Finished (?!?) and a Drive

Well... All the parts I had are now fit to the car. It is actually finished. After 4 years and 2 months, what I thought would take less than a year is done!
Of course, I still need to fix the stuff I did wrong, service the engine, fit some needed mods... But... I have nothing more inside boxes. All is fitted to the car...

Today's session was to fix the tonneau. It was just a slow process of putting masking tape, marking a hole, drill, rivet the button in place, fix the tonneau, mark another hole, repeat. It took me a couple of hours. The buttons are a bit loose because the pop-rivet pliers could not hold the rivet correctly inside the button. Just as I was getting to the end of it (2 rivets to go) I noticed Steve from Aries had packed a bit of tube along with the buttons and rivets for this job. Putting the bit of tube over the rivet shaft allowed the gun to fix the rivet correctly in place and break the rivet cleanly. The last two are fixed as all should. Maybe one day I'll drill the others out and rivet them again properly. Maybe not... But another praise to Steve, he thought of these things and his attention to detail still amazes me.

Once the tonneau was fixed in place I decided I'll not cover the car again. So I took out the remaining bubble-wrap I had on the roll bar to avoid scratching. Vacuum cleaned the interior of the car and the dirt on the fiberglass body (that would not go out with a cloth due to static electricity).

Now I should take care of lights, no? Well... Let's fit the battery. This time I used the proper nuts and bolts that came with the battery instead of the temp ones I was using and were getting rusty. And sanded the terminals on the car loom. I wonder if the problem with the car was bad connections to the battery due to rust and incorrect bolts... Turned the key and... First time!

OK... Lapped the garage over 10 times. Like a kid. With a new toy. :)

After these laps I identified or confirmed a couple of problems to tackle.

With no lights or running lights, the battery gives 13v to 14v, which means the alternator is charging it. On low beam the battery drops to 12v. I'm not sure if it charges at all at 12v (with the engine idling). I'm unsure if this is a problem or not...

Brakes do need bleeding, although not much. For effective braking, I need to pump once to get the peddle hard and then it works correctly.

The front wheel, driver's side, wobbles a bit. It needs tightening...

The headlights are not tightly bolted and so they move. Which probably is good because when I turn the steering completely to one side, the outer wheel hits the headlamp and moves it inside. When I finished my laps seemed the car was looking to something on the tip of its nose. Must find a way to reduce the turning radius of that steering.

I want a spring on the accelerator peddle to give me more feel and help the cable return.

Some 10 minutes after I turned the car off, the radiator leaked a bit. I'm not sure if this was because I didn't leave the fans working a bit after I turned the car off.

Next session will be engine service and tightening the front wheel.