Door Caps and Card

Hi

Been working on the door caps most of the day, nice and dry this morning and I gave them a good inspection, wish I hadn't. I noticed that a couple of the areas I had filled where slightly dipped on the passenger side cap, if I could notice without the lacquer on then it would jump out at me with the lacquer on, so I rubbed down these areas and filled again which of course meant fully priming and rubbing down. I have just put the finishing coat on now so there should both be ready for polishing tomorrow.

In between waiting for the coats to dry I got to work on other things, I was interested to see what the new aerial would look like so I found a longer bolt and put it in position, still needs a bit of work but it looks a little longer than what I really wanted. Will keep on looking.

Just very difficult finding something that fits that angle, I shall ask Phil if cutting the rubber duck aerial down in size will affect reception by much, although it does not really matter as the radio is only MW and LW of which I doubt have many decent stations.

This is what I am after, any ideas.

I also made sure I had all of the parts available for when I fit the door cards so out with everything and checked them over.

What came to light apart from the missing screws was that I had not found a chrome surround for the door handle enclosure, Terry B had put me onto the chrome surround for the door lock which is from a Mini and easily available. On the other hand the door opener is from a Austin Allegro (first car I ever drove) and I have been unable to find any chrome surrounds  for this model. 

So I can either fit the chrome and hope I find the other in the future or leave it off, or as I will do, say what the hell and fit it anyway.

Once I found all of the screws I gave it ago, Ray had cut the holes for the winder handle and door handle in the back leaving the job of piecing the vinyl to me.

I ensured all of the screw holes in the back of the door where lined up.

Then gave it a test fit.

I then pieced the center of each cut out then refit it leaving the door handle screws in the door to feel where to cut out.

Once happy I refit the card and fit the door furniture.

I was right about painting the door capping's the red colour as it really sets off the design of the door card.

Not much more done today as the prepping of the caps took quite a bit of work but well worth it.

Off on Monday and back around 14th Dec

See ya Paul 

Starter Button & Door Cappings

Hi

Busy last few days but very little to show for it, again I am just pottering around as the center carpet won't be here before I go back away on Tuesday for 4 weeks.

Most of the jobs have been wiring, these have mostly been straight forward although a couple of problems have come up. Phil the electrician has been around a couple of times but mostly this is to steer me in the right direction then I have been doing the jobs and he checks them over the next night.  

One of the problems that came to light is one I never even dreamed off and that is the indicators flashing to fast, Phil picked up on this when he first came round and couldn't understand it until on Wednesday night when he realised that I had fitted LED rear lights then it dawned on him. The problem was that the load had dropped and the relay was working faster as the speed of the indicators is load related on the relay, so in effect I had taken out the rear indicators. This Phil recons may be an MOT failure, so to fix the problem he has given me some Resistors to fit in the system.

I need 2 x 11 ohms one for each side or 2 x 22 ohms on each side which i now have, very simple to fit, one lead fits into the indicator circuit while the other end goes to earth, we did a test yesterday and it worked perfectly as the flasher relay now has the correct amount of load to give the required flashing speed.

I have also wired up the radio and had that working on MP 3, unfortunately the original speakers are a bit broken so I have seen a nice set of Pioneer surface mounted speakers which shall sit behind the seats. I have run the speaker cable to the boot area and hid the wire behind the carpet, I also re-routed the aerial cable from the drivers side to the passenger side as it would not reach with the radio being moved.

I have been looking for the correct aerial for some months now, I do not want an electric aerial but a bee sting and have been unable to find a suitable one. Phil said I should look for a Rubber duck aerial which I had never heard of so a quick search on eBay and I found an old but new stock item.

I need to do a slight modification to it as the angle is a little out but other than that it fits a treat.

I sorted out all of the mess of wiring under the dash and fitted the ends to the appropriate switches.

It may still look a bit of a mess but believe it or not that's what yours looks like when you remove the center console and pull out all of the wires.

There will be no cigarette lighter as I have used that hole for the starter button so I am utilizing it as a power supply, this will be bracketed behind the console and the power adapter will be plugged in and attached within reach for the MP 3 and sat nav etc. As yet  I have been unable to get power to the lighter illumination which is not really a problem but I would like to know why that circuit is dead. Another dead circuit is the fog light which is a much more serious matter, when I first wired this in it worked great, the dash light lite and the fog light lite but when I tried it the next day it was totally dead. The fuse is fine but there is no power getting to the fuse so at the moment I am scratching my head, I haven't tested the fan unit yet but on a meter test there is power.  

