With the first week of my holidays behind me I can report some progress on the ’76 car. First a small amount of parts were dropped off for paint stripping, shot blasting and powder coating. Next on the to do list should have been renovating the various wiring harnesses. And it is much easier to put new grommets on a harness when the connectors are removed for replacement. But a few months ago I noticed that my stock of wiring grommets had been badly depleted. So these were duly added to my parts-order-list. And due to a pretty hectic past few months, that list was forgotten of course!
Another part of the car’s restoration that was forgotten were some trim panels. As all interior trim panels have been recovered, the original (early) B-post trim pieces would badly mismatch with these recovered parts. That and the fact that their condition was worse than the picture suggests made me decide to have them recovered. Again I forgot to throw them in the boot of the Land Rover to drop them off at my local car trimmer. In this case also caused by the fact that they were stored safely out of sight (and out of mind) in the attic. But that was rectified yesterday afternoon too! And while retrieving the B-post trim panels from the attic I was reminded that I also needed something to trim the boot area.
While the welding on the car was still in progress (how time flies!) I already decided that I wanted to trim the rear bulkhead of the car. But contrary to the later cars, a ’76 Speke built car doesn’t have trim fitted to this area. But at the time I had just cut up a late Solihull FHC. And one of the few usable parts that were saved from that body shell was the mounting strip for the rear bulkhead trim. Not for the purists!
The initial plan was to use the boot trim from ‘t Kreng, as that will become redundant somewhere in the future. But the surround for the early large filler cap meant that the original rear bulkhead trim (XKC3736/PAA) wouldn’t fit properly. So that plan was ditched, but the trim piece was removed from ‘t Kreng nevertheless. But only to use as a template. The picture below should illustrate nicely why it wouldn’t fit properly!
But an hour or so in the shed with a tape measure, a note pad and a pencil, produced this dimensional drawing for an adapted trim piece for my ’76 car.
And this drawing, together with the boot mat and the B-post trim panels were dropped off at my local car trimmer yesterday.
There I had a discussion what material to use for the panels. I toyed with the idea of using the original material, felt backed black Hardura. And this was available. But I wanted all trim panels in the boot looking the same. And that includes the panels that cover the inside of both wings. This prompted me to choose a carpet like material that is self-adhesive, so can be easily applied to trim panels. And with the correct backing material it is easily turned into a floor mat or bulkhead trim panel. Hopefully everything will be ready within a week or two.
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