Weekend 13-03-2011

After a long absence from the shed, I have gone back in to try to solve a couple of the niggles that will prevent me from taking the body off in the near future.
First off, I looked into the cabling that runs to the door (when closed this cable run connects a push switch that turns the interior 'door' light off) I managed to remove the cabling on both sides here, so at least the main loom isn't connected to anything in that area now.
The next problem to tackle was why the cabling still wasn't coming out of the drivers side of the dash, I found very quickly that the main loom was looped around the pedal box adjuster stalk. Unfortunately I had forgotten to charge the main camera, so had to use my phone. see pictures below:

So with this apparent the stalk had to come out of there! The pedal box needs to be removed before the body can come off ass the pedals come down through the fibreglass into the footwell so I began by loosening the main retaining bolts keeping this unit securely fastened to the bulkhead.

Screw used to pull the pedals back and forth, looking toward to the bulkhead on the drivers side where this passes through to the console.

 
Because most of the fluids have escaped from the slave cylinders at some point or another, lots of crystalized gunk has formed on pretty much everything in this area and most of the bolts that connect cables to this box and box to the engine bay, have been obliterated by the fluids and as a result have rusted solid.
The pictures below will help to describe the process I used for taking them off, this was done by using a small spanner on one side to hold the bolts in place, while another was used to loosen the outer bolts, other wise the whole thing will spin around without any result.

Slave cylinders toward the top right of the picture are covered in corrosion and crystalised fluid

Note the two rusty bolts L&R (taken from inside the driver footwell) these had to be held in place while spanner turning was carried out on the top side.

Started to remove this clamping, but later on replaced as we had trouble finding a 'stop point' for the stalk.

At this point we managed to get the stalk out (I had enlisted my step dad to help) as it had become difficult trying to bend myself into various shapes to get to bolts but nonetheless the stalk was out and  this meant we could take out the wiring loom from the dash on the drivers side.

I've never seen it looking so tidy!!! driver's side part of the wiring loom has been pulled through the middle of the car. I am not looking forward to placing this wiring back in the car believe me!!!

The next problem visible is the Heater unit, this has a hose running to it from underneath the dash feeding up behind the engine (Making that impossible to move also!!). see piccy below.

At this point as I had managed to remove a great deal from the car, I decided to go indoors on a high! as advised. next points I wish to tackle are the removal of the heater, plus a few other pieces on the car in preparation of the 'Body-off' event.