O.K had another busy weekend.
The box is finished and ready to mate up to the engine.
Candy apple blue same as the engine block and looks mean in the flesh.
I decided that now that the engine and box look so damn good I might as well tidy up the engine bay as it was looking old and dirty.
I decided to de-loom and smooth the inner gaurds and get rid of fuse boxes and shit that clutters up the engine bay.
I started by stripping the loom and threading it all back through the fire wall where I will lengthen, shorten and re-route the wires to suit and get rid of any unused wiring left over from when it had all it's assessories.
I first ground off all the brackets from the ALB and Aircon etc and braized up all the bolt holes and micelaneous holes on the panels.
Then sliced the tops off the sealant glue which covers the panel joins, it's important to leave the sealand covering the joins or the filler wil crack when the car flexes. I filled and faired over the top of the braized patches and seams and have ended up with a single surface where visible from above.
I then applied an epoxy rust inhibiting etch primer over the whole lot which ensures that when I apply my high build filler primer in it will adhere to the surface. Seriously this stuff sticks like shit to a blanket.
I also did the firewall too, not jus tthe inner guards.
I'd say I'll have it all painted in another weekend now all the hard work is done. I have bought 4 ltrs of Duratech two-pot high build which I'll apply over the etch primer to smooth. I bought a litre of Midnight Black PPG Dulon to apply over that and then a Duratech two pot clear to finish it off and give it a deep shine. It's going to look sweet.
Because the carbon bonnet will be held down with flush mount clips down either side I will no longer require the slam panel and radiator support upright in the middle. I think I'll just make up a brace out of aluminium tube which will bolt up to the slam panel bolt holes. My new radiator doesn't need to mount to the slam panel any more and I'm considering getting rid of the bonnet hinges too and just having it lift off.
I had to remove the dash board to deal with all the wiring and it made it a hell of a lot easier to remove the brake booster.
It looks worse that it is, most of the wiring is surplus and once i bare it back to the essentials the re-looming shouldn't be too much of a prob.
Now that all the aircon and ducting and shit is gone from beneath the dash I have plenty of room to mount the fusebox and injector controller heatsink etc.
(BTW while i was grinding off all the unused brackets and shit i cam across about a 300-400gm bar of steel cupped in a bracket to the passenger side of the fire wall, it appeared to do nothing but add weight, must have been to stop drumming in the firewall panel)
I scored a mallory 6AL CD ignition controller last night too which i will mount to the firewall where the ALB unit used to be. That where my coil also mounts.