FHC resto nr. 86; A few small jobs

With the new brake light switch fitted successfully to 't Kreng's pedal box, I went over to my local car parts supplier for two more switches, earlier this month. One for the DHC and one for this car. And while I was in the area I also paid a visit to Montagetechniek Patrick Saes a few miles down the road for some stainless fasteners to fit the door mirrors base plate to the mirror’s base plinth door mirrors. And with the musical carnival obligations behind me, and with still a few days off from work, I decided to spent some quality time in the shed 😜

First items to be bolted to the car were the mirror’s base plates. Fairly straightforward, though on the driver’s side the two nuts were lying to deep inside the base plinth for the bolts to engage. Only way to get around the problem was removing the plinth, attaching the base plate to it and fit the assembly back on the door. As easy as it sounds, especially with a still almost bare door.

With the base plates in place fitting the mirrors was easy. Of course I had to forgot something, in this case the Loctite. This is needed to prevent the grub screws from coming loose. But on hindsight this might not be too bad, as the plastic base plate will probably have a tendency to deform slightly over time, due to the stress of the grub screw. And without Loctite it will be easier to tighten the grub screw when needed.

For those interested; the mirrors fitted are new items, purchased directly from Tex Automotive. And they are fitted with convex glass to improve the field of view.

Next on the to-do-list was the brake light switch. No real need to fit it already but this way at least I can’t forget where I stored it J. And with no dashboard parts in place yet it was very easy to adjust both the switch and its mounting bracket.

And final job for the day was a thorough check of the striping parts that go over the front wing. A few weeks ago I noticed that the striping on the bonnet was fitted slightly different on the two sides. So to be safe I took the front wing striping and a pencil with me to check how these fitted …

As you can see in the picture above there are a few areas of the striping that need rectifying. So back to the drawing board and computer. But at least there’s no need to remove the striping from the bonnet!

Time to go in search for a late seatbelt to fit to the DHC, as the driver’s seat belt doesn’t roll up properly anymore. Did find a set, but they were rather inaccessible, and still fitted to one of my two DHC bodies. So that will have to wait for another time. But while searching through my spares I stumbled across two “Rover” branded boxes containing a set of column switches for a late classic Mini. Managed to save them a few decades ago when a Rover dealer was having a clear-out and thought they were TR7. Will see if they can be made to fit to a TR7 …