Tidying the cockpit

Yesterday, I removed the drivers seat which required cutting through some bolts which went through the floor of the car with the angle grinder. This enabled me to strip out the cockpit of the car and remove all the rust and cut back the rough paintwork, and scrape off a ton of carpet backing and more duck tape. Once I'd got the steelwork clean I put a coat of anti rust primer on all the steel panels. Later I'll paint over this with some black paint.

I also removed the panels behind the seats which sit under the roll bar, between the cockpit and the boot. This panel had two large apertures with speaker grills over them, but were very roughly cut and I'd like to panel this section a lot better and carry the aluminium panelling round to the back edge of the doors in a curve. This will need some odd shaped panels so I'll cut it all out in cardboard first to make patterns for the aluminium. I've also got to make new panels for the tunnel top and I'll get some stainless steel allen key bolts with round heads to fix these.

I'm starting to get a shopping list together for the kit car show at Exeter in a couple of weeks time, but I shan't be driving the Stylus down there. Top of the list is some new headlights so I'll have to remove one of them to take with me.

Pic below shows the passengers side footwell after I've cleaned up and applied primer to the steelwork.





Got to go now, and watch Lewis Hamilton win the world championship..or not..