Boot Paneling & MOT Fails

Long time since the last update, so many commitments this summer, time is precious.

The last job I completed was carpeting the boot, although before I did this I wanted to panel over the battery and fuel filler pipe to give a better finish and protect those items. I've put in some angle ally along the bottom and the upright ledge of the boot. I made up an ally panel that angles up to the boot lip and has a hole for the battery cut off switch and the panel is secured using 'thumb screws' to allow easy access. I also intend to fix a tin of tyre weld and basic breakdown kit in the space behind the panel.

Ally panel angled and fitted to lip of boot

Ally bracket fixed to floor

Carpeted and fitted with thumb screws

I felt the car was now about ready for its IVA and before booking it in I decided to get it MOT'd and get some jobs done that I couldn't do (tracking, headlamp adjustment..) The car went to my local, trusted garage. Unfortunately there were some failures, I was expecting the handbrake to fail but not quite as badly as it did, here's the full list of failures. On the bright side everything else passed OK.

• Handbrake performance (12%) a pass is 15% or 18% at IVA
• Brake system performance (49%) a pass is 50%
• Headlamp adjustment (could not be adjusted as there was no "discernible beam pattern")

The garage advised the brake system would improve once bedded in but I drove the car around their yard and it didn't seem right, the pedal is hard (so no air in the system) and braking is even across the wheels so it's not one poor caliper. After some further testing it was clear the servo assist was not working. I've since replaced the servo (not an easy job with the body on and all the other ancillaries around it). I've yet to test this to see if makes a difference.

The garage were stumped by the headlights, they say this usually happens if the bulbs aren't installed correctly, but not the case here. I've confirmed the lights I have are the correct ones as used by the factory so need to look into this further.

The handbrake had always concerned me, I know others have had problems, so I've taken the decision (following others) to go for an electric handbrake solution. I've bought a Hollin's kit that you can see here. I'll be fitting this as a direct replacement for the XJS handbrake, that incidentally was knackered during the MOT when too much force was applied. So that's my task for the summer - get this handbrake fitted and working, sort the brakes & headlights. Disappointed as I'd so much hoped to have it on the road by now..

Dashboard Installation & Testing

The dashboard wiring has been completed and since the last picture I have included an immobilser as per the IVA requirement. For security reasons I'll not be publishing any pictures of the installation, suffice to say it works!

Dashboard Installed

I have since tested all wiring and switches (apart from the dials that require the engine running). Only two snags; I found operating the O/S indicators, on their own or via the Hazard switch, would cause the fuse to blow. N/S worked fine. I spent some time (days) double checking the wiring connections, initially I suspected the indicator stalk and swapped the connections over but the fault stayed with the O/S. Then I disconnected all the O/S lamps and reconnected in turn finding that with the O/S front indicator disconnected everything else worked OK, there was a fault in that connector causing the pins to push out rather than mate, I now have a set of working indicators. The other problem was with the Savage switches, I found that only half of the LEDs were illuminating when they should. I found the lighting connectors on these switches will only work with current in one direction, I suppose the clue is the Diode in LED! Although it's not clear on the switch which is the correct way round, I just swapped around the ones that were not working to fix.

It feels like I'm on the final leg now. Next jobs will include fitting the seat-belts followed by the seats and the steering wheel. I have the seat-belts (4 point Lukes) on order and I've also got hold of the correct, collapsible, steering boss. Once done I'm going to start checking all is working OK and get a pre-MOT before the IVA, I know I'm going to miss the deadline of the Stoneleigh show for this year though.

Latest Picture

Carpets Part II, Trim and Dashboard

Happy New Year to all readers. Christmas brought a number of things, the usual hangover and disappointing TV viewing, but on the plus side the trimmer completed the leather work for the seats, dash and door cards. I also completed (almost) the carpets. So here's how it looks now

Carpets Completed

With the door cards back from the trimmer I have fitted these as well. The only minor issue is that it's fiddly to put the clips back into the card with the trim glued down, I should have left these in before they went to the trimmer. But once fixed I'm pleased with the result.

Door card

Finally the dashboard, this is how it looked on return from the trimmer, again I'm very pleased with the overall result.And, not wanting to sound fetishist,  the smell of leather in garage is great.

Leather Trimmed Dashboard

The next job is to fit the instruments, I had pre-cut the holes in fibreglass and just had to cut the leather. The factory recommends a 2 mm oversize on the diameter of the holes to allow for the leather. 2mm worked fine for the large gauges but was a little loose on the smaller ones and too much on the warning lights, if I did again I'd add 0.5mm around the warning lights to make for a tighter fit, I have managed to fix these with a large washer and 10mm hose clamp behind each one.

Dials Fitted

Next job is the wiring. I got permission from "The MRS" after Christmas to use the dining room table, it means I can site down and do the work in the warm which was a big improvement on the doing the carpets in the cold of November. The wring is not simple for a novice like me, a big help was having a decent terminal crimping tool. I laid out the loom bundling together the various groups of wires; switches, small gauges, large gauges & warning lights. The factory recommend using a daisy chain method to link the earths and common feeds such as the instrument lighting, however for various reasons I didn't opt for this. instead I used a couple of distribution bars fixed on the inside of the dash. I have the Smiths Classic gauges and some of these need to have a regulated supply and the factory does supply a regulator with the kit. The rest of the wiring was a matter of working through each switch / instrument in turn and ticking them off. Here's where I am today, this is ready for testing now, it's not complete as I've yet to add the immobiliser but I want to iron out any problems before I introduce more complexity and that's why there's a couple of stray leads.

Wiring so far (no immobiliser)