FRONT AND BACK VIEWS

I have managed to scrounge a couple of hours, in the garage, here and there over the last few weeks. Fortunately my lovely wife was relatively understanding of my desire to have a  bit of one to one time with my Stella.

When Stella came back to me I parked her nose first into the garage, so obviously it was her rear end that was going to get the make over. First on were the side repeater rear lights, new gaskets and a quick polish and in they went. Next were the two rear light clusters, I cleaned off a bit of previous over spray from the gaskets and again polished up the light units and bolted them on. I needed my test light to ensure all the wires were connected correctly.

Next was the number plate and the special little fog lamps that secure the plate to the car and then the relatively new stainless rear bumper. Having checked again that all the lights worked I replaced the spare tyre, tools, floor boards and carpet trim.

When I started the car in readiness to turn her round to start on the front end, I then saw that the left side repeater light and reversing lamp plus the brake lights were not coming on, only to be expected, hopefully I disturbed those connections when refitting the carpet trim, and it will be just a simple job of pushing the connectors back on.

On to the front, I started with the side repeater indicator lights, as before new gaskets and a polish. Then it was the two side/indicator that were fitted, naturally I bolted the left side one to the right side of the car, soon swapped that over, I am going to replace the indicator bulbs with LED ones, but I will have to get under the dash to change the flasher units to electronic ones, that can wait.

I sorted out all the connections for the freshly painted, LED headlights, but the front bumper had to go next as you need access through the headlamp apertures to get to the side bolts. Quite a lot of fiddling about to get all the holes to line up,but as usual got there in the end.

 All four LED headlamps wired and fitted, like the indicators there is still some work to do later. I am going to wire them through relays to take the load of the switch, I know LEDs draw far less current, but all four headlamps will be on for main beam as will the dipped beam, although that will be controlled by a dashboard mounted switch, so for town driving, only the two outer lamps will be alight, but for dark country roads there is the potential to have all four dipped beams as well as four main. All things bright and beautiful!

Just got to fit the front grill and for the sharped eyed, I haven't yet fitted the chrome trim front or back, as I be be using Silicone sealant as well as clips, I intend to do all of the trim at the same time as my experience with silicone, is that with only a few days between use, the sealant can go hard in the nozzle.