Wire looms are in, wires are wrapped and tucked up out of the way, and the cockpit is starting to look spiffy.
It’s taken hours to get here from the first start a couple weeks ago. Just today it took me more than an hour to add a grommet for the battery cable where it enters the tub.
(Well, most of the hour was getting the dang cable to thread back through it).
Stuff like that. I also messed with the gas pedal for an hour and a half, fixing the cable hold-down, adding washers to the hinge mechanism, and adding a return spring to it so it actually snaps back when you get off the gas.
I also put in the pedal stop.
Another hour making the hood release cable pull thingie.
All these little things. Last week I pulled the whole steering column out, cut the shaft an inch and a quarter shorter, cut the mounting bib off the column and re-welded it an inch closer to the top—all to move the steering wheel an inch closer to the binnacle.
Anyway, now we’re into the final phases. I’ll spray a little paint on the frame bits that got welded on, pull the wheel bearings and grease them, find a bearing cap with a square hole so I can make the speedometer work.
—and there’ll be parts to reattach. The rear clam, for instance. The dust excluder things and brushes. The windshield. The seats.
But first, the shifter. That’s tomorrow: shifter cables and then the driver’s seat so I can sit in it and work it through the gears.
She’ll be a car yet.
Along Came A Spyder 