Dashboard, Glovebox and Front Seats In!

On Saturday I figured out the wiring for the dash, added a new 4 way connector for the Forward/Reverse wires and installed the dashboard.

Of course, like everything with the Vogue, it wasn't that simple. First I had to mount the two side trims that hide the dashpad vinyl edge at the sides. The left hand side didn't fit so it took about half an hour of fiddling to come up with a reasonable comprimise. Then another half an hour to locate the fasteners that hold the dash in and I was ready.

Other than the fact that the Vogue wiring loom appears to have shrunk (why, why are looms always just too short?), it went in fairly easily. The glovebox door was next - about a two hour job but finally - it opens and shuts and matches the dash mounts pretty well. I may attack the bottom of the dashpad with a heat gun to see if I can stop the glovebox door scraping on it when it is opened - later.

Sorry about the poor quality of photos - I took them this morning with no electricity in the garage due to some switchboard work we are having done.

On Sunday I fired up the dashboard for the first time and was met with the first problem. When I turned the ignition on, but not started yet, the dash powered up OK but the peizo warning buzzer under the dash started to sound - quietly. The piezo is supposed to sound under two conditions. A warning from the controller - usually that a battery pack is under or over voltage - and a warning that you are trying to start the car while Forward or Reverse is selected. It took me a while to cotton on the the fact that the ignition switch was "leaky". It obviously has some resistance between Ignition contact and the Start contact - just enough to be a problem for my relatively high impedance circuit (peizo sounds with 10K in series from 12VDC).
A dashboard bulb to ground fixed it and so did a 1 watt 270 Ohm resistor - now added. This isn't the orginal Vogue ignition switch - the one that the key falls out of. This is one I had "under the house" and that I thought I'd cleaned out pretty well - obviously not. There is no current drawn (less than 70uA) from the 12V battery when the ignition is off so it shouldn't be a problem. I'll come back to it later anyway - next time I'll really flush it out and do some measurements while at it.

Sunday afternoon I finished off some minor trim hiccups that arose when installing the dash and installed the two front seats. We finished off the leather cover on the steering wheel and dropped that on to get it out of the house (the steering wheel, not the car) - it's not secured yet. Then I installed the washer/wiper switch and encountered my next Lucas electrical problem - no high speed wipers. My backup switch had no low speed either. These ones are totally sealed - I tried drilling though the side so I could flush it out but I didn't make it through the bakelite. I'll try to find a new one - with an electric switch for the pump instead of a manual pump. For now, single speed wipers are fine

Another view of the dash, seats and carpet.

  I

There was a plan to drive the car Sunday afternoon but with everything taking longer than expected I didn't install the indicator arm, rear view mirror, driveshaft, or put the final configuration in the controller so it wasn't going to happen. Just as well because it rained from about 2PM onwards and I don't want water on it just yet. (I have to seal the windscreen corners before it gets wet or dirty).

Pinchweld and Seatbelts Finished

On Saturday morning I finished off the pinchweld at the front and finished the rear seat (fitted lower fabric covers to hide the frame). It took me the rest of Saturday afternoon to fit the rear seat and the front and rear seatbelts. This was a job I thought was going to be easy - and the rear seatbelts were pretty straightforward. A big thank you to "woody" from the AEVA forums who generously donated these seatbelts - they really set the Vogue interior off well.

The drivers side of the base of the rear seat showing the interface with vinyl and carpet.

The front seatbelts turned out to be a bit more difficult. I only had the shoulder bolts that came out of the car and these belts only had one rotating point - the other two were fixed and intended to be fixed securely in position (smaller hole) - not using shoulder bolts! My better judgement said not to use the wrong type of bolt - especially in a safety system, so a quick trip was made to Supercheap to buy some 7/16" high tensile bolts.

The front seatbelts in the Vogue get anchored at the rear two positions in the rear passenger footwell and are fairly obvious.

The decision then was whether to cut a slit in the carpet or punch a 22mm hole in the carpet (I just happen to have a 22mm punch) and mount the buckle above the carpet - we choose the latter (as you can see above). I figured that I'll have extra replacable carpet mats on top anyway. Complications started when the carpet would not sit correctly at the sides. I had to cut down two shoulder spacers to make regular spacers to get enough space for the whole thing to sit correctly. Somehow it took several hours.

LED interior light above seatbelt mount.

Lower section of pillar trim show interface with pinchweld, vinyl trim and sill guard.

Handbrake and cowl.

View of centre pillar trim showing colour change halfway down.

I was really hoping to drive  it on Sunday but we haven't finished the leather cover on the steering wheel and I spent most of Sunday fiddling with the dashpad vinyl in order to be able to fit the dash. I did manage to get the glovebox metal molding into position - held with 1/8" countersunk bolts instead of those cursed pop rivets that I had to drill out.

Other jobs done were to torque up the steering arm and hammer over the tab lock-washer, install the fuel filler and cover, install the internal lights and attempt to install my new rear vision mirror - no go. The new mirror has to sit a minimum of about 100mm off the windscreen. That's too far in an older car with a more vertical windscreen so I'll have to use my old mirror - so I have started to restore it.

Now for the door linings...