Slower day today. Spent 6 hours on non-glamorous stuff. No pretty pics to show for it. Got distracted by the dash, so didn’t get all the stuff done that I had planned.
- Reinstalled weather strip
- Test fit roof header panel, marked where it needs to be trimmed to clear cage.
- Reinstalled body harness 90%. A bit to do under the car tomorrow.
- Test-fit main battery cable inside the car.
- Reinstalled PDC module and BCM.
- Removed upper steering column / steering angle sensor
- Swapped immobilizer module
- Trimmed dash frame to fit around cage
- Experimented with swapping toggle panel and head unit.
Decided to route the main battery cable as usual under the car, then bring it in the driver’s footwell for the cut-off switch. There’s not enough room to route it inside with the other cables on the cabrio… the extra sill reinforcement eats all the space.
The header panel / sunroof from Blimey’s roof should work fine as the front seal for the bikini top. I’ll need to trim it down some, but no problem.
The dash frame required A LOT of trimming and test fitting to get it to coexist with the roll cage. Used a Dremel with cutoff wheel, made it easy to trim a bit at a time right in the car. Finally got it to fit right. Still will need to trim the parcel shelves, will look at that tomorrow probably.
One downside of the roll cage design is that the knee bar eats a couple of inches of depth behind where the stereo headunit lives. And it was pretty tight behind there to start with. So it needs to move somewhere. Even though some folks have SWORN that I’d be able to swap the toggle panel and the headunit positions, there’s not enough depth behind the toggle panel either. Nor does the dash frame extend down far enough. Perhaps it would work with a less-deep aftermarket unit? I even pulled the front heater ducting off the HVAC unit, still not enough room. So I need to put that back together, and figure out another place for the headunit. It MIGHT be able to mount in the passenger parcel shelf… we’ll see. I’ll probably keep the toggle panel in the upper location, it’s kinda cool there. I’ll make a blanking plate for its original position.
Probably most of a day’s work left to fit the dash cover and the parcel shelves around the cage. There will be a good bit of fitting required for the sill covers, too.