A few questions about interior.
 

Well as the heading suggests I've got a few questions about the interior.

How have you finished off around the gear lever and handbrake? Apart from the centre console moulding I haven't got any other fibreglass parts for the tunnel at all. Do Phantom produce any or is this left up to us ?

How have you finished off the facia and door cappings? I had been intending to cover them with alcantara or similar but a mate has suggested painting them (dull aluminium or gun metal.) May well try this first then if I don't like it I can always cover them later.

Any photos or links to photos of your interiors welcome, or even suggestions of cars you looked at for ideas.

There is now a handbrake/gearlever hole finishing panel, pics of mine on my site.. I'll probably go wiht textured vinyl for the dash and door panels to make it look as 'production' as possible. Not sure how well paint would stand up to the wear and not as comfortable for a road car..
Rich

Also what about materials for the radiator grill and all the other vents?
Have thought about machining some out of aluminium and anodising them black but this would add more time to the build and I'm keen to get finished and on the road now.
How would SVA react if they were all just left open for now?

I'm going to use expanded steel mesh for the front grills and the moulded phantom side grills. As long as there is nothing sharp within easy access of the openings you should be fine at SVA. Playing it save you could use some rubber U trim on any edges...

Rich

Ken, i didnt have any mesh in my grills for SVA and didnt have any problems, because the edges are effectivly inside the perimeter of the body i dont think it matters.
I got some stainlesss mesh for my grills from RS its the same as the mesh that Chris (IOW) has used on his car, do you remember that honeycomb shaped stuff his had at stoneleigh?
The rear side air intakes ive used the phantom grills on.

For the sva a couple of things i had problems with:
The heater knobs, make sure they dont stick out the dash too far, if they do it wont pass the radius test thingy. Between the faceplate you mount them to and the face of the heater controls leave about 5mm, then theyre ok.

He did comment about the opening around the handbrake, but let it go because he said it was obvious id be trimming there. Maybe put some kind of gaiter on it just for the test? same goes for the gear lever.

Leave the door card off one door, they will want to see the markings on the glass and its only possible with a door card off.

The rear quarter windows, the front edge on them doesnt have enough of a radius, this they didnt like, it may be possible to stick a bit of rubber onto it with a radius, alternativly take the fuse out the electric windows, so they cant put the window down, the car can only be tested as its presented, therefore if they cant open the window, that edge without the radius is no longer a problem. i didnt do this for mine, but i said id do it and then he said he'd pass it.
Alternativley, if you havent fitted them yet, get down a glass merchants and get the edge ground.

For my test it was very convinent that the car was pratically on the floor, it was so low he couldnt get it on the ramp, and therefore did no inspection underneath :D

Again there was another radius issue with the headliner, where the holes are cut in it it didnt quite touch the roof, this gave too small a radius, however again because it was going to be trimmed he wasnt bothered about it.
Might be worth putting some soft stuff over yours just to be on the safe side.

Wow! they were thorough on your SVA!

I had no problems whatsoever with the interior or exterior radii, the tyres were slightly outside but they let that go. You were lucky not to have the underneath looked at (although it was probably better than mine) as this is where I had to do most changes to the spacing of cable/pipe anchors and routing of stuff.

I got my stainless mesh from Europa and used ally for the back vents.

When is there going to be a meet-up?

Nick

I think id have failed if they'd have seen underneath :lol:
I know the car should have failed on numerous things, like the grease dripping out of a cv boot that was leaking.

Meet up will probably be around Stoneleigh time nick, might fit in well then as hopefully a few people will go to that, and maybe Ken will be done by then ;)

Another quick one - are the welded on seat belt nuts 7/16 UNF ?
Tried some bolts but they got very tight after a couple of turns so put this down to the powder coating and ran a tap down them all but they feel rather sloppy now and looking down the nuts they are clean in some places but not in others.

cant remember if theyre 7/16 but they definately are UNF.
Daft thing is i asked my SVA guy about that and he said they didnt need to be welded on :lol: