1st March 2008
Finally got time to have a look at the piece of carbon fibre I had attempted to bond together to make it a bit thicker/stronger. It seemed to have bonded together ok, but time would tell when I started to work it, as to whether it was strong enough. So I spent some time shaping and making holes for buttons, again. At least these things tend to be a bit better the second time around. I decided this time to leave much more meat on it, to reduce the chances of it going bendy again if I cut the material more to shape.
It took a while, but I ended up with this, and it is quite a bit stronger, not alot of noticeable deflection when you press the buttons now. Not too sure I like the big bit across the top of the wheel, but am concerned if I trim it, it will go floppy again. Maybe I'll think of something to do with it one day.
The next challenges here are working out how to attach the wires, and how I need to wire it all up.

2nd March 2008
I received the foam strip I am going to use on the half doors the other day, so I figured I really need to get on with this job. Whilst I was looking at the fit of them again, I had a moment of inspiration. I realised that the rear bottom corner of the door was problematic, and that problem was caused by the fact that it is sitting on wheel arch protector, which prevents it sitting against the main body tub properly.
I thought briefly about trimming the door to fit, but soon realised that this was worth doing properly, and decided to remove the stone guard and trim the small amount of excess material that was causing the problem, from there. So after a fiddle with drilling out the rivets holding it on (some of them are difficult to access now the cage is on - this could be a challenge for re-riveting it), and go with the dremel, I had a better shaped stone guard and much better fit for the half door at the rear corner.
        
I then had a quick look at fitting the foam seal to the half door. I didn't quite summon up the courage to actually bond it place yet though, I figured I'd sleep on it first to be sure I'm not doing something stupid. Looks like it will be quite neat if I can get it to stick and stay stuck.

8th March 2008
Didn't make alot of progress during the week, though I did manage the foresight to bond the foam strip onto the half door so that it would be dry by the weekend. And it is. I'm slightly unsure of the result though, it seems to be quite well stuck on there, but where the bond splurged out when I clamped it in place, it doesn't look very tidy. Black goop might work better, so I might try to have another go at it some time later - for now, after a bit of tidying up, it will do.
     
I then spent a load of time re-puzzling over the fitting. Firstly, to get it out of the way of the front top corner, I removed the aeroscreen - I will trim the corner of the door to suit once it is in it's final position, but for now, it isn't. Having fitted the buttons to the dash alongside the door, I realised that they are actually a bit too close to the door, and getting a shock cord loop that short might be a bit tricky (problem #1). I then took a look again at how to fix the rear of the door (problem #2). I came up with the idea that maybe a loop around the cage here could work... not sure... If you have any good ideas on this, help!
     

9th March 2008
Didn't really do alot to the car today, as I am feeling a bit uninspired by the half door affixing situation. But I did kill an hour or so cleaning up all the bits for the rear ARB, which I am hoping to get to a friendly welder next weekend and see if he thinks it is worth trying to repair.

14th March 2008
Had some time for some garage action, but not after I had done a garage related mission first. I finally got organised to get the car booked in to have a tonneau made / adapted, and also get some decent seat pads made rather than the temporary lash-ups I have been using.
When I got back I decided to dig out the tonneau I have had for ages, and try it on the car with the cage, something I'd not previously done. It will need some modifications around the main cage hoop and rear stays, as these tubes are in slightly different positions to the original RAC bar. Also it needs some mods at the front around the aeroscreen, and some flaps adding to attach to the half doors, and the front edge of the boot.
With a need to make some sort of progress, I was going to remove the passenger side wheel arch protector to trim it for half door as I have done on the drivers side. However once I test fitted the door, I found that it won't be needed on this side, so that saves a job.
I then spent a little time cleaning up and re-fitting the wheel arch protector on the drivers side.
After having had a think about the half door fixings, I have decided that I need some sort of rigid right-angled fitting at the front edge, as shock cord loops isn't going to work here. To that extent I have ordered some rubber cable grommets, with the idea that these can push-fit over the buttons I have attached to the dash. The grommets haven't arrived yet, but I spent some time making some templates and then making some angle brackets in readiness.

