Further progress

Hi y'all.

Further progress has been made in some small areas. Firstly, the dash wiring is basically in now, with some clips supplied by Paul making the whole thing a lot neater. I still need to drill a hole for the indicator light, but I'm going to wait until I decide on whether I'm going for LED lights or not. If I go LED, then the indicators require two lights (one left and one right). If I stick with bulb lights, I only need one to indicate that an indicator is on. When you turn the indicators on in a clubman, they're set up to make a horrible noise to remind you - no nice soft clicking sound like in other cars - because there's no cancel on the steering wheel to turn them off once you've completed the turn.

I've also completed the front steering mounts, including getting the sway bar roughly located in place with the reinforcing plates are now all bolted in. I've also fabricated some little aluminium brackets for the fan and mounted it on the radiator, which is now also mounted on the car. Just a tip to the unwary - you need to turn the fan around. It's default position would have had the poor thing trying to blow air back towards the front of the car - not the most efficient setting.

I've also moved the pedal box to its farthest position, and fitted the pistons for the pedals. I'm still missing the joints to fix the pedals to the pistons, but its all there ready to go.

So that's not bad progress. I've started to make a list of the next steps to take, and there are a few things that need to happen before I can move on some of the suspenion components (machining a few spacers etc), but its moving forward.

You know, I think it may be a car

There's been some movement lately, which has made the car look, well, more car-like. The front and rear suspension and running gear is coming together, with the uprights installed at both ends. When you attach the steering rack to the front and turn the shaft, there's a satifying corresponding movement in the uprights to turn left and right. OK, I know, juvenile, but it's great to see some mechanical movement at last.

I've also been putting the dash in - the dials and lights are all provided, and the holes all pre-drilled. The dash only required some work on the holes for the lights to make them large enough, which wasn't that hard, plus I need to drill an additional hole for one more. ADR requires, of all things, a seatbelt light to warn me if someone's seatbelt isn't done up. I have absolutely no idea who would be in a Birkin and not realise they had no seatbelt (especially after they've left an impression of the dashboard in their forehead at the first lights), but there's a light just in case. I'm also not sure how that wires into the racing harness or not.

I've also been looking at making my first, individual, decision (so far I've copied everyone else). I thinking of moving the ignition from the usual position, where it's attached to the steering column. In the Caterham, I kept bashing my knee on it, plus you have to contort a little to reach the damn thing. Then the keys keep hitting things. I've been wondering whether it's possible to move the ignition down to the centre console. Keeps it all out of the way. Hey, maybe I could even have a pushbutton start ;-)