Fuel, Carbs & Dash

The carbs are mostly done, though I need to paint a few more bits black…nearly everything on this car seems to have been painted black if it wasn’t body color or “natural” metal, which suits me, as I hate having stuff plated and black is easy to touch in. I need to run the choke cable, still.

You can see above that I ran the fuel line. My god do I hate this heavy stainless line, it’s a bear to bend and straighten. I have yet to decide what I’m going to do about the loose baffles in the fuel tank, if I do anything, they’ve probably been laying in the bottom of the tank since 1967.

Aside from the missing test lead sockets (new plastic trims are on their way from England, in theory), dash is mostly complete. I put four coats of a water-based semi-gloss outdoor-use clear varnish on it, wet-sanded to get rid of a few dust nubs, and polished by hand with super-fine Meguiars hand polish. Not perfect but close enough for this car.

Slightly maddening is that the purchased dash doesn’t have the “horn bump” centered on the oval, so the horn is about 1/4″ off from the line of fog lamp, wiper, and ignition switches below. Not super-noticeable and I suppose anachronistic charm.

I need to buy some official instrument gaskets, trying to use some plumbing o-rings as I normally do for smaller gauges didn’t really cut it, the gauges sit quite proud at the moment. It also adds to my madness to pay $2,000 to rebuild the instruments and not find gaskets in the box–it would have been $3, guys.

The homemade dash that was in the car is behind on the table; the re-appearance of a glove box is welcome. Said cubby is actually quite generously sized, though without a lid, in traditional British fashion, so probably not the best place for your important documents.

There is a vinyl beading that will go around the top edge…I bought a 60′ roll of the stuff off eBay in dark green, after my experience making my own on the E-Type. I’d say that’s a lifetime supply, but I doubt I’ll live to be 754.