15th March 2008
The cable grommets arrived in the todays post, so I spent a little time having a go at fitting them. As they aren't quite as large or stretchy as I'd hoped, I firstly had to remove a bit of the material from the outside edge of the lacing button, to allow the grommet to push over it. Once that was done, I carefully made the hole in the angle bracket into which the grommet fits. It looks as if it might just work...
     
After that I had to turn my attentions to getting the scuttle removed from the car. I am taking the scuttle and aeroscreen up to the Westfield factory to have some of the excess of holes nicely filled in - i.e. where the side repeaters used to be before the cage meant that they didn't fit any more. As I have a few days in Birmingham, it seems like an ideal time to get this done.

24th March 2008
Well, of course, the great plans to get the bodywork all sorted out whilst I was in the Midlands for a few days, didn't quite work out. I dropped the parts in the factory on Monday, but when I went back to collect them on Thursday, they hadn't finished work on them. So I now need to invent some other complicated method of getting them back to me in an undamaged state.
However the weather has been quite cold, so the fact that I don't have the bodywork to be able to progress the half doors is less of a big deal. So I've not done as much in the garage over the long weekend, as I had planned. I spent a few hours in there today doing a job which I've been meaning to do for a while. Whilst the scuttle is off it seems an opportune moment to rivet on the footwell side panels, which are currently just screwed on, as they were originally intended for service access to the reverse gearbox. No need for that now, so I'm going to bond and rivet them on more permanently.
Unfortunately I couldn't lay my hands on any black adhesive silicone, so I couldn't get as far as fixing them in place, but I did go around and do all the prep (needed to drill the holes out a smidge), so they are all ready to go back on now.
        

29th March 2008
The scuttle story first: so a few weeks ago, Westfield agreed to fix up the holes in my scuttle where the side repeaters had to be removed; I was up that way for a few days so arranged to drop them in and collect them a few days later; when I went to collect, I was told they weren't finished and they would post them to me, I was re-assured that they would be ok in the post; earlier this week Westfield called to say they weren't going to do the repair because it wasn't cost effective for them, and that they couldn't post the scuttle to me; GREAT!
So I'm a bit knackered on things now. And a bit unimpressed that I got messed around (even though I can understand why they said they couldn't do it). I hope you're reading this at the factory... Anyway I suspect I may end up having to spank a load of energy to drive up there and pick the (not repaired) bits back up again. Still great.

I still managed to find some things to keep my occupied at the weekend though, the first task of which was to re-attach the footwell side panels. Chris generously gave a most of a tube of (black) Sikaflex which is ideal, and I set to with some black rivets. After a while the panels are on (pulling rivets by hand seems to be a mixture of some-are-easy, some- are-awkward), and I'll leave things to set.
After that I spent a bit of time cleaning and tidying up some of the wiring behind the dash and on the ECU mounting plate. I also had a look to see if I could find any dodgy connections to the tacho, as it seems to have a mind of its own until the car is all warmed up, or there is more electrical load - this is quite weird, but I didn't find anything obvious :-(
Another job I did was to remove the passenger seat. This allowed me to finish off fitting (and later painting the rivets black) the stud bases along the top of the rear bulkhead, where the boot cover will overlap and attach. The seat needs to come out to allow the half door fittings to be fitted, so I removed the side impact brace for the cage on that side. It was then I discovered that I must have loaned my rivnuts out, so can't complete this job and get the seats back in.

31st March 2008
Had an hour in the garage having a look at how to attach the wiring to the steering wheel for the wheel controls. My plan is to use some P-clips on the bolts which hold the quick release adapter to the wheel. It seems to work in principle, and testing it out allowed me to think about which wires need to go where and how that will all hang together. The only possible issue I can see, is if the release mechanism fouls on the P-clips, we shall see...

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