June-July 1999 The last 2 months have been so frustrating! The Trav has been away having the stereo and security system fitted. At the same time we've had lots of little customisations done such as fitting a new battery box under the rear seat and adding lots of chassis strengthening to the B-pillars. The air-con/security guy also suggested we change the original design of anti-tramp bars from parallel arms attached to the lower side of the axle to diagonal arms attached to the upper side. This is so that they provide side-to-side location as well as anti-tramp and help keep the suspension geometries correct whilst under compression. I nodded my head knowingly and let him get on with it!. The original idea of fitting a Watts linkage had to be abandoned due to a lack of space under the car!
The stereo amp fits perfectly into the seat base of the Newton Commercial seats as if they were designed for it! The original idea of simply fitting the front speakers into the side panels in the footwell soon got expanded into completely new custom made speaker pods made out of fibreglass! This allows us to have the right size box for the speakers so they produce the best sound possible. It also means we can have the speakers pointed more in the direction of the front seats instead of at our feet. Rear speakers are being fitted into a new box section under the rear seat. Again, the box has been made to make the most of the available space and to provide the best sound possible out of the speakers. However, since they are pointed straight at the back of the front seats they will mostly provide only bass sound.
The CD changer is being mounted up under the dashboard for easy access by the passenger (visible only as the thing covered in bubble-wrap in the photo). The head unit will be mounted in an ash wood faceplate behind the passenger glovebox door. The head unit is a Kenwood CD unit with the Mask feature which hides the stereo face when not in use. The plan is to connect the on/off switch of the stereo to a micro switch on the glovebox door, so that when the glovebox is opened the stereo will automatically turn on. It should look quite impressive with the faceplate rolling over as you open the door!
In the pictures below you can see the blue brand name of the soundproofing we're using. We're covering the entire inside of the car with Dynamat in an effort to reduce the amount of road noise and resonance. For stuff that is barely 2 millimetres thick and looks like self-adhesive rubber sheets, it's expensive stuff. It's £
One of our great plans is to drive across the USA coast-to-coast, so the fitment of air-conditioning was high on our wish-list, but we were going to leave it til later due to the cost. But we were soon told that we have to do it now or never - there's so little room left in the engine bay and under the dashboard that everything else really has to be built around the air-con bits. So, we're getting air-conditioning fitted now too. The condensor for it has to go in front of the radiator and the fan has to go in front of that so you can imagine that space is at a premium there - they're having to modify the front panel below the bumper to give some more space for the condenser. It should be hidden by the bumper valance though.
We're having a nightmare trying to get the parts for the air-con. It's been three weeks so far and the company making the bits (they're one-offs) has promised several times that "you'll get them Monday morning". But the bits never show up. They just don't seem to be interested. Meanwhile no more work can be done to the car... Grrrrr!
Wheels are becoming a problem too. We've got strong ideas on the type wheel we want, but the hotrod market doesn't make any in the right size or us. It looks like we're going to have to compromise and go for a modern style instead of the classic chrome steel or solid polished alloy. We'll just have to wait and see what we end up with.
When we started this little project it was going to be a simple engine swap and suspension upgrade and would be in three months. Now, after 9 months it's still at least 6 weeks away from being finished. Of course we hadn't planned on the car being sandblasted, re-floored, re-painted, re-upholstered, alarmed, air-con'ed, and performance tuned ... we're nearly there but the waiting is so hard!
