11th April 2010 - Big day today

Once the column was fitted, I bolted the steering wheel end to the support bar in the cockpit and temporarily fitted the Vectra wheel I had got from e-Bay. It's nice to be able to steer the car without have to manually yank the wheels round!!

You can see by the top of the door that it is not quite finished yet!! I need to take both doors off and finish of the top roll before compounding and polishing them. While they are off I will fit the leather door panels and the hinge escutcheons.

11th April 2010 - I fitted the steering column today. The hole through the bulkhead had all ready been cut by GD when I ordered the body. Before fitting I had painted the column with VHT paint. It was then a simple job to pass it through the bulkhead and bolt it to the chassis bracket using the 'U' clamp provided. One slight issue concerned the close proximity of the secondary connecting

rod to the headers. I fitted the UJ's and then the rod. It runs only 9 or 10mm from the headers. My concerns were eased when I read Simon Rudman's blog who had had the same issue. He had contacted GD and Andy Burrows told him there was no issue, and this was the normal position. I also coated this rod with VHT paint.

2nd Oct 2010 - One thing I had forgotten to to was the steering lock. Without adjustment, the steering rack would let the wheels rub up against the inner wing. What is needed is as follows:

Pull the steering rack gator back (needed on both sides) to expose the original steering rack lock stop (white nylon). The best method is to jack up the front of the car to make turning the steering easier; although too assess the appropriate clearance, you need the wheels on the floor, Once the original lock stop is exposed, you need to make some plastic or nylon gaskets to pack out behind (on the wheels side of the lock stop) the original lock stop. I used an old ice-cream container which is about 1.5mm thick. I created packing rings by first cutting a 22mm hole in the plastic, then cutting a 30mm hole around that. This gave me some neat "rings". Now you need to split the rings son you can put them (by flexing the ring open) over the steering rack. I needed 7 of the rings on each side. This gave me approximately a 10 to 12mm gap between the tyre and the wing when on full lock...........Job done!!

Fit the shroud to the steering column, cap it with the polished stainless steel top, purchased from GD, and fit the barrel back in. Before the barrel goes back in, place a screwdriver inside the barrel shaft, and slide the U shaped thing as far as it can go in the same direction as the arrow (first pic from Simon again). It will click once or twice. Now put the barrel back in, it will click a couple of times as it secures.

Simple, and a really neat job...............even though you can hardly see it behind the steering wheel!!

Once the barrel is out, glue the leather to the shroud an cut a hole for the barrel to pop back in. Make this slightly smaller that the hole then when you push the barrel back in it traps the leather making a neat finish.

Now before you do anything else you need to take the ignition barrel out. The reason for this is so you can tuck the leather underneath the barrel when it goes back in making for a very neat finish. In order to get the barrel out, firstly turn the key to position 1, and then insert a small allen key into the hole on the column to the left of the barrel as you look at it. This releases a spring and the barrel pops out. DO NOT TURN THE KEY IN THE BARREL OR TURN THE STEERING COLUMN UNTIL IT IS ALL BACK TOGETHER!!! (The first picture below is of Simon's car as I forgot to take a picture of mine while doing this. It's exactly the same column and barrel)

28th Aug 2010 - Now the dash is in I can sort the steering column and fit the ally shroud and leather surround. Firstly I had to cut the slots for the control arms and ignition barrel to fit.