Here is a picture of my temporary dash. It doesn't look too bad and I even considered just putting a coat of varnish on it to have a fancy wood inlay dashboard.
Instead, I'm going with something more traditional for this car. I have the cutouts for all the gauges and a few switches. The dash will be covered in black leather to match the rest of the interior. And the glovebox will go over on the right. I did make a template of the door, but haven't cut it out yet.
I started to make some decisions on the details of the design. The primary switches will all have blue indicator lights and most of the switches will be polished aluminum.
Here are a few examples waiting for their new home.
Of course, not all switches come with blue indicator lights so in some cases, I had to improvise. The switch I wanted to use for the turn signals only came in green or red. Fortunately, my hunch was right and I could pry the switch open to change the LED.
I never imagined I'd have to get down to the level of redesigning switches, but I knew it would always bother me to have all blue and one green.
One of the fun things I've been able to do is design some circuits to control parts of the electrical system. Here is a prototype of a circuit that will open and close a damper for the fresh air system. Notice the blue LED on the right. That's going into the switch above.
It's been at least 25 years since I've worked on any circuits and I'm pretty proud of myself (and yes, it does work). I did realize though, back when I used to work on things like this I had test equipment that really helped to figure out problems. And then, I had a great idea! Since it's almost Christmas, I asked Santa for an oscilloscope. It didn't take long for all my friends to start with the jokes, but I still hope I get it anyway.
I picked out speakers and I hope they fit. Here, I'm testing them on my home amp and ipod.
Any it all comes together with wire, lots of wire.
Things seemed to be moving along, but I couldn't sleep the other night as I thought about how long it's going to take to do all the wiring, do all the interior work, finish and install all the remaining aluminum panels, fit the body, install all the body trim, get it prepped and painted, and then do all the final assembly. And then I remembered something a read early on about body shops just needing the fiberglass body shell to do the painting, not the whole car. Aha! I realized that what I should do is fit the body, doors, hood and trunk now so I can get it to the painter and while it's there, work on the electrical and interior in parallel. This could save me two months! And the guys at the monthly cobra breakfast this morning confirmed my plan will work. So that's what I'm doing.
I changed gears (no pun intended) and started work to get the body on. That means getting all the wheel wells and other aluminum body panels in place. Since it's starting to get cold out, I had to do some prep work inside so the metal would be warm enough to paint. I thought my kitchen floor would be perfect. Laurie wasn't so sure.
I got 15 panels undercoated and ready to install. Here are a few pictures of the radiator cowling and front wheel wells.
My goal is to get everything prepared for the body before Christmas and start the body installation right after the holidays. Hopefully I can get the body to the painter by early February and get it back in March. By then I should have the electrical and interior work done. Could I be on the road in April? -- if so, it will be a great spring!