The starter button was the next in line, I bought this as a kit and it contains everything to fit.

This is the power loom that comes with the kit, it has a relay and illuminated starter switch which clips into the starter button, it was recommended by the suppliers to fit an inline 5 amp fuse which I have done. The other parts are the push button and the snap lock wire fittings of which I had a bit of a problem with.

There are 6 connections on the loom, 2 x heavy wires which go to the ignition switch, 2 x power connections which attach to the cigarette lighter wires and 2 x illumination wires which are supposes to go the cigarette lighter illumination wires but as mine are not working I had to find some where else for them to fit.

Maybe a little difficult to make out but you need the yellow/black wire and the red wire from the dash, these are the ones you see in the movies that when you rip the wires out and touch them together you hot wire the car. I originally thought the red and black but that didn't work so I tried the yellow/black and black and away it went.

I had a little difficulty with the snap lock connectors as after first fitting to the black wire, I tried to remove it and snapped the knife section so I went back to the best method and that was soldering a connection on. I soldered both wires and taped them up, I used the snap locks on the cigarette power and earth and away it went, a bit daunting at first but very simple in practice.The illumination came from one of the dash gauges and all it needs now is to clip onto the starter button and its done.

Another job was to fit the dash fully which meant firstly fitting the cowl around the steering column, I can't remember it being this difficult to remove but believe me it was very difficult to fit. typically it wasn't till it was fitted that I realised that I could adjust the steering column to give me a little more play, not much but a little, probably would't have helped but it has allowed me to lower the column a little to take into account of the dash sticking out the thickness of the new veneered section as it was touching the cowl. I also riveted the underside brackets in position.

There are 4 nuts to slacken on the frame work.

2 at the front you can see and 2 on the back bulkhead which allows the whole assembly to drop a little.

I also spent some time trying to figure out where the top section of the center console was secured under the dash, still can't figure it out but when I had it fitted I released that the choke pull was in a really bad position as it was right in front of the gear stick.

After a bit of a think I remembered I had a nice award badge issued to Panther in 1984 for winning first prize for the Kallista design. 

So out with the choke cable and on with the badge.

I then had to figure out where the choke cable would go and I had very limited choice in the matter so I drilled a hole in the only place available and it fits in great.

The warning panel is a degree or so out but that's Ok.

I also got the interior light working, I fit the passenger side door switch and wired that up to the circuit and fit the wires under the dash.

I slipped a bit of shrink wrap over the wire before feeding through the door and connecting to the switch.

The wiring circuit has a live to one side of the lamp and 2 connection on the opposite side. One connection is a positive earth so that you can switch the light to be on permanently and the other connection attaches to the wire from the both doors to act a broken earth which is connected when the door is open and the sprung pin is released to make the circuit. 

Another job done on the door was the broken door release lever.

I marked of where it needed attaching and removed it from the door lock to weld.

It works perfectly now.

The door caps also needed restoration as the veneer is cracked right through on both caps.

I had bought Birds eye maple veneer to cover it and made up a softener for the veneer but the more I thought about it the more I knew I would make a complete arse of it so after a bit of thought I decided that they would look better contrasting the door cards. I have plenty of veneer on the dash so a bit of colour on the caps would look great.

I had to remove the cracks or they would just come through the paint work so out with the sanding disk.

I sanded out all of the cracks down to base wood.

I then filled and sanded smooth.

After 3 coats of primer, sanding down between coats.

Then around 6 coats of the red base coat.

Not done yet although they are starting to look good, I shall start the lacquer tomorrow and give them around 6 coats before polishing back and waxing.

I have used my new airbrush to spray these and I am rather pleased with it, I bet no one new that Snap on make airbrushes and I bet even less people have heard of Bluepoint.

I am not to sure of the relationship but basically Blue point tools are Snap on, the airbrush instructions even have Snap on in brackets next to Blue point logo. I found this out quite a while ago and am always looking for Blue point tools on eBay and buy them when I can as they are Snap on at a quarter of the price. 

So now you know.

See ya Paul

Headlights

Hi

Nice quiet weekend with just a few jobs done, basically I can't progress onto the bigger jobs until the tunnel carpet arrives.

The first job was the gear stick surround, I had the underlay cut and the holes tapped so it was just a job of finishing it off. Ray had supplied a nice vinyl cover which had to be trimmed and glued in place.

I had shortened the gear stick when I made my attempt to fit an extension to the gearbox, unfortunately this did not work due to the drive shaft knuckle joint being a little close and I never did get around to extending it again, so the vinyl surround had to be trimmed to suit the shorter stick.

I fed the surround through the base plate and cut around then clamped in position to get the best fit, once happy I got the glue gun hot and stuck the surround to the underside.

  I trimmed around the holes and screwed in position.

Will look better once the carpet is fitted to contrast the chrome and the cream against the red of the carpet, I had bought the Panther corporate logo gear knob on eBay a while ago and fit it on the stick. If anyone thinks of buying and fitting one of these knobs then be aware that they do not come threaded so you either hammer it on which probable would damage the decal or as I did tap out to 10mm and screw it on.

The door trim also arrived, If I had of realised that this trim was the same as is used for the windscreen seal I could have saved a few pounds by ordering together.
Anyway it went on nicely, it just needed a rubber mallet to persuade it to fit in place and I left the ends long until the dash cheek plates are fitted then I can see where to cut.

I have also fitted the corner covers and these just need riveting in position.

Late yesterday Phil the electrician came round for an hour and figured out the problem I was having with the residual current coming back to the driving lights when in dipped, and as always it came down to an earth problem. Phil was also unhappy with the size of the wire I used for the headlights and driving lights although I bought from an auto electrical dealer for headlights, so he brought round some huge 3 core wire that he said would be best.

Can you tell the new wires, a hint (there blue)

So today's job has been rewiring the headlights, the problem lay in me trying to be good and running a separate cable from the driving lights and connecting to the main beam wire in the box plus the earth wire to the headlight earth. I have removed this wire completely and have run a short wire from the driving light to the headlight and connected to the main inside the headlight, the driving light earth wire was cut and riveted to the light body which in turn is bolted to the bumper.
Would you believe it, everything works perfect, no more residual current running back through the earth.

Sidelights

Dipped

Main beam

I am getting a much greater understanding of the car electrics by making these mistakes which after all is what this restoration is all about.
Phil is coming around again tomorrow night after work to check out my work and to see what else needs doing.

See ya Paul

Carpet Fitting take 2

Hi

Well I guess it didn't turn out so bad after all; car trimmers please carry on reading.

Today was a bit of a repeat of yesterday, this time I knew what went where and what I was doing, well nearly knew.

The first bits were again the two side pieces and this time I learn't a lesson from yesterday and that was to use glue on the vinyl wraps, this morning when I started all of the edges I had turned had pulled off, the carpet was stuck fine but not the edges. So today I glued each in place before moving on to the new piece.

Again with the bottom sections, I had a lot more wires this side as all of the rear lights run along this side of the car, in places I cut away a slot in the underlay and put the wires in that.

The trim edges are a lot neater here and I did the same on the other side and neatened up where the two beaded edges meet by removing one of the beads, I have also trimmed to the side of the car.

Again the footwell section was just a matter of trimming to size.

I was surprised at how fast it went with a little practise.

Next came the boot section, I have tried to use the hidden fasteners that were originally on the car and Ray supplied another load but I'm afraid that after stabbing myself a half dozen times and still not getting them right I gave up and will stick to the tape.

I loosely fit in position and marked out for the fuel pipe and cut that.

I secured the rising section at the back so that I could correctly position the area around the tunnel for cutting.

I have left a bit of overlap onto the tunnel until I get the tunnel carpet then I can trim to suit. I have also been informed by Ray that Panther did not put underlay on the tunnel section after the gearstick. Don't know why this would be, but the carpet is made to suit this and with the extra 10mm either side from the underlay it would not only put the carpet fit out but also the seats may be a little too tight of a fit.

I next fit the two seating area carpets, from these sizes I was able to see where to trim the side panels and cut them close to the sides, I have not stuck anything down as yet until I have everything in position.

Looking very good I just wish the tunnel carpet had fit as it would have been finished today, O well.

I was a little stuck on what to do after this so I got out the new demisters and seen to fitting them, these are not as long as the originals so the holes are a little out. I have used one of the holes and filled the other, I have ordered touch up paint and this should cover it nicely.

Really nice demisters from Holdens.

I also could not resist trying one of the door cards.

Got to say that you could do a lot worse than getting Ray of R.S Sewing Solutions to do your interior as the workmanship is fantastic, well done Ray.

Starting to get there but that's all for the day.

see ya Paul