The past week has seen the interior fitted up. First step was fitting the carpet. All of the crevices were filled with reproduction timber infills. I bought a 9 piece carpet set from Aldridge in the UK and picked up some underfelt from a local supplier. I cut pieces of underfelt and glued them to the back of the carpet, which was the painstakingly fit in the car. At the front I used carpet buttons but for the rear I glued it in so that it wouldn’t shift underfoot. Unfortunately I damaged one of the pieces so have ordered some extra carpet to repair that section as well as make some custom mats from the same carpet. Next I fit new inner sill boards and from inner kick panels. All with new hardware. I fit up a set of new scuff panels using the original scuff panels as a template to drill the holes. I was really impressed with the scuff panels. They were a perfect match for the originals. New pinchweld was installed before my recovered seats were put back in the car with my reconditioned seat belts. While I’m waiting for some new door trim clips to arrive, new plastic vapour barrier has been installed in the doors. I chose to cover just the holes so that if I need to fettle with the door handles I don’t need to pull all the plastic off, just the part I need.

Outside the car I’ve been tweaking the rear bumper…again. I think I’ve had it off and on about 50 times and still I need to work on it more. Under the bonnet I added some heat shield to a couple of hoses that were very close to the headers. All the trim is on and I’ve been tweaking the fit on some of it. The rear quarter die cast were a poor fit so I have been carefully heating them up and bending them to shape. The first one i didn’t heat and cracked the chrome so it will need to go back for another go in the future. I have also wheel aligned the car. This was the first time I’ve done this but it was relatively straightforward, especially with nice reconditioned parts that turn easily. Unfortunately at this point I worked out that the shifter wasn’t engaging reverse gear so out with half the interior and after a few times adjusting the shifter the car now goes backwards and forwards.