Day 28: rear lights, boot carpet

The rear lights are pretty simple to sort out. The main issue is cosmetic - getting the lights nicely horizontal and lined up.

Trying to get everything nicely lined up. It ended up better than this, believe me!

 Apart from a blown brake light, everything worked fine when the connectors were clicked together on each side.

Boot carpets next. The contact adhesive can be messy here, so I used plenty of masking tape.

To get the carpet in place on the RH rear corner, around the fuel filler, I needed to remove the aero filler while the carpet was squeezed into place. Otherwise, it was all a fairly simple job, but as usual I plodded and tried to get everything neat and tidy. When all boot carpets are in place, it does look very cosy and smart!

Day 27: rear wings, wing protectors

The engine is starting perfectly every time, but I'm still puzzled by how to get rid of the airlock in the radiator.
Symptoms: top RH (water in) is very hot. Bottom LH (water out) is cold. Bit by bit, I'm filling up the radiator via the top RH plug, and it seems to be taking more water this way, rather than via the normal filler tank at the back of the engine.

Rear wings 1: fitting wing protectors
These are so visible on the finished car that I wanted to get them as good as possible. There's nothing complicated about the job, it's just one of those perfectionist things.

I taped on the rubber piping around the stainless wing protectors, and decided to leave it in place. No real reason to remove it.

Reverse side of stainless wing protector. Rubber piping taped in place

You need to pre-bend the wing protector a little, so that it doesn't warp the wing itself, which is fairly filmsy GRP. I did this first around the car's tyre, but it needed a little more, so I used my leg!

Prebent stainless wing protector

The hardest thing is holding the wing itself, without damaging it. I set up a simple jig on my bench:

The large blue G-cramps hold a straight piece of scrap wood to the bench. The wing is then gently clamped to this using two black plastic quick-grip cramps. The straight edge helps you line up the wing protector snugly against the inside edge of the wing, too. Then, small hand-clamps are helpful to pull the protector down over the wing for riveting.

The riveting was fairly straightforward.

Next, I coated the insides of the wings with liquid rubber, as I did with the front wings.

Smelly, messy, but very effective once it's dry. It feels like a rubber sheet bonded to the inside!

Attaching the wings to the car is fairly straightforward. I recommend cutting the plastic strip before you fit the wing to the car (not the other way around, as the Assembly Guide recommends). That way, you're not messing around with sharps next to the paintwork and can just slide the strip in between the car and the wing.

The film comes off revealing nice stainless steel

Stainless polish is ordered... That exhaust guard should polish up nicely