Cutting the centre console.

A friend of mine has a tool to cut out a small part of the

centre console. It’s a tool doctors use to cut the plaster

from a broken leg or arm it doesn’t rotates but oscillates

so the plastic is cut and not melted.

He removed a part of the cutting blade this

way it can cut small corners also

and indeed it only took me a few minutes to get the radio
perfectly fitted a bonus with the oscillating tool is that
there isn’t any dust or plastic powder flying around.

The rear speakers are also installed and along with the

front speakers which are mounted in the doors they give

a very good sound although I think I will be enjoying

the sound of the engine most of the time.

Installing the radio.

As there is not much room in the centre console it is

important to arrange all the electric wires as good as possible.

The housing for the radio fits perfect into the centre console.



Next step; cleaning the gear shift console en centre arm rest.

The radio itself is a little bit to large and won’t go deep

enough into the housing because the centre console is

to narrow this means it doesn’t make any contact so I

can’t test the radio yet; a well-known problem with this

car and ‘new’ radios.

I will deal with this problem as soon as I can get a

special tool to cut off some edges from the console.

Test fitting of the rear bulkhead panel.

Interior trim

With the electrics sorted out it was time to install
the interior trim.
I took the rear bulkead insulation pad out of the
shed and glued it back in to place.

The under felt carpet is glued into place and installing

a part of the carpet set was the next thing to do.

I got the radio out of the shed and prepared it for installation.

In the meanwhile I also found the time to test the

wiper motor and mechanism and all worked fine this

gave me the opportunity to install the wipers in the

correct position.

More cleaning.

Took all the switches apart but forgot to take

some pictures they were very badly corroded

and were covered with a thick blue-green layer of corrosion.

everything cleaned and put toghether again.



More dirty connections and switches.

After cleaning..

Electric switches.

I took every switch apart to give it a good clean

along with a light protection spray.

No indicators, no pop up lights with high beam flash,

no rear window heating, and no brake lights as a matter

effect nothing was really working

but after cleaning everything worked as new.

Not such a big work and sure worth the effort.

New electric connectors.

Luckily I managed to get the car waterproof in time

because a day later it started to rain, again.

There was also a lot of work to do on the electrics;

almost none of the electric parts were working mostly due

to corroded switches and also to a few bad connectors.

So I replaced some of the connectors at the front lights

with a ‘newer’ model (recuperated from a donor car)

Door mirrors.

Luckily it didn’t rain that day because I still had to fix
the rear quarter grills and door mirrors and boot lock
to make the car waterproof.

The new ‘T’ bolts for the quarter grill I’ve ordered at

Rimmer didn’t match the nuts that came along with them,

after contacting RimmerI knew I had to cut the ‘T’ bolts

by 4mm to match the nuts, another problem sorted out.

Fixing the door mirrors was just a small job and once

this was done I could install the door cards.

When I tried to install the rear boot lock I saw that a small

part of the mechanism was broken so I had to order a new one.

Searching on the site of Rimmer showed me that there were

new door cards for sale.

A few years ago I had black-green door cards and

black-green seats but stupidly enough I throw them away

because at that moment I still had a red car in mind and I was

in lack of space to put them aside.

At least I’ve learned something; never throw anything away

that’s got something to do with a 7.