Passenger side

Hi

Had a little time off over the Easter with Lynne as she took some time of work but have still managed to squeeze some jobs in and (as normal) found a rather large and expensive problem.

The fancy bolts arrived for the hood which surprised me as I thought by the address that they where from Hong Kong but arrived within a week from and English address.

These are for number plate fixing and are made from stainless, lots of different colours available and I may change for the red ones at a later date only £7 for 20.

I had found that the steel bar running through the rear bottom of the hood was pulling the studs off and I could see daylight when inside so I bought these to pull everything down tight.

I have left the last one on each side as a stud as these seem to want to pull of when the hood is lowered and I don't want to put any more strain and wear edges on the hood than necessary.

Quite pleased with how they turned out.

I also did a little work on the hood edges where the corners are formed over the edge of the header rail, I had stuck the edges together but thought a bit of stitching would make it stronger so out with the needle and thread.

I have also fit the windscreen wipers which look Ok, need to fill the water bottle and direct the sprays to test them.

I decided to get the passenger side completely finished before working on the drivers side and started by fitting the seat belts.

I have seen red belts on eBay which I shall try and buy, I wrote to them last year and gave the Ford number of these ones but they didn't bother responding. I don't know what car these where originally designed for but at £60 a pair I don't want to end up with the wrong ones.

Next was the passenger door swing back stop, I had forgot about these when I sent the last lot to the powder coaters but they cleaned up ok. I had to unstick the carpet to get to the bolts and use new washers for the stand off distance, there was 7 washers fitted so I replaced these with stainless as the old ones were rusted.

The other job on this side was the door jamb cheek plate, just 3 rivets for this piece then hammered the rubber seal in place.

The rubber trim has plastic stoppers fitted to the ends of the rubber to give a flush appearance unfortunately there was only one left when I bought the car so shall try and make some.

Next job was the foot well carpet, this was easy to fit as I used impact adhesive, I pre-fit the carpet in the correct position then unrolled back from the foot area and glued and fit that section first then worked back to the seat area.

I did not glue after the raised section as the seat rails will be bolted down hard and should prevent any movement forward of the carpet. I have cut out the bolt holes for the seats and have been trying to figure out what goes in the 5th hole, its covered in this photo but is tapped into the floor pan against tunnel next to the most aft seat bolt. I have just plugged it at the moment until I either get told what it is for or find the bit that goes there.

Now for the big expensive problem, the seats. 

I have spent nearly 5 hours on these seats trying to get them to slide with no joy, I can get them in but without any movement on the sliders as they jam up straight away. No problem on the passenger side as this does not have to move but not so on the drivers as I need to move forward for the best driving position then right back to get out.

I fit them by having the seat fully forward and bolting down the backs then moving back as far as possible to reach the front bolts and bolting them down and that is it: solid, no movement what so ever. To get the seat out again I had to dismantle it which allowed it to move forward to access the rear bolts again.

I have had both seats fitted with the same problem on both sides as the width is just to much and jams them solid so by by TVR seats and I shall have the originals upholstered, I shall find somewhere local as Ray lives down in Cornwall which is a little to far to drop them off. Just a decision now on Leather or Vinyl depending on cost, I got these seats cheap and learnt how to restore leather and look after it so at least I have gained something out of it and they do look rather good.

I shall finish of the carpet and fit the door cards and all of the little jobs until the seats are ready.

See ya Paul