B-etails,

I reassembled the brake master cylinder this week, after a good cleaning, a light hone of the inner cylinder and then re-plating the outer body in silver cad. I purchased a new rebuild kit and put everything back together wet with fresh brake fluid. Then bolted the cylinder up to the pedal box beside the new clutch master cylinder already bolted in place. I even added the correct early metal caps, putting them on with a tiny bit of grease in the threads to prevent them from seizing shut, and a new rubber seal between the pedal box and cover assembly.

I also received my new old stock oil cooler in the mail this week to replace my original one that broke. I was very happy to find one of these early originals with the rounded ends!

This weekend I got into several components of my interior.
I started remaking some of the interior panels by carefully removing the original vinyl covers from the old warped panel boards. I then cut new panels out of moisture proof panel board and re-trimmed the original vinyl onto the new boards - making sure of course that all the original screw holes are in the right spots again!

I decided to try out some of the replacement rubber sill covers that Moss still offers. After reading so many mixed reviews on them I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were almost exactly like the originals. The only issue being that they're missing one of the tread lines and they only come in black.
I found a good matching vinyl/rubber dye from SEM and sprayed them as well as all my original floor mats. 
The colour (firethorn red) was an exact match to the original, I even masked and touched in the black areas too with satin black SEM coat. They came out looking brand new - I'm quite pleased with the results.

In other news, I got into refurbishing one of my original leather seats a few weeks ago. I carefully removed the old covers and cleaned them thoroughly. After careful inspection, and several weeks of thought, I've decided I just can't bring myself to re-use the old covers as I had hoped. The cracks through the leather are too deep and too many, I don't feel confident that these covers will last another year of regular use. They have shrunk and unfortunately gone brittle in many areas. Plus when I tried to re-glue the cushion centers back to where they used to be, it put heavy stress wrinkles in other parts of the cover because they've spent so many years shrinking in an unglued state.
With the high standard to which I'm restoring everything else on this car, they just don't make sense to re-use...So,
I've decided that I'm going to make a new set of seat covers myself in house. I've sourced a hyde of perfectly matching leather in the right shade and the correct grain. I'm going to carefully unpick the stitching and re-use the original vinyl and carpet back pieces so they match the rest of the interior. I've ordered in enough matching cream piping to do the job as well as a new pair of seat diaphragms . My original molded seat foams are still in beautiful shape, the new ones I've seen aren't nearly as soft and comfortable as these originals so I'll definitely re-use them too.

I have a few months yet before the car will be ready for seats so it's a project I'll make time for as the weeks allow...

Until next -