Front bits

Hi

Hands up everyone who thought I made a complete arse of the warning indicator lights, yes well I'm another. Not very well thought out, so I had a search on ebay and I came up with a polished stainless round plate.

I shall mark it out properly, drill and cut in half to create a semicircle then stick it to the finished dash, it should look a whole lot better.

I started today back on the rear of the car, I had a couple of pieces of stainless cut yesterday to cover the rear indicator lights as the bars I used to fit them looked a bit unsightly. I marked the ends of the plates for the bends and just knocked them over in the vise, the wires had to poke through and had bought a box of mixed rubber grommets in anticipation of this job.

I gave them a good polish and sealed all of the edges with silicon, the wire got the last of my heat shrink then they went back on the car.

They look much better with the back covered.

Back to the front of the car.

I thought I would start on the horns as I really wanted to try the grill in place, it took awhile to figure out where to fit them but I finally decided to bolt them under the slam plate, that way they are partially out of the weather. When fitted I got the paint out and redid all of the inside with black as the paint shop dust has got everywhere and is ingrained in.

Pretty bad photo but you get the idea, I have wired these up and tested all Ok.

The grill looks great although one of the fins that bolts onto one of the bracket is cracked and will break at some point so I shall make a couple of small brackets and make them look like they are original.

I shall no doubt buy the stainless grill from Bruno, I tried to make up the Jag grill to fit but the guy I was relying on for the oxy acetylene to do the silver soldering has sold his gear.

Next was the headlight, no problem here just straight in although I did polish then glaze then wax the area it would be covering.

Another bullet biting time, I masked the area of the wing to drill then marked off and popped a hole through and would you believe it, the indicator lines up perfect with the other side.

Looks great.

So out with the bumper, before I fit it I thought I would paint the front arms, bad idea as I later got it all over me.

The bumper went on without a problem then came of just as easy as I had forgotten to fit the overrider brackets, no problem as I had tapped out the holes.

I have 2 sets of overrider to choose from, unfortunately the chrome ones I bought are huge compared to the plastic set and will need a new set of brackets made if I want to fit them.

So for now I have settled for the colour coded set.

Next was the badge bar, you can see in the photo I originally fit the brackets around the bumper then I thought that can't be right and had a look at a photo and realised they go on the bumper support which I had just painted.

They were a complete pain to fit as to get the brackets on you have to stretch them open and over the pipe which means they have to be squeezed closed again, and one of the threads stripped on the upright, this was re-tapped to 8mm and on it went.

The new rims for the headlights arrived and they fit great, I need to make a small bracket to secure them as they have a slightly different arrangement but no problem.

The other item that arrived which I am really pleased about is the converted radio. 

Its an old Selmar which has been converted to play most any digital music, I have my pure DAB and shall try that on it. Its perfect for the dash conversion because it is only around 2/3rds the depth of a modern radio and should fit perfect.

I bought it on eBay for around £56 and they are converted by Josh at Sugar Mountain Radios who says he can convert any old radio for around £25 and was really helpful. So if you still have the original old Panther radio give him a call and you will then be able to play your MP3 or other portable devices.

Off out tomorrow but may be able to squeeze an hour or two in the afternoon.

See ya Paul