I had to nip out on Saturday and as I was passing Malcolm's place I thought I should swing in and say hi. Just as I did that the phone rang, it was Russell asking me if I was in the area by any chance. Some may call that coincidence, I call it witchcraft. I just knew that this would mean my 5 minute visit would end up being something more than that, my worst fears were confirmed when he mentioned that the brake lights on the Ferrari had stopped working.
We had been messing about around the servo when we were sortimg the brakes so I looked there first but could see no obvious wires hanging down or anything. I checked for 12 volts one side of the switch - all good, then got Russell to hit the brakes while I checked the other side - that was good too. I concluded that I must have disturbed something when I put the new temperature gauge in, which meant the next thing was to pull the dash back out. As soon as I go my head down there I spotted the problem, a wire had indeed become adrift. I joined it back up and everything was good to go again.
The reason he had phoned me though was to ask if I had a Dremel with a cutting disc so we could open up the hole on the transmission tunnel where the h shift gate goes on. It turned out that we didn't need it in the end and as I was there I helped get that very Ferrariesque piece of kit fitted. It's going to have to come off again though as the edges are not compliant with the BIVA internal projections rules and need to be rounded off. I also spotted a few wires that may need some extra fixing to be compliant, will get to that next time I am round there.
In the mean time it is off to the local tyre / mot place to have the headlights set, the emissions tested and the tracking set - it needs all 4 wheels checked and set as all are adjustable.
He has made some really good progress on the Lotus, the new rear wheel arch is in place, the spare wheel well has been fixed and a couple of other bits patched. He's waiting for the sills to arrive now and can't do too much more until they get there but what is done so far looks really good.
I came home and did some work on the hot rod and resprayed a tank for a 1985 Honda VT700 Shadow, a job I have been trying to get to for ages. I got the primer and a couple of coats of colour on before I ran out of energy, it needs 24 hours to dry before I rub it down, apply the decals and put on the clear coat. I need it to be a bit warmer, the weather forecast suggests I should wait a few hours.
I am now trying to decide what order to do things on the hot rod, I am thinking I need to get the engine and box out, fit the clutch plate, do a bit of painting on it, make and fit the bulkhead, fit the front brake pipes, paint the front part of the chassis, modify the chassis for better clearance round the exhaust and refit the engine. I think if I do all that in that order that would be pretty good progress and would bring me to a point where most of the major engineering type stuff is done. I just need to convince myself that this is the right order, last thing I want to be doing is having to pull the engine and box back out at some point in the future. I also have to work out how to fit the Mini heater and the Fiat 500 wiper mechanism - not difficult but important to get right. I need to do that before I finalise the design for the dash and work out how to fit it all.
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