Getting on with odd jobs

After yesterdays very successful test drive the weather turned a little cold so it was time for some inside jobs. Mats is coming around tomorrow to take the scuttle away for re-touching so I needed to fibreglass the glove box in place. It took ages to finish the plug and then it was time for the fun stuff to start. I bought some black gelcoat and painted the whole thing, except the intended opening with a layer.

I was quite liberal with the gelcoat.

When tacky I covered it in a layer or two of fibre weave and then two or so of fibre matting. It was actually difficult to keep up with where I had put the fibreglass but I thought it was fairly even.  

When laying on the fibreglass I made a lip all the way round to help attach it to the scuttle. Left for 24 hours it was time to get the plug out which was actually easier said than done. In the end I dug it out with a screwdriver so it was completely destroyed. It better be okay!

I was quite happy with the result but noticed I'd left a small bubble of air in one corner so the gelcoat fell through. No harm done I'll touch it up later-

One major thing that was wrong was the size of  the glovebox,  it was a little too big, so will be a bit of a tight fit.

First cut into the scuttle. I didn't want to take off too much. The idea is to attach a door and locking latch so it requires room for hinges (that's a later stage)

Ended up Dremmeling a little more off as the opening was a tad small.

I sanded the inside of the scuttle where the join would be and then put on a layer or so of fibreglass as far as I could reach. It wasn't possible to reach the top left hand edge. Maybe I can put something on the inside.

It really had to finish the console so got hold of a sheet of 1.5mm aluminium sheet instead of the stainless steel, so much easier to work with. The two large holes are for the heater outlets and the smaller one is a USB power outlet. 

Drilled holes and pressed in place three M4 rivnuts. Rivnuts are a really nice solution for this.  

On the front of the console I put 5mm foam which I will use on the sides too. It'll give the console a nicer feel once  the black synthetic leather sheet goes over the top. The sides overhang the engine tunnel so I'll rivnut it in place. I'm not sure how the carpet fill fit around it but I'll worry about that later.