Front Grille

Quick job installing  the front grill onto the nosecone.

Held in place with a couple of nyloc nuts, washers and bolts on either side.

Careful bit is positioning the grill centrally on the nosecone, this is quite critical as you can end up with the hole for the bolt being right on the edge of the fibreglass.... yep the left hand one is right on the edge however. I don't think it looks too bad fitted just not 100% happy, I may apply some black to the recess the grille sits in to hide the slightly offset position the grille looks.

Dashboard Instrument layout

Attention has now turned to the dashboard and in particular the layout for the instruments. I have decided to go with the Smiths international flight gauges and they have a lead time of 5 - 6 weeks from GBS so that gave me ample time to look at how I will layout the instruments.

To be honest there is not alot of variation you can do with this, more personal preference if you have say the rev counter directly in front of you or the speedo. the remaining auxiliary gauges run right to left in whatever sequence you want/fancy. 

Recognising the relative minimal variation i decided to use the aluminium instrument surround GBS supply - this gives a nice template to use as a mark up for where the holes get drilled. Out withe masking tape and marker pen it is then!

All marked up, its time to get drilling - remember you are drilling glass fibre - it is not nice to breath in, it can be a skin irritant so "suit and boot" accordingly! (Health and Safety speech over with!)

I used a step drill bit to drill through several times to widen the hole and then a barrel sander bit on the drill to remove the remaining bits of glass fibre in each aperture.

end result (apart from alot of glass fibre dust) as follows....

The surround was then polyurethane sealed into position and we now awiat the dials to come through from GBS