Or strengthening the rear of the armrest. With the facia switch panel back to its former glory, it was time to switch my attention to the rear of the interior. The Armrest to be precise. For those who have owned or worked on a TR7 that has had a hard life (read careless or incompetent owners) will know that the armrest mounting points can suffer. And all armrests in my spares collection had suffered! Luckily there was one item with only minor damage. But better safe than sorry. So I decided to fabricate a few small steel plates to go over the affected areas. The idea behind it being, that by spreading the load over a larger area, the mounting points will be more stable and further damage will be prevented.
The first stage of the job at hand was measuring the dimensions of the affected areas and putting them in a digital format.
This was than printed out in full size on paper, cut out and glued to some left over 1.30mm thick steel pieces (see picture above), to act as pattern for cutting and drilling. This gave me these three pieces (see pictures below). The first picture was taken after cutting the pieces from the steel left overs, with the remains of the pattern paper still in place. The bottom picture was taken after the paper and glue was burned away with a gas torch and the edges were finished with a grinding wheel.
And in their designed position, after adding a bit of black paint from a rattle can:
Trial fitting the two plates to strengthen the mounting points to the rear bulkhead.
One plate needs to be flipped through 180° in the picture above,
when the arm rest will be fitted to the car.
One plate needs to be flipped through 180° in the picture above,
when the arm rest will be fitted to the car.
And the strengthening plate for the mounting area
where the arm rest lid is fitted to the cubby box.
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