Yesterday I decided to strip out the front interior and see what was lurking underneath the gearbox tunnel carpet. The answer? Lots and lots and lots of bitumen sound deadening sheets. Over absolutely
everything. I'm not a fan of bitumen sheets, as they had silently caused the front floorpan of my 1500HL to rust out, as water from the leaking front windscreen got stuck underneath, and out of sight, slowly rusting away. The sheets were therefore unceremoniously ripped out, and I was greeted with... a soaking wet front footwell
Thankfully, this is only on the drivers side, and I think only happened relatively recently. About 6 weeks ago, the roof detached from the header rail on the driver's side - water from the balcony above came pouring on during some extremely heavy rain and got the driver's side of the car soaking wet. Hence you end up with a damp backside every time you sit in the driver's seat! Although the floorpan looks rusty, I've had a VERY good poke about, and it seems solid. I also found an old 50p
The good news is that today it's almost completely dried out, so will get wire brushed (manually, as I have no power!), primered and painted. Tinweevil has recommended some excellent primer - Bonda Zinc? So I'll give that a go
The gearbox tunnel is a complete mess - the firewall end had snapped off, and the entire section around the gearstick was missing! I have a glass-fibre tunnel, but it's unbelievably shite - I'm not even going to bother using it. Lesson learn't - either find a very good original, or shell out £80 for the plastic/rubber one that actually fits and has the mounting holes already in place. I was pleased to notice that my tunnel did have the footrest still attached - it was hiding under the bitumen sheets!!
Today I got distracted with the wiring under the dashboard. It's a MESS. The entire dashboard was removed and the wiring stripped back as far as the fusebox. I cut out
three accessory wiring looms for radios
Once I removed all the unnecessary wires, half the loom tape was unwrapped so I could get one burnt wire out - the pink/white one for the heater (heater to ignition power). I also found the wire from the heater control melted, so I've taken the switch assembly out to clean up. The loom was then tidied, sorted out, and taped back up. If I'm honest, it looks great! It's all wired up again (bar the heater) and works perfectly - I even fixed the speedometer illuminaton and got the door courtesy lamp to work - well, it would if I had a door switch
Overall, I'm very pleased. I'll look into the heater tomorrow, but I have a feeling due to the melted wires, the motor is going to be dead... we'll see
I started to install the black MKIV dashboard, I got most of it in place but it started to get dark. So went inside and refurbished the heater control. I don't have the right green/yellow wire, so I used bright blue, with a label.
Only things I need to finish are two new bulb holders, and a couple of single/double connectors. I checked Vehicle Wiring Products, but they don't seem to do the right ones.. any suggestions?
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1978 Triumph Dolomite Sprint (
project thread)
1966 Volkswagen 1300 (
project thread)
1962 Austin Mini (project)
1962 MGA 1600 Mark II
1965 Mobylette SP50 (project)
2001 Rover 75 2.5-litre V6