A dashing time and Bovingdon Autosolo

The workshop I sometimes use was free for a week, so I set about making a start on the dash. Previously it looked like this;

The left and right panels are from different Spitfires and there was a redundant hole for the hazard warning light on the middle panel. The panels were removed from the car and all the switches moved as required, on this centre panel you can see where the hazard light was.

I cut a piece of wood to fit in the redundant hole and left it overnight with glue and a clamp on it, which meant the following morning I could remove the thick varnish and previous layer of veneer.
The veneer came off quite easily, using a mix of sharp chisels and various grades of sandpaper discs on the angle grinder.

I'd bought some American walnut iron-on veneer the previous week, as apparently that was what they used originally. I'm no originality freak, but I'm just not all that keen on the burr or dark finishes you can see in some Triumphs.
Anyway, I followed the instructions which came with the veneer, leaving an edge all around the pieces, so the veneer is stuck onto the dash panels. As suggested, it was left for 24 hours for the adhesive to cure before I trim them to shape and give them their first coat of varnish.

Once cured, I could trim the veneer, this could be done using a very sharp knife, but it still took over an hour as any mistakes would be hard to hide.

Then I could start building up the layers of satin varnish, it had a total of five coats. In between varnishing, work started on modifying the wiring loom again, adding in wires for the rear fog light and wiring in the 12v lighter socket, map light and radio.
With the loom exposed I could also work out why the light for the ignition barrel was not working, it turned out that the original loom had two wires each from the fuse box for the roof and ignition barrel light and I had split them. This had the effect that the ignition barrel light would only come on when the ignition was on, not what you need really when it should come on as you open a door or switch them on on the dash.

The cured veneered and varnished dash pieces could then be fitted back into the car, followed by the gauges, steering column and gloveboxes. You can see in the picture below that a radio has been fitted also, originally I was not going to bother installing a radio, but as this is my only car I was starting to miss having one. I'm loathed to drill a hole in the bodywork for an aerial, but fortunately I noticed that my mobile phone has a FM radio built into it, which means I can connect it to the car radio instead.

All this work had to be completed by last Saturday at the latest as on the following day I was booked in for a Autosolo at Bovingdon, near Hemel Hempstead. Scrutineering ended at 8.45, so it meant I was on the road at 5.30 to get there in good time, but having travelled a few miles down the road I noticed that the indicators were not working, damn.
The next half an hour or so was spent checking fuses, switches and relays, trying to work out what was wrong. After a while I worked out that the flasher unit was not getting any power, despite the fuse being OK, so I found a piece of wire in my tool box to make a temporary connection, it worked so I could get on my way again.

It was my first attempt at a Autosolo, I thoroughly enjoyed it despite the early start and impromptu road-side repair. In my class I came 10th out of 15, though it probably would have been 12th if one car hadn't retired due to gearbox problems, but for a first try I can't complain at that.

The following day back home I could take another look at the indicators and with the wiring diagram at hand I managed to diagnose the problem fairly quickly. The power for the indicators passes through the hazard light switch, so they can be disconnected when the hazard lights are switched on, but the hazard light switch was not returning to the correct 'off' position, preventing a connection through for the indicators.
It was a quick fix to get everything working again by making an adjustment on the hazard light switch and a relief that I hadn't messed-up anything while working on the loom earlier in the week.