The car's been with Mark Palmer (a well known PBMW competitor) in Bedfordshire for a week, an he's welded up and sealed the sun roof.
There's a bit of rust where the sunroof cassette holds water, so I'll give this a tidy. I've also had another go at the heat shielding and after just a short time and some meth spirits, a cleaner looking shell.
Still more to do including the doors. Spent today doing some dashboard and switch relocation shenanigans:
It's a start! I've fashioned a blanking plate for the radio slot, and the switches will be fixed to this with the other screws. You may notice the electric window switches are now here. I was going to switch the windows to manual - makes sense: get rid of electric motors and save weight. But another top tip I've gathered is manual window handles get caught on the roll cage, and after a knackering race it's far easier to push a button and get some cool refreshing air. So for the moment the leccy windows are staying!
I'm pleased with my un-looming and re-looming first time efforts - I had to extend and build that T junction just on the transmisison tunnel to get the switches up on the dash. My soldering skills are coming on nicely too! I went a higher grade wire than Halfords suggested, as the new stuff I was going to connect to the existing wires for the electric window motors looked too thin. Either that or BMW just over engineer their cars with better tolerances - which probably isn't far off the mark!
For the moment, the only thing connected to those switches is the electric window safety switch. The old switch now temporarily activates the horn! Just a light push does the job like a normal button. Though you can fully push it and lock the horn on - you can do this once the ignition is off without consequence, as long as you remember to switch it before you fire up again. I'd love to see the confusion on a car thief's face trying to work out where to turn the blaring horn off! The real car alarm (and this dastardly juvenile and cunning plan) will stay on the car for quite some time yet.