Front tunnel panel

So, footwell panels in and ready for sealing watertight I moved onto the drivers side front tunnel panel, one of the few panels which actually needs a slight fold inwards.

Clearly the builder has the discretion to fit this panel either on the inside of the footwell or on the outside transmission tunnel side to provide some more space for feet which considering there is a clutch and brake pedal making it tight for the driver, locating on the outside is a no-brainer which thus creates the need for a fold to be made along the edge.

So same process as for footwell in terms of fitment to the chassis. Once all holes were drilled into the panel and deburred I offered it up to the frame and decided to evolve the chassis drilling part further from the method I adopted with the footwell panels. 

This time I marked up masking tape on the chassis frame, put a pen through the holes in the panel and marked the tape. Centre punched the pen marks, took a pilot drill and drilled through the pen marks and followed up with the 3.2mm drill bit. verdict...An improvement on the footwell drilling process but still not 100% happy however I feel this technique is better.

Next I looked at putting the fold into the edge of this panel to turn it in towards the inside of drivers cockpit. Relatively easy bit this, find some long wood, fix into vice along with the panel and ease the panel over the wood. A few test fits and further bends and the fold is in and the panel is ready for final fit once all the laser protective film is removed.

Footwell Panels final fix

The continuing cold weather makes evening opportunities to work on the car limited, so time and progress has been slightly hampered this past week, that aside I managed to get in to the garage and make further progress with the footwell panels.

One thing I have discovered in the fitment of the panels is you need a ready supply of 3.2mm drill bits! clearly I am still learning the knack for drilling the chassis but what I have established is:

• You need a good centre punch to give the drill bit a chance to bite into the steel otherwise it will wander across the powdercoat, plus,
• You need low revs on the drill, high revs and the drill bit will blunt making the job hard nigh on impossible

So with that thought process in mind, I managed to drill into the chassis frame using the panel initially as a guide to mark the holes in the frame which I then centre punched and followed up with steady low rev drilling. Cleco'd the panel as I progressed to ensure it all remained square and true in the chassis.

Once drilled, everything was cleaned with white spirit, the laser protective film removed and time to crack open the black polyurethane sealant

The sealant.... you need disposable gloves without question, get it on your hands and if not removed immediately with white spirit it will stain your skin and however much scrubbing you do after it will remain ingrained for days after. The sealant is also extremely sticky, it grabs the steel virtually immediately but you do have some time to maneuvere into final position.

I elected to run a thick bead down the middle of each side over the drilled holes in the chassis. Inserted the rivet and gunned the rivet in cleaning excess sealant up with a white spirit soaked cloth.

I need to follow up with sealing the inside of the footwells once it they have fully dried to make it all water tight.