What happens next?

Well not a lot if truth be known. As I have already said, I had too much to do and not enough time to do it. I bought the car in July 2004 and I don't think a lot was done until the winter 2004/05. In the interim, however, I had done some planning and decided that I knew what I wanted to do. Having looked at the car daily, it became clear that I could not 'just' get it going and roadworthy, I wouldn't be satisfied with that and also the last tax certificate for it is for 1995! So the plan became (in no order);

• get the engine running
• tidy the internal wiring
• modify and improve dashboard
• fit seats that came with the car
• re-paint bodywork
• check suspension/braking/steering systems

The engine
Surprisingly, perhaps, the engine was fairly easy to get going and I had suspected so when I was buying the RV. The previous owner had replaced the engine with a later 2 litre pinto from a Sierra, along with the 5 speed gearbox. It had all of the desirable attributes, a 205 block, electronic ignition, and a weber 32/36 carb (I couldn't be bothered with fuel injection). I have worked on these engines in the past and they are very simple in comparison with todays' motors. I was pretty sure that the starting problem was with the distributor. A quick check revealed that distributor was 180° out, on top of which the firing sequence was all over the place. Ten minutes of spanner twiddling, connection of the correct plug leads, a gallon of petrol in the tank, a check of the oil and water followed by a new battery and she fired into life with barely a turn of the crank. She was a bit smokey but we'll look at that later, could just be from standing around for a few years.

Wiring
When I bought the RV the previous owner was pleased to tell me that a full new wiring loom, as supplied by Pilgrim Cars, had been fitted. This was indeed correct, however when I looked behind the dashboard it was clear that there was an excess of wiring to the various gauges and switches which made the whole thing a bit of a mess. In addition, to remove the dashboard, all of the individual terminals had to be removed, marked and replaced one by one when the dash was to go back in. I decided to rationalise this by chopping out the unnecessary cabling and adding block connectors to make the dashboard a simple 'plug and play' affair. A kit of block connectors was purchased from www.vehicle-wiring-products.co.uk and I set to work making careful note of where each individual instrument was positioned to make removal an drefitting of the dashboard straightforward.

A successful and satisfying job and I was left with about a metre of spare cable of various colours from behind the dashboard area. A quick test revealed all instruments working as was intended.

Sadly, though successful this effort was for little good as you will see in the following paragraphs.

Dashboard

What do you mean, it's not pretty! Well if I'm honest, I never liked it and it was always going to be something I was going to sort out. Kitcar interiors often get left, either because time and money runs out or (more likely) it is one of those things difficult to get even close to produciton car design and ergonomics. My GTM had just been completely redesigned and I had been on a GRP moulding course to do so, therefore it seemed obvious that I would 'redesign' the RV dashboard. Many drawings and plans later and I thought I had the final version sorted.

This was what I expected to arrive at. The RV came with a complete, though slightly 'tired' looking set of instruments with classic black faces and chrome bezels. I thought the slightly ropey appearance just went along with the 'tough' image of the RV, so I intended to keep them. The idea was to incorporate the plank of marine ply that came with the car and just tart it up with a GRP centre section to house the instruments. I started work on the buck for the centre section and filled, sanded, filled, sanded for what seemed like forever and I was less and less happy with the result. So after all the work on the electrics, getting the wires to the correct places for the separate instruments, I looked at the sad dashboard I was working on, and with a cup of coffee in hand, I turned to my wife and said.....'I don't like it'! To which she replied..... 'then get another one'

Time for a re-think!.....