Headlamps, Dash, Exterior Trim

Since my last report the weather has gotten better, making working in the garage much more pleasurable. When we were here previously we were struggling with the left hand headlamp actuator, which was going really slowly. Having slept on it (not literally, obviously) I decided to clean up all of the earths in that area. I am delighted to say that the problem was solved and Terry and I then went on to fitting the headlamp pods. Carefully.

Terry the hand model strikes again. He's kind of becoming like The Stig. Maybe one day you will see his face?

Done

With the headlamps fitted, the car has got its face back! Sorry this video has so much bluriness! Every time the lights flashed, the camera had difficulty focusing.

Next was fitting the dashboard, which I had been looking forward to. This took some time, as we had to fathom out what needed to go where; what had to be moved out of the way. As it was, it went in quite nicely and without too much of a fight once the centre console had been removed.

One thing that was a bit of a nightmare was the heater pipes. One of them split, so we had to repair it with self amalgamating tape.

Heater pipe mended.

Bare bones fitted.

Nearly looks like a car!

Dash and clocks all fitted nicely.

It's nice bolting new things onto the car, as it gives you a boost. One of the things I wanted to do was fit the fuel filler cap, as the last time the car had one was back in 1994, but not for long. It got left on a petrol/gas station pump in Reims, France. I recall that for most of that trip the car had the cap from an Orangina bottle on the filler.

However, in order to see my dream of a filler cap fitted, I had to fit the filler neck and pipe. It is a horrible and impossible job as the alloy filler neck has to fit into the rubber pipe, and that lot has to fit into and around the fuel tank entry. I needed four pairs of hands. After much cursing it eventually went in, but tightening the lower hose was very fiddly.

New old stock fuel bezel. Very expensive these days but I had one in stock.

Damn thing.

Hurrah!

The first time Bessy has had a filler since Reims 1994.

And finally, I fitted one of the B-pillar trims. First job was to make a new vent flap thing from some spare vinyl I had around.

Lower flap is my own reproduction.

I had in stock two new B-pillar trims, but rather typically they were both for the offside. So one side gets a brand new one, the other I will have to clean up and paint with matt black plastic paint. The stupid little "T" clip things were a nightmare too, as the metal nuts just don't want to screw to the plastic clips. I got there in the end.

Nice, eh?