2011 Almost Here And The Clock Is Counting

Dateline - Dec 15, 2010 - Well, the clock is counting down to June to get the car done. I have a lot of work to do and need to focus as much as possible. I've stopped body work for a while, since it is way to cold in my garage to bondo, sand and paint. So I'm working on the interior. In my last post I reported that my gauges have come in. Since then, I've put a good portion of the dash back together by putting the air box back in. I wanted to removed the A/C Coils from the air box first, so I spend several hours drilling out pop rivets and prying things apart with a screwdriver. Of course, I did have a slip and managed to tear some skin off my finger with the screwdriver!

After I got the air box in the car, I started mocking up the dash using the gauges and foam core poster board. I was concerned about having enough space behind the dash for the new gauges, since they are significantly thicker then the stock versions. The good news is that without the a/c coils, I can reduce the size of the air box significantly. This will make it much easier to mount the five center gauges, and the GPS/Radio! I was pretty happy about that.

Also, I'd like to report that I got my new racing seats in! They look really nice in this car! They came with sliders already, but I needed to make brackets because the seat is about five inches narrower then the originals. Of course, just a piece of metal would not do the trick! I had to make brackets the lowered the seats about an inch so that I have enough head room. Here are the brackets:




And here are the seats in the car:





I thought that I could possibly put race seats in the back too, but I tried to fit them and there just is not enough room. So I'm going to need to source a new back seat, or custom make one. I have some ideas there...

After getting the seats in, I started mocking up the center console. I started with the original console with the vinyl removed, then stared added construction paper until I had the idea roughed out.






Then I cut the center sections out of mat board and taped construction paper cutouts of the different items like air vents, switches, heater controls and GPS/Stereo. I also added a section of the bottom fairing so that I could get an idea of how it would look:



Now I need to wait for some components before I can move forward. I've ordered my climate control box and heater control value, one of the new air vents. I order and received one of the aircraft switches that I plan to use which helped in determining that I can not do my original idea of having four pairs of switches on the dash. I will need to put the switches together in a row, very similiar to the original Series I layout.

I still have to source 1) Carbon fiber for the door panels and the center console, 2) Vinyl of the same color and texture as the seats for the interior, 3) a used heavy duty sewing machine, 4) emergency brake handle and 5) Carpets. But things are starting to go well. Still lots of work, but I really feel like I'm moving forward.