November 1998

ots of items ordered this month. Hopefully try to fit most of them very soon. I'd like to try and get all the body penetrations done this side of Christmas. Then in the New Year I can send it off to be sprayed.

7th November

Completed fitting the windscreen. It was worth all the effort and time put in to get it to sit right. The rubber strip now sits neatly onto the bodywork contours with no gaps! A useful tip I learnt was to reverse the rubber strip which is fitted in the channel at the bottom of the screen. I found that during transit and storage the rubber become shaped and it was very difficult to get the rubber strip to sit neatly onto the body contours. By reversing the strip it was very easy to get it to hug the contours of the body eliminating the possibility of any water running under the screen.

11th November

Spent the best part of the day rubbing down and filing the panel edges to get a consistent panel gap. I wanted to spend the time here because that's one of the things that makes a difference between a stunning looking car and an also ran. I also filed and sanded the openings at the front of the car, it certainly looks much better for it.

Took a roll of photographs of the car in the sunshine, should get those onto the page in the next day or so.

12th November

The lights and windscreen wiper assembly arrived today. I fitted all the lights the same afternoon and what a difference it makes to the car. It is starting to look like a Cobra rather than a large slab of white fibreglass.

I also had a phone call from John at Crendon to advise me that, at long last, the wheels and tyres have arrived. I shall be picking those up tomorrow. Also the petrol tank has arrived, so I've now got almost every item I need that penetrates the bodyshell. After these items have been fitted it's off to the paint shop for a full body rub down and a paint job.

26th November

Fitted the windscreen wipers today. I drilled the holes for the wiper posts and fitted the wiper blades only to notice that they sat on the wrong side of the screen. I phoned the supplier and asked if they did a left and right hand crank for the wiper arms, which they did. I checked the part number from the recommended list, supplied by John at Crendon, and it was wrong. The supplier agreed to change the arms for the correct ones and I phoned John at Crendon to advise him of the error on his parts list.

I also fitted the rear bumper and nudge bars. This took ages to line up. I ended up with two axle stands, a car jack and numerous bits of wood trying to balance the bumper so I could visually line it up with the rear lights and the shut line of the boot. Because of the weight of the two vertical nudge bars I could not trial fit these so I had to rely on the bumper to get my alignment. An hour or so later I was happy with the alignment and marked the holes. Once I'd drilled the holes and assembled and fitted the rear bumper I noticed that I'd not considered where the two vertical nudge bars would sit. I'd spent all my time making sure the bumper was true vertically and horizontally as well as being an equal distance either side of the rear lights. Once the whole assembly was fitted I noticed the nudge bars were not quite central, there was a slightly larger gap on one side of the boot shut lines of about 5mm. I'm one of lifes picture straighteners and I cannot bare to see things out of line. So I had to enlarge the holes slightly to allow me to align the bumper correctly. Thankfully none of this will show as there are large rubber grommets which will cover the area.