Well, then. Let's get caught up, shall we?
Are you sitting comfortably? No