'Moose'

It Looks Like a Real Car!
9 October 1999

It seems like an age since we last visited Moose. In fact I think it was the end of July. Anyway, a fair amount of work has gone on since then - not a lot to see, but a lot nevertheless. It has made it's way back to JLH Minor Restorations where the bulk of the rebuild will take place.

We now have air-conditioning fitted. There was a lot of head-scratching and coffee drinking going on whilst they figured out how it would all fit in, but fit it in they did. We now have an extended heater box under the dashboard which houses the heater/cooler matrix and a pipe either side of it running under the front edge of the dashboard to air vents at either end. There's also another vent in the middle in the same place as a standard Minor heater.

The condensor for the air-con has to go in front of the radiator which makes things kind of tight when the electric fan has to go in front of that. In the end there simply wasn't enough room for a standard electric fan unit, only just enough for the fan blades but no room for the motor for it. So, the motor has been cunningly located off to one side of the radiator and back by about 2 inches. A round-section rubber belt now curves around the front of the radiator on runners before it goes around the fan pulley. Clever huh?

The glovebox door mechanism has been finished too. Now, with just a light push at the top, the door opens by itself on a motor to a horizontal position. Linked to this is the power switch for the stereo. This is a Kenwood unit with the Mask feature where the stereo face hides itself when switched off. So, now, when the glovebox door is opened, the stereo will turn on and the face will unhide itself automatically! Cool.

The front speaker pods have been made, but unfortunately, they are still at the air-con/security fitters waiting for the final setup of the security system and the stereo, so we haven't seen them yet. But Jonathon from JLH assures us that they are very sexy!

JLH has already trial fitted the new wood and it all looks like it's going together very nicely. A new passenger-side door skin has been fitted at some stage and we've realised that the raised moulding strip on the bonnet doesn't quite match up with the one on the door. So, that'll be re-aligned properly before the entire car is prepped and sprayed.

We've been having a hell of a time trying to find alloy wheels that we like and that actually fit under the guard. I've found several wheels that would be great but they're either slightly too wide, stick out slightly too far, or only come in 5-stud patterns. Hundreds of wheels and none that I like/can use. Bugger! So, we've had to resort to using the 'standard' Peugeot 205GTI alloys (picture below) - not what we had imagined we'd use, but they'll do for now.

The car will be 90% completed at JLH and then sent back to the air-con/security guy for final fitting of the stereo and security system, then it's back to JLH for fitting of the carpets and seats. JLH will then run the car for a couple of hundred miles to see what shakes loose. Then, finally, we'll be allowed to get our hands on it, this should be around the second week in December. The only trouble is, by that time we'll have gone back to New Zealand for a two month holiday. Typical huh?!