of bits to be welded. With the darker evenings now, I'm only getting a couple of hours per day before it's time to head home.
Today we tacked the stainless exhaust extension together that will connect the left pipe to the new Cherry Bomb silencer. I was juggling bits of pipe & guessing where they'd go, so needed at least one section glued together. Once the left pipe's sorted & I've worked out where the silencer needs to be fitted I can make the mounts, then start on the right side.
I've made mounting tabs for the curved panel that fits under the passenger side of the dashboard & we also tacked them in place today. Once it's hung in position I can make up a flange to attach to the bottom edge to bolt it to the footwell panels. Once in place, I need to mark & cut out an access panel so we can get to the windscreen washer bottle inside.
I've also started reworking the gearbox tunnel sections, adding new flanges & captive nuts, so that they'll bolt together, rather than using self tapping screws -the test examiners picked up on the pointy screw heads poking through under the cab in a couple of places. Bolts will also be more re-usable than screws. I'd like to re-work the front of the tunnel, where it fits under the dash, with a section attached to the bulkhead & the rest bolting to it. Otherwise, we won't be able to remove the tunnel for gear selector access without removing half the dash pannelling first.
We used stainless steel MIG wire to weld the exhaust together, so while we were at it, I removed the stainless headers, cut off the turn-outs that we've decided to do away with & cut fill-in pieces to replace them. So we welded those in today too. I'll need to spend some time soft padding them & hand filing them flush.
I've also cut fill-in pieces for the corners of the dash, where it runs up into the windscreen pillars, ready to be tacked in place.
The dashboard's currently held with nuts & bolts, but once the under-dash panels are in, we won't have access to the nuts. So when the dash comes off to fix the charging light, I'll drill the bolt holes out to a larger size & tap a thread into them, so the dash can be bolted in place from the top.
I've ordered a brake master cylinder from a mate & when it arrives I'll pick up a reel of copper brake pipe as it looks like half the system will need replumbing anyway. Might be able to re-route some of the brake lines, further from the exhausts, but probably still a few places where we'll need to use heatproof sleeving to please the examiners. I have to make a metal cover to bolt over the bunch of wiring connectors under the passenger seat too.
So we're still plodding on, but as I said, not much worth photographing at the moment.
Give us a shout when you're ready to come back.
