Days 17 & 18: interior panels, knee panels, sill protectors, and front wings

I wanted to complete the rear axle this weekend, but the lack of two small bush spacers prevented this. The radius arms that hold the live axle in place are mostly just fitted with M12 bolts, but the upper front arms need a 12mm OD/10mm ID spacer, and I didn't have one. So... the inevitable call to Derek.

So, two days spent working hard on the cockpit interior.

I bought stainless steel sill protectors, which are fitted between the unrivetted skins. Not a difficult job, but plenty of chances to scratch the lovely green paintwork. I just about got away with it.

RH sill protector fitted, with rubber trim in place

LH sill protector in place, seen from inside above

Once the sill protectors are in place, it was the knee trim panels. These are odd shaped, and seem pretty pointless to me, but they are required. They are also pigs to get into place without scratching anything, and removing skin from your fingers. There's a circular hole on each one, and on the driver's side this allows access to the Onboard Diagnostics (OBD) port, which I am going to experiment with at some point.

I taped on a guide for the holes, as once the knee trim panel is roughly in place, you've no idea where the holes sit

Then, it's a simple job of finishing off all the empty rivet holes, and including more rubber trim, which actually finishes things off nicely.

Endless riveting, but my beast of a riveter works well

Tried to get a neat finish where the panels, sill protector and rubber trim all meets

Cycle wings

I chose not to follow the Assembly Guide here, but instead to use bonded 'Bighead' stainless steel cable tiewrap fittings. I used Plexus Adhesive MA300 two-part adhesive, which does feel very solid.

Bighead fixings taped in place for fit. (The one at the top is just to show how they look)

Bonded, and feeling very solid

 Once these are bonded, they can be simply tie-wrapped to the cycle wing brackets. IVA trim all the way around, of course, but these was easily done).

Two extra things I did:
- painted the underside of each wing with rubber paint, to prevent stones causing crazing in the gelcoat
- taping neoprene tape to the cycle wing brackets, to make them more grippy

Sticky stuff, but once dry it feels convincing