Nice!

 

The steering wheel boss is finished, glued & fitted. 

I LIKE it, suits the style of the car perfectly.

It also has a little orange & blue stripeage going on Just to continue the theme.

Considering that wheel was a £30 Mini cast off from the Beaulieu auto jumble with a bit of 3d printing & a piece of alloy scrap, I'm pretty chuffed with that.

The instrument panels are looking a little "plain" now though. They might be a winter job.

Creature Comforts

There are a few things on the Stylus that have waited a very long time for me to get round to / work out how to fix / work up any enthusiasm for.

One such thing is the finer points of the interior. I guess it's a bit like decorating, you know you ought to do it, but there's always something more interesting to do.

A case in point is the handbrake, I've spent a very long time making it work, none at all on how it looks & frankly, it looks pants.

Here are a couple of photos from just after I bought the car in 2021 & as you can see the aperture for the handbrake is nothing more complicated that a slit in the carpet with some trim glued on - they're old photos because as always I forgot to take pictures before I started, so that air / fuel meter isn't there anymore.

Like a lot of the things on the Stylus, this may've looked good when the car was new in 2001, but it hadn't worn well, especially after my attempts to make the handbrake work, I pulled the lever right back & ripped open the rear join in the trim.

I have no idea why I started looking at this yesterday, perhaps the need to do some painting in the house concentrated my mind, but it occurred to me that I might be able to draw up & print something to tidy it all up, so I took some measurements & fired up the laptop.

My first attempt - just a prototype printed for speed, not finish - had a large slot at the front for the handle of the handbrake to fit through - I'd done something similar on the Fury, but on presenting it to the car I found that central bolt hole was almost - but not quite - right where a self tapper (self tapper! PAH!) was holding the trans tunnel roof on, but it was good enough to prove the concept was sound, though the torn edges of the carpet could still be seen at both ends. Back to the drawing ...... thing.

The second one covered up the cut edges & I moved the centre hole to match the car. It clearly worked, but was it any less ugly?

For two cars that are so similar looking I've always felt there was a wide gulf in the "style" of the Fury & the Stylus, for example I loved the yellow on the  Fury, but the few Stylii I've seen in yellow just don't look right to these eyes, my Brother summed it up when I first got the Stylus, he said is was "an E-Type to the Fury's D-Type". So while the Fury had a bare alloy trans tunnel with just a slot cut for the handbrake, which I liked because it looked "racer", I felt that sort of thing wouldn't do for the Stylus & to me the photo above just didn't look "right".

Then I realised - "that large hole at the front for the handle - it's printed in rubbery polyurethane you fool, you can just bend it over the handle", also the bolts on top on a flat flexible thing going wavy from the pressure of carpet below? Print a rigid trim to hold it flat.

So V3 looked like this & that all got printed over night & fitted to the car the following morning, onto the riv-nuts I'd fitted the day before.

Now of course with the handbrake trim in place, the gear lever trim ring looked "under done" & those screws? They are cheap wood screws self-tapping into sheet steel & in one case the trans tunnel tube itself, so while I shall use the trim for its stiffness, it will be inside a matching printed "cover" (on the printer as I write) & I shall rotate it though 45 degrees as while the current holes are at 3, 6, 9 & 12 o'clock, they're not all quite the same distance from the centre.

So I'll use the print to mark new holes in the alloy, use that to mark new holes in the trans tunnel & put some riv-nuts in there too.

All this got me thinking & my attention turned to an alloy ring which has been kicking around my property for years, it's either in the garage if I'm trying to find a use for it on the car, or it's in the house if I think I may be able to incorporate it into something indoors. I have no idea what it is or how I acquired it,  - it's not an aircraft part, so that rules out the usual method.

But, as part of this mild interior refresh, yesterday I spent far too long drawing a new steering wheel centre cap, it didn't need the colour or the texture, but I got kind of interested in the drawing of it - & the alternative was to do the painting.

There's a bit of a queue built up on the 3D printer, but within the next few days this will get it's turn. To my mind that's really quite late '60s & fits the car's image pretty perfectly, hopefully all this unnecessary bling will be on the car ready for the road trip.

Now while all that's printing & I've finished typing, I guess I should get some of the painting done (sigh).

Although it is about lunch time........

RogueRunners 2026 Preparation

 It's getting close.

RR26 officially starts on the 15th of May, of course there are a couple of people who for good & proper reasons will join us after a day or two, or leave before the end, but this always happens & it's not a bad thing really, it makes the hotel booking complex, but the "dynamic" of the group changes as people arrive & leave. So as it's about to do some proper mileage I've been looking round the car & doing some preparation.

Sitting in traffic waiting to get into wheels day on a none too warm morning the engine temperature rose to 100deg & stopped, but it didn't come down & the fan kept running, so I've done two things, I replaced the engine thermo switch with one that operated at a slightly lower temperature & I replaced the radiator fan with a slightly larger one, fitted to the front of the rad instead of the back.

I know arguments rage about whether a forward or rear fan is better, but to my mind if either was significantly worse, there wouldn't be any arguments, we'd all just know.

Anyway, it's better now, the temperature stops climbing at about 95deg & falls slowly until the fan stops.

This is "a good thing".

Another thing that's been improved is the battery. One of the things I liked about the car when I bought it was the Odyssey PC680 battery. I had one in the Fury & it always started the engine perfectly OK for something the size of a car stereo. I don't know how old the Stylus' one is, but it was in the car looking pretty "used" in 2021, so when it showed signs of falling off it's perch I wasn't surprised & then at my girlfriend's last time, it just wasn't going to try. "Clunk" went the starter solenoid, "Clunk".

So I connected the jump pack & it was just fine.

A little research suggested that the quality of Odyssey batteries has declined in recent years - we shall see, there are certainly alternatives now, but I wasn't ready to try one just yet.

AND another thing! In the hope of preserving the battery I made up & fitted a "side-light screamer". it's nothing more than a two way switch-over relay & a buzzer, which all fitted just in front / inside the steering column shroud.

Lousy picture of poor wiring - but it works!

The relay is energised by the ignition circuit, the switched side of the relay has an input from the sidelights & an output to the buzzer. So - ignition on, relay contacts held open, ignition off, contacts close making a circuit. If the lights are off there no power to the buzzer, but if I've left the lights on, the buzzer screams at me. I have a buzzer in the indicator circuit, but I put a switch in it's earth so if I ever need to sit by the kerb with the hazards on I can turn the buzzer off. I may run the earth from this buzzer up to the same switch for similar reasons. But the best thing about it was - it's all made from bits I already had in the garage.

More Fiddlin'

 The first 2023 road trip is fast approaching & I've been fiddling with the car.

Thing 1 - It's never boiled over, but on the rare occasions that it sits in traffic the temperature goes up to 100 deg & pretty much stays there until I move off. So I got onto the good people at Car Builder Solutions & ordered a larger fan & a switch with a slightly lower temperature, they were fitted & when tested, the new fan came on at 95ish instead of 100 & actually cooled the engine & then went off.

Thing 2 was a more permanent solution for powering the nose camera, I'd established that the remote control would still work even through an aluminium bulk head, an engine fizzing with sparks & an aluminium radiator, but I'd just wrapped insulating tape round the wires & tyrapped it on to the radiator mount. Now I drew up & printed a polyurethane boot for each end & a "saddle" for it to sit on, so now I know the system works, it all looks a bit more permanent.

There is still a little tape & a tyrap, but it looks a lot better & is much more secure. I've just been on a little test run (to the Hogs Back Brewery if you must know) & it all worked just fine.....

.....Except - Thing 3 - the bonnet release was VERY stiff when I got back, which was a worry. It opened in the end, so I set about investigating it's stiffness. The latch itself seemed free enough, but the pull handle was grating. I disconnected everything & the handle seemed much freer, so it's the cable adjuster at the latch end then.

This has been a bugbear several times on kit cars, people don't seem to understand how a simple Bowden cable works. In this case the builder had gone to great lengths to drill a 2mm hole right through the length of an M6 x 30 bolt & used it as a cable adjuster - but while that stops the cable outer, it doesn't hold it in the right orientation, so it pulls sideways & binds up.

I was going to look in my box of bike spares, but even before I opened it, I found just what I was looking for lying on top, It was a proper cable adjuster & even threaded M6!

The cable outer was a little loose in the adjuster socket, so once again the 3D printer got fired up & in 3 minutes flat I printed a sleeve that fits over the cable outer & inside the adjuster, holding the cable outer in line & now the bonnet release is all smooth & nice.

Brake Light Broke

 I was on my way to visit my girlfriend in the Stylus a few days ago, I pulled up at a red light & a black BMW pulled up beside me & rolled the passenger window down. I was expecting a "nice motor mate" or "is that a Ginetta?" but instead I got "Your brake lights are stuck on mate".

Oh good, the brake lights again.

On the road trip last year they weren't working at all to begin with (my own fault) & I'd recently had some problems making the pedal switch work properly. I found somewhere to stop & disconnected the pedal switch - the hydraulic switch works fine, the pedal switch is there because it comes on faster & is in theory more reliable.

The pedal switch was a standard microswitch with a roller that should trigger as the roller rolls off of a mushroom headed bolt in the footwell roof. But if I was gentle, the pedal wasn't quite moving upright far enough to switch it off. Come smartly off the brake & it was fine.

I ordered a new microswitch with a long flat "blade" & drew up a block that could bolt to the hole the mushroom headed bolt had screwed into & trip the switch a slightly different way. Then when I got home I measured it all up properly, changed the design to suit the real world & printed the block. It all appears to work fine, there's a few things to consider, obviously my foot shouldn't catch the block & neither should the pedal, the wiring to the switch shouldn't be able to short out on anything etc

So there it is - the picture shows everything except the car. The grey angle is bolted between the pedal & the footpad - which is alloy, the microswitch screws to that as does a black polyurethane buffer which is just there to protect the wiring if I'm bleeding the brakes so the pedal is going to the bulkhead & the blueish bit is screwed to the footwell roof by the orange bolt & has an edge to trigger the switch. So far it works, but if it all goes wrong again, I can just unplug it.

When I started measuring the real world I thought I had a problem, the riv-nut for the bolt is M6, an M6 bolt head was too deep to let the pedal pass below it. Then while rummaging through a tub of bolts I found a furniture bolt that was M6 & the head is only 2mm thick. Problem solved & god bless Ikea!

Windscreen Fixed!

When I bought the Stylus, one of its issues - one of its many issues - was a chip in the screen. I didn't worry about it, it's an Elan screen, so easy to get & now available heated, I had a heated one in the Fury & it was worth the extra.

There was a large chip with a couple of small (8 - 10mm) cracks radiating from it & a couple of smaller chips. It'd been like that for 5 years of my ownership, but I decided to do something about it.

There's a whole load of kits out there, some very cheap, some so expensive that they're nearly as much as taking it to Halfords & having it done professionally - I say professionally - it's Halfords.

I wanted a kit with multiple suckers to hold the plastic jig in place, there's a few Chinese ones with instructions to match, but I went for the same thing branded as "Rain - X" because the instructions seemed to be better & it was only an extra £2.

I suckered the jig over the chip, screwed the "resin chamber" into it & looked from the inside, it was a bit "cocked", one of the suckers hadn't sucked, a bit of water sorted that out. I put some resin in the chamber, screwed in the plunger & looked from the inside.

Nothing.

I put some more resin in & screwed the plunger down again.

Nothing.

On the third attempt the chip kind of vanished & most of the cracks did too.

I added a little more resin & it got slightly better, so I left it for the stated time & warmed the screen a little, then took the jig off & put one of the thin plastic film sheets provided over the main chip & the two small adjacent chips, adding a little more resin as I did it.

After that it was just a case of opening the garage door & wheeling the car out into the sun to let the UV cure off the resin, I left it 15 mins or so.

After a well earned coffee I went outside & bravely peeled off the film & yes the resin appeared to have hardened, so I left it another few minutes before using the supplied razor blade to scrape off the excess, which came away nicely.

The end result was that the chips are filled, the cracks are mostly filled & hopefully stabilised & I haven't got the stress of trying to get the existing bonded in screen out & sticking a new one in - in the short term at least.

Time will tell if it's "fit & forget" but for now I'm pretty pleased with the repair, the damage's all but vanished & in theory shouldn't crack any more.

It's gone to the extent that my phone really struggled to focus on it & that's good enough for me.

Boot Straps

 The Stylus has a boot. It's not a large boot. It's almost as wide as the car, but shallow, perhaps the oddest thing about it is that the aperture is almost - but not quite - wide enough to fit the soft top in.

In order to maximise the space I decided to collect all those bits & pieces one needs for a kit car road trip into defined areas, I haven't been able to do that before because the things would move about while travelling & stop the boot hinges opening and if I can't open the boot, there's no need to take the stuff that's stopping the boot opening (sigh).

So anyway - there's a bunch of good people called Church Products UK who sell all manor of straps & clips, so I put in an order for some clips & 2 metres of orange strap, then drew up & printed some clips to fix it all to the boot sides.

The point of this is that there are bits of boot where the roll bar comes through or where the tail lights are, or where the hinges are that aren't a lot of use unless something is the right shape & contained.

So the jack, the tyre pump, the puncture repair kit & the emergency tyre goo aerosol went right up in a corner, with a couple of straps to hold it all in place.

In a similar location the other side is the jack winder, a bag of nuts, bolts, wire, connectors, fuses, tyraps etc with enough spare strap to put the spare fuel pump in for the really long trips.

The orange is good 1/ it's orange & 2/ these are dark corners, so it helps to see what is strap & what is buckle. The bag is also good, I have several, they are American Airlines goody bags from when I used to travel business class. the family had the bottles of moisturiser / girly stuff & I had the robust zip up bags.

While rummaging about in the back of the car I started looking at the boot release, it's never been good & in due course I'll buy a new one so I can make the route much better, but when I pulled the release, it came a very long way before the latch opened - EEK!

That turned out to be the cable outer slipping at the tee handle end, I superglued it for now, but that started me thinking, how would I get in the boot if the latch failed? It turned out I'd thought of this already some years ago when I fitted the latch. there are hidden bolts on the outside of the car that release the whole latch / bracket assembly - trouble was I'd forgotten I'd done this & when fitting the new number plate light I'd tyrapped the wiring to the bracket so my cleverness would've been all in vain. Obviously I've sorted that out now. Whether I remember how to gain access should I ever need to remains to be seen.