Harness Buckle Covers

 For the IVA prep, I notice that you need to cover the safety harness buckles (The clips that clip onto the rool hoops).  I was originally thinking to cover them with rubber edging, but then I watched Maxwell Millz Youtube video detailing Vikash's build (Recommend watchinng it):

I noticed he had small covers over the top of his ones.  I thought I could perhaps make ones to suit, but once I had searched Google, I found ones for sale at KitCarDirect.  I thought at least this will save me some time.

I promptly ordered them.  They don't take long to place over the eyebolt, and clip in the harness. 

Job Done!

Windscreen Footwell Covers

I wasn't sure how to deal with the windscreen that protrudes down into the footwells.  Since I have power steering, this differs from the standard GD frame which will differ from the usual covers that I think they can provide.  I will just make ones.

Using card, I created templates so that these could be made out of stainless steel.  My friend created these from my template - only a small bit of welding required.  The edges are nicely rounded.

I prepped them and sparayed them semi-gloss black, along with the heads of the bolts.  The bolt that holds them on is the lower Windscreen bolt.  I felt that was the neatest way to fasten them on.  Fairly finishes off the footwells.

Boot Carpets

The last bits of carpet to install are for the boot.  There are quite a few pieces, so I laid them out and tried to figure out what they all were.

Since I have a larger fuel tank than normal, I asked Meena to add on material to the standard carpet so it would fit my tank.  This was done so the seam is on the edge of my tank.

I started loosely laying all the pieces in to see how they fitted.  I realised I was going to have to create a cover over the top of my fuel pumps just to fully protect them.  Also, where the fuel hoses run and I have a couple of valves in a void on the passenger side, this would be best closed in.  At the driver's side, this is a perfect size to hold my Windows 10 tablet in it's case, so this will remain empty.

Using some 20mm plywood, I cut a perimeter support around the pump assembly.  Then upcycling an old Land Rover Series 3 hardtop, I cut a piece of aluminium as the cover.  I stuck on some loop velcro on the bottom, and glued the rest with a mix of superglue for the wood, and CT-1 for the rest.  I sprayed it black although nobody will see it.  I used some edging strip to protect the wires / hoses.

For the side void, I just cut a piece of aluminium and screwed it onto the bodyshell.  Again, edging strip was used for the wires.

Now that everything was ready to go, I felt the easiest bits of carpet to start with were the upper side pieces - these go behind the outer roll hoop bar onto the rear wheel arch.  Minimal trimming required.  A bit of triming required on the leatherette flap around the roll hoop, and on the passenger side a bit of trimming due to my fuel pump cover.

Carpets were all glued in using EvoStick Timebond.

The next pieces I chose to glue in were the rear corners.  These are quite odd shaped, but are flat and require to curve compoundly.  With the floor carpet in place (Mine doesn't fit since my tank is bigger - need modificaiton!) as well as the rear panel, I marked where the rear quarters best fitted to ensure everything was covered.  These were glued in with the help of a clamp.  I trimmed pieces out of the carpet to aid the curvature and remove the ripples.

The main upper carpet which covers the top of the fuel tank as I mentioned had an extra section added in.  The seam fits at the correct location.  The only issue is, the side wings of the carpet are too short to cover the rear wheel arch.  So, I strategically cut the wings off the big carpet so that I could glue the wings on separately on the wheel arches.  The main carpet could fold around the fuel tank around 50mm so you can't tell from the boot opening that the carpet has been cut.  For the passenger side, I glued in off cuts to fully cover the new aluminium panel and the side of the fuel tank.  I have left the driver's side for my tablet.

For the main carpet, it has pre-cut holes for the roll hoops which velcro closed.  This needed minimal tweaking to fit due to my fuel pumps.  I glued the edga along the top of the tank and the front of the tank, but left the main part on top loose.  The carpet isn't too flexible, but through time it may follow the coutour of the fuel pump cover.

The boot floor carpet, the one that immediately meets you when you open the boot, is standard GD size.  Since my tank is bigger, I had to notch out the tank shape in the carpet.  I measured and marked a few times to double check I wasn't going to cut it wrong.  Once cut, it fits neatly up against the tank carpet.

For the rear section of carpet that covers the rear lights, this passes underneath the boot latch.  I had a look and felt that if I was to use self tappers, it would pass through to the outside...  I decided to mould in a boss with stainless nuts.  I set everything in position and made a mould and laid in P40, and then P38 fibreglass.  I left this to cure and then sanded it down a bit.  The boot latch now fixes using button head set screws.

The final part for the boot was to fit the seal and also some edge trim.  The seal is an adhesive type so I just slowly stuck it on - I made the join line up with the boot striker rather than the centre of the car.  I felt that having a different line might make it all look askew!  The seals and edging strip faily finish off the boot area.  All in all, a good job, and the boot is still big enough to get a lot of stuff in it.

Dashboard Completion

After completing the switches for the lights and fan, I thought it best to get the dashboard put together.

I had to fill in some of the holes with P40 which I had drilled in the fibreglass dashboard for the original layout using toggle switches.  I also decided to move the fan switch closer to the driver and hide the speedometer button behind the steering wheel shroud.

To help prevent the rotary switches from turning, and relying on the securing nut, I bonded on some angle aluminium at the correct angle.  There are some notches in the fibreglass, but I wasn't sure how this was going to all work with the padding and leather.

Once the switch locations had been decided, and also the key for the ignition (Far right hand side near the driver's door) I could tidy up the wiring.  I had left the factory wires at full length, in addition to the tails that came with the Smith's gauges.  This meant there were a lot of excess wires.

I had to extend the ignition wires since I had relocated the key far away, but mostly I needed to shorten everything else.  I kept the Smith's connectors, I spliced in the wires by soldering each one and applying heatshrink sleeving to each joint.  Once each unit had been completed, a larger piece of heatshrink was used and I hand wrote on this piece identifying what was what.

The fibreglass panel was then covered with 3mm thick Scrim foam - this has a material backing.  I fully glued this on using EvoStick.

Once the glue was fully dry, I cut out each opening using a craft knife.

A sneaky install to see how it was going to look

Then comes the leather.  This is a bit daunting to ensure you get the tension correct.  Rolling the leather out on the bench, we marked out the leather for where we would apply the EvoStick.  Timebond is best for this.  Only the back edge of the fibreglass panel is glued.  The leather is loose on the foam.  With the edges glued, the leather was stretched over the panel and parts were trimmed away to allow the leather to curve around.

With the leather now in place, I could start cutting out for the indication lamps.

Then everything else was cut out - I cut multiple slivers for the gauges, I split a circle into 16 segments and cut the leather with a craft knife.  This made sure that it was flexible enough for the gauges to pass through.

Notice the small label I had made for the rear fog light

Piping glued on around the steering cloumn

In order to help hold the indication lamps from coming back out from the dash, I put flat rubber washers over them.  This adds some extra resistance to the lamp holder and keeps it in place.

Next is the leather cover for the steering wheel surround. The leather was rolled out and marked so I could see where to apply the EvoStick.  I lined it up so the joint is in the middle underneath - you can't see it once installed.

The leather needs to be trimmed around each of the stalk locations.  All in all a neat job, although the stainless cover is quite tight to go on!

I installed a small bracket underneath the dashboard above the transmission tunnel to house the connectors to the Lambda Sensor Controllers and also the CANEMS ECU.  Gender adaptors were bolted to the bracket, with the cables running from the bracket to each controller.  I thenn can use my RS-232 to USB adaptor to plug into which ever one I need.  

Looking more and more complete!