Side repeaters

Side repeaters are now fitted.
I've gone for the little round LED ones (from boltonbits on ebay) and fitted them to the rear wings:

To stop the wiring flapping about between them and the body I added a couple of self adhesive cable-tie bases to the inside of the wings:

I don't think IVA-man would be too keen on stick-on bases, so I fibre-glassed them in place to keep him happy!

I also added some protective conduit to the wiring to protect from all the stones and crap that are going to end up spat around the inside of the arches!

Proof of donor/engine age letter from Mazda

Phoned up Mazda this week to ask for a proof of age letter for my donor/engine (needed at IVA to determine emissions levels, and hopefully avoid the need to fit a CAT!).

Here's what I did:

Phoned Mazda UK on 08457 484848 and got through to a very helpful chap named Adam (don't worry if you don't get Adam, he claims anyone there should be able to go through the process).

Rumour on the Westfield site has it that you need to talk to the homologations manager (Dean Armitage), I did try asking to talk to him directly, but apparently he doesn't take calls from the general public!

Adam took my personal details, and details of the donor car (vehicle reg, chassis number, and engine number), and filled in a form on his 'puter.
Because my donor is an import a few red warnings came up on his screen and he had to go away and talk to Dean to clarify.
He came back and said it wasn't a problem though!

I don't think their standard proof of vehicle age letter contains the engine number, so I asked if they could include it, after speaking to Dean again he said this shouldn't be a problem.
IVA emissions are based on engine age, so I think it's fairly important to get them to include it!

If you're the first owner of the vehicle there's no charge, otherwise it costs £35.  You can pay by bank transfer or by cheque.

I was told I should receive the letter within 14 days of them receiving payment.
I'll update you when I do!

EDIT:

I received the letter from Mazda this week - much quicker than the 14 days quoted!

It does include the engine number along with the chassis number, so well worth the £35 investment to avoid needing to fit a CAT!

Dash

Made the dash out of plywood and covered it with two layers of cheap camping mat, a layer of thin scrim foam, and finally covered it with vinyl.
I'm not quite happy with it, but it will have to do for now...
That was my second attempt, and I'm not going to have another go until after IVA now!

 

The various layers were glued with spray contact adhesive and stapled.

To fix it to the scuttle I added a few of these nuts before covering:

The idea is that it will be bolted on from behind so the fixings are hidden from view.

Roll Bar

Managed to finish off my roll bar of the festive period.
It's built more or less to book spec.  The only real deviation is the change from one bolt to two bolts each for the rear stays, as rumour has it only having one bolt for each is a potential IVA fail.

My good friend Pete got his Dad to powder coat it for me last week and I bolted it in place last night - thanks very much mate!

You might also notice my second attempt at a rear cover, in a slightly less garish colour this time!
I'll add an update about it at a later date when I've finished it.

Rear wings and lights

Looks like I may have forgotten to update my blog for a while!
I've done a fair bit over winter since my last post, so will try to get back up to date.

Firstly I now have my rear wings and lights fitted.

I originally bought some cheap second hand wings off flea bay a long time ago, but when I finally got around to looking at them they had more damage than I was prepared to fix, so I bought a shiny new pair from Ex-Saturn Andy:

I fixed them to the chassis using about 8 rivnuts, bolts, and big slightly modified washers.
To fill the gap between the wings and bodywork I used some tadpole trim (which I think was sold for old minis).

The rear light clusters are supposedly Caterham ones, whatever they are they were nice and cheap and should do the job!

Reverse and fog lights are cheap universal ones made by 'RING'.
I still need to make some kind of wedge to set the fog at the correct angle.

The rear number plate light is a landrover one.

While I was at it I added a couple of rivnuts to the rear ready for the number plate.

As you can see in the pics above the rear lights are pretty much wired up.
Here's some more pics of the wiring to them in the rear tub: