Finishing touches

After well over two years, the list of jobs is finally getting to the end, with just the last few, relatively simple finishes touches left to do.

The biggest of these jobs was probably creating the door cards. As ever, the first step was to make a crude cardboard template of the door.

I used this to cut out a slightly generous version from 5 mm plywood, which was then further trimmed and shaped until it was a good match for the door. After rounding off all the corners and smoothing down all the edges it was a simple task to wrap it in vinyl and screw to the door with self-tapping screws. At some point I may use a more sophisticated fixing, but this will do for now.

Sadly, I hadn’t allowed any extra space for the handle of the door latch.

Reluctant to start from scratch, I tried peeling back the bare minimum of vinyl and removing the excess plywood. Fortunately, after some very careful and slow work with a sharp chisel I was able to remove the wood without damaging the vinyl at all, so after another quick squirt of contact adhesive everything was back to perfect.

Armed with the experiences from the first door, the second one was even quicker to complete.

By enlarging the hole for the wheel well slightly near the widest point, I was able to make it so that I can insert and remove the wheel well without needing to remove the fuel tank, even though the lip of the wheel well tucks under the tank. Then having centred the wheel well it was a very quick job to pop in a few more self-tapping screws.

Replacing the temporary rubber pads that came with the bodyshell with a full length rubber trim around the boot aperture was always going to be a nice quick job, but I was surprised at how much it improved the aesthetics and made the car seem much more “finished” somehow.

At last! The car is close enough to being finished that it’s time to dig out the paperwork and apply for an IVA test! As a warm-up, I took it to a local garage to check the brakes on the their rollers and it came out perfect. Identical brake force measurements left and right for both axles, and what seems like a suitable bias towards the front. Time to crack open the bubbly and wait for the IVA appointment…