Interior & Dashboard Part 1

Electrical Problems: It's 6 weeks since my last update, it feels like I've spent a lot of time on the car but with little to show for it. One the snags that has taken up time has been a problem with my electrics. I went through some testing to make sure all was OK, but found when I put the dipped beam on, only the O/S headlight would come on. The N/S headlamp came on dimly along with the N/S front indicator and repeater. Much time was spent checking over and testing all the wiring looking for a short etc. With a lot of help from friends in the Cobra forum I traced the problem to a poor earth connection inside the N/S wheel arch.

Testing the Electrics

Interior Panels: The factory supply fibreglass panels that fit around the door openings. These panels are eventually to be carpeted and are, in the main, hidden  by the seats but still an important part of the interior. The ones I had from the factory did not seem to fit well, pulling away from the body they left a gap around the front of the door opening. They also did not fit tidily around the door edge, although much of this would be covered by the door seal rubber I wasn't happy. I made up my own panels from 1.5mm aluminium, these give a better fit, a more solid finish and the door rubber will fit over the panel and the edge of the door surround giving a clean edge.

Large gap on the original panel

Poor fit around the edge of original panel

Newly made up panel with much closer fit

Dashboard Part 1: I'm trying to finalise the layout of my dashboard. Like a lot of people I've made up  some exact size replicas of the dials, switches and warning lights and with some blutack moving them around to get an aesthetically pleasing design, that is functional (can I reach everything, can I see everything - with gear lever in various positions) and meets IVA regulations. As with so many aspects of this build one of the difficulties is identifying the centre line. I've seen a few cars recently where the instruments have been placed carefully around the centre of the dashboard, only to see them offset from the centre of the car and when you have a stripe down the middle that can stand out. I've opted for a line taken from the centre line of the car at the top of the dashboard, down to the centre of the transmission tunnel, it's about 15mm from the vertical but the eye is fooled as it lines with the other centre lines. Here's what I think is the final look, but holding back for a few days before drilling those holes!