11/01/04
Well
had a fantastic time in Lapland, the day we saw Santa it was
-30 degrees, brrrrrr bit cold.
Anyway
back to the build, although I had wired up the dashboard , I
had still to connect up all the warning lights, ie 2 Indicators,
Main Beam, Handbrake warning light, Oil, Ignition and the two
illuminated switches for Fog and Reversing light.
No
problems , it just goes to show how good the Pilgrim wiring diagram
is, once connected all lights and switches worked fine.
The
Fog and reversing lights now needed to be fitted, but in order
to comply with SVA I had to find a way of mounting the lights
on the nudge bar, after SVA the lights would be flush mounted
to the rear of the body, between the top and bottom nudge bar.
The simplest method I found was to make up a couple of aluminum
brackets to act as clamps holding the lights onto the front of
the top/bottom nudge
bar. Doesn't look too bad.
Next
job, fitting the door panels and rubber sealing strip. No real
problems here, I used the large size rubber seal to ensure a
good fit between the closed door and the seal. Simply push the
seal into place , leaving enough to be 'tucked' under the dashboard,
the other end will be hidden by a chrome 'end cap'. I fitted
the panels with Industrial strength Velcro, to avoid any screw
heads showing.
Now
time to fit the Mesh grill set,once again no problems, the mesh
is ready to fit, I just pushed the small ones into place and
stuck with silicone. The larger main grill , I held in place
with cable ties, to pull it into place then used self tappers
through the nose lip to secure the grill.
I
was now getting fed up with a length of wood to propping open
the boot , so time to fit the boot stay. This is the same as
the
bonnet
stay but needed a bracket made up to form an extension to the
nudge bar fixing bracket. I made up a suitable length 1" flat
to fix the stay to. The other end of the stay simply screws to
the boot.
Next
job was to cut 2 large holes in the rear bulkhead for the speakers
and at the same time fit the 7/16" UNC bolts for the seatbelts,
the wires for the speakers run under the carpet.
Right
now for the seats, hmm.. first of all you have to fit the seat
runners, but where do you fit them?. I noticed the floor has
two sets of holes, (why two ?), drilled in both the passenger
and drivers side floor, these holes match up with the fixing
holes in the seat runners. So I placed the seats in the correct
place, then marked both sets of holes on the underside of the
seats. After removing the seats I offered up the runners and
decided the inner set of holes gave the best fixing points. The
runners were then screwed to the base of the seat ensuring the
runners were parallel and central to the seat, with the seats
back in the holes lined up perfectly, and 8mm bolts seemed just
right
for
bolting
the
seats down. The floor is not very flat,so washers are needed
to keep the seat sitting flat without distorting the runners.
The
seats slide back and forth no problem with plenty of leg room.
One
final job, the wing mirrors. I bought the Pilgrim mirrors as
these seem to have a longer 'stalk' than most giving a better
view, they were easy enough to fit and seem to give a pretty
good rear view area.
That's
about it for this week, only really the carpets now and a bit
of tidying up to do, so better get the SVA paperwork sorted. The
DVLA Inspector is comming round on Tues, and I have been issued
with a chassis number.
18/01/04
The
inspector came and verified my chassis number, as well as the
donor parts used. Two days later a letter arrived from the DVLA
informing me the Inspector was happy with my kit and that I would
be allocated an age related plate, 'C' suffix. Great now just
waiting for the SVA date to come through.
Spent
most of Saturday making up the inner seat belt mounts before
fitting the carpet. All I did was to make up two 2" metal plates,
and welded a 7/16" UNF nut to the back in the middle, then bolted
this plated to the inside of the tunnel with 4 8mm bolts. The
SVA inspector was happy with this setup last time so should be
okay. The inner mount point I have placed in line with the outer
fixing point.
Right
now to fit the carpet, there are no instructions and at first
looks very confusing, but once spread out on the garage floor
the various pieces, (which include the boot), start to make sense.
I trial fitted the pieces first to establish which had to overlap
which. Now comes the messy bit, I am using extra strength spray
adhesive, first starting with the inner sill to front outside
foot well, stuck inside the foot well and spraying the adhesive
soon has you high as a kite !.
I
started at the front, then the centre tunnel up to the dash,
then the back and rear tunnel. This just left the floor last
, everything fitted fine and I used 3 tins of spray.
25/01/04
Started
on a few more of the 'little' jobs this weekend, first the seatbelts,
no problem here, just follow the fitting instructions
Next
I removed the dash to finalise the wiring for the Radio and glass
in the glove compartment box, also while I was there fit the
two hoses from the heater to the screen vents. When re-fitting
the dash it soon became obvious there is very little room for
the heater hose once the glove compartment box is fitted, they
are both fighting for the same area. With a little bit of persuasion
the dash was back in place. Now I could fit the Radio , no problems
here and everything worked first time. Next I fitted the Handbrake
and gear lever gaiters.
Interior
looking good now, just need to make up some side panels to fit
under the dash to hide the wires and heater hose. I made up a
bracket next to hold the speedo pickup in the correct place to
read the daisy wheel, it mounts the sensor on directly on the
diff. I rang ETB who simply asked me for my Wheel Size, Diff
Ratio and number of petals on the daisy wheel, they then calculated
the number of 'pulses' I needed to set the Speedo to , nice chaps.
By the way my wheel size is 235/60/15, Diff ratio = 3:36:1, (Granada),
and number of petals = 30. Therefore the number of pulses works
out to be 77880.
Apparently
the Pilgrim setup is very sensitive to the sensor clearance and
should be set to 2mm. I have heard of people having trouble with
the Speedo setup. Luckily for me I also have the Rover potentiometer
fitted to the gearbox and the ETB Speedo can be calibrated to
use the Rover sensor so If I have any problems I will switch
over and re-calibrate.
The
only problem I had today was the reversing switch snapped in
half as I was tightening it up, bummer, still Rimmerbros will
have one.
Still
not heard when my SVA date is yet :-)
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