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so I put together a little video blog entry on the dash/gauge cluster I modified for the Javelin.  I’m planning to do a few track days this year and bought a GoPro HD camera to do some in-car video with.  I also got a new point and shoot camera that does HD video so I thought I’d start getting familiar with using it and doing a little video editing.  I was also inspired by Kevin, Kelle and the rest of the crew at V8TVshow.com.  I enjoy watching their project update videos and thought I’d try to make a few of my own.  hopefully it’s not too painful to watch…

been working on tying up some loose ends so I can start driving the car again. I actually started it today and let it run for a few minutes. the brakes need to be bled and the tires aired up but other than that it should be driveable. as for the loose ends, I got the door jamb switches installed and wired up the dome light and the rest of the headlight switch. everything works with the head lights and courtesy circuit now including the cool turn signal button to toggle the hi-lo beams. however, the fuel gauge and oil pressure gauge aren’t working. I’ll need to figure out what the problem is… here’s a pic of the gauges lit up. looks good. other random items are I painted the bottom dash piece black and installed the trunk popper switch. more to come…

It’s been 2 months since my last post. I’ve been busy at work but finally got my life back early last week. So, this weekend I was able to get back in the garage. Yesterday I spent some time mocking up the dash pieces on the bench. I needed to trim a little here and there so that the gauge cluster would seat into the dash structure properly. During all this messing around I noticed that the stamped metal dash “skeleton” had completely cracked and separated on the drivers side. I welded it back up and now the dash structure is much more solid. Unfortunately I have run into some problems. One is that with all the testing fitting I keep breaking the legs on the LEDs I’m using for the turn signal, brights and hand break. I broke one leg on the brights LED a couple of months ago and yesterday broke a leg on the hand break LED. I already replaced the brights LED and I have more LEDs to change out the red one but it’s annoying and I’m not sure how to keep the legs from getting fatigued from continuous movement… the other issue is that the underlying bodywork on the dash is developing hairline cracks from the movement. If I had to do the dash over again, and I probably will wind up doing it over , I would use a single layer of fiberglass mat and resin to “lock in” the bodywork I did. Here are a few pics.

continuing progress on the re-wire project…. before I finish routing all the wires and terminating all the ends I needed to make sure I know exactly what all the wires I’ll need are. part of that equation was figuring out the audio system. I’m going to run an amp (which I’ve never done before). no sub woofer though. so I ordered a Boss amp and head unit online and it arrived yesterday. The head unit is a “digital media receiver” which means there is no CD deck. it takes a USB input, an SD card or an ipod. I’m going to get an 8gig SD card and put a bunch of music on that. I spent today figuring out where and how to mount the amp and building a panel to mount the amp to. I also made the decision to relocate the battery in the trunk. I have wanted to do this for a while (for weight distribution) but decided not to when I shifted gears to trying to get the car running in time for the AMC show in Pomona at the end of the month. But, with the decision to run a power amp I’m going to need to run a heavy gauge power wire to the trunk anyway. So, I’m putting the batter in the trunk and that will make the amp power wiring short and clean. I’ll still have to run the battery + cable back up to the engine bay, but that’s alright. anyway, here are pics of the audio gear and the panel. I covered the amp panel is some fuzzy “carpet” substitute you can buy at your local auto parts store. it’s the same stuff I used to cover my package shelf years ago. Oh, I also finished dynamating the firewall today.

ok, I’ve been slacking on the updating of the blog but I have been putting time in on the Javelin. The saga of the “clutch box” has come to an end. I’m reasonably happy with it. my welds are not the best looking but they’re solid and you can’t see the welds under the dynamat. oh yeah, the dynamating has begun. more on that later.

my clutch master cylinder relocation project continued today. last weekend I built the basic “box” that will allow me to bring the master in-board a couple of inches to clear the power brake booster. next I needed to fill the hole left when I removed the stock wiring harness firewall block. I’m installing a new, universal 18 circuit harness with modern blade fuses (no more glass fusses!). first I actually trimmed away MORE of the firewall to create an easier shape for the fill panel. then I used card stock to figure out what the panel should look like. I did several trial mockups before I was ready to commit the panel to metal. I cut the rough shape with my electric shears and the finished the piece on a bench grinder. the Clarke electric shears I have are great. I think I remember Fran from the amc forum raving about them a few years ago which is why I bought them. I’d love to have a band saw but these shears are proving to be a great tool for making various things from sheet stock. I also had to shorten the clutch push rod and cut thread further down the shaft to match up with the clutch pedal. oh, one other nice thing about doing this relocation is that I realized I no longer had to mount the reservoir remotely. this is a wilwood remote master and I previously had the reservoir mounted to the shock tower. but where the master will be now I can mount the reservoir right to the master… nice. I can even unscrew and remove the reservoir cap no problem. no entirely sure I can fill it without a funnel though, we’ll see. anyway, that’s it for now.

when I switched over from the T10 4-speed to the Tremec 5-speed I also changed from a mechanical clutch linkage to an hydraulic clutch. that meant I needed to mount a clutch master cylinder on the firewall. for some reason I refused to acknowledge the truth of LEVERAGE and mounted it too low. well, the reason was because it was easier to drill the holes and get it mounted lower down. the problem? without leverage I couldn’t depress the pedal at all! my second attempt moved it up a few inches. this made the pedal useable but it was still pretty heavy. so, I’ve decided to go for it and move it as high as possible so that the linkage is right below the pivot point of the pedal. that’s where all the leverage is and I expect a very light clutch pedal once I’m done. however, I have power brakes and the master (it’s a remote master btw) and the booster can’t occupy the same space. the solution I came up with is to make a box that allows me to mount the master a couple of inches INBOARD from the fire wall which solves the interference problem with the booster. these pics should explain what I’m going after. the box is done but I still need to actually weld it to the firewall and patch the hole left from removing the stock wiring harness. oh… I’ve decided to try to get the car together enough to drive to the AMC show at the end of may. not sure I’ll make it but I’m going to give it a shot. more to come…

got a little bit of work done today on the hand brake mount.  I’m eleminating the foot parking brake in favor of a hand brake.  I got a center console and hand brake assembly out of a Mazda MX3 at my local pick n pull.  I used threaded rod to help me find the right height to mount the brake handle at.  I then used sheet metal to create a couple of small support brackets.  Haven’t welded the brakets in yet but it should all work.  The next task will be figuring out how to shorten the stock parking brake cable, route it to the trans tunnel and drill a hole to feed it into the car under the hand brake assembly.  I’ll update as I make progress.

finished the “body work” on the lower two dash pieces.  they’re primed now and ready to paint.  I haven’t decided if I’m going to put the same texture I used on the dash face on one or both of these pieces.  Either way they will be painted Trim Black.

put some more time into the dash this weekend.  I continued wiring up the gauges and also started working on a couple of other dash panels.  Since I’ve put the turn signal, bright and parking brake lights into the main dash panel I needed to fill all the holes I won’t be using where the original headlight, dome light, wiper and washer switches were.  I also filled a bunch of holes in the piece that goes under the steering wheel.  To fill the holes I put some painters tape on the front side and then filled the hole with duramix from the rear.  Then I removed the tap and put a layer of glazing putty on the front to fill in any pinholes.  I’ll sand down the glazing putty and then prime the whole piece.  I will probably use the rocker panel texture so it matches the dash.  Unfortunately, I also saw that a crack has formed on the dash.  I’ve been worried about that because of the weight of the gauges and all the handling it’s been going through.  Not sure what to do about it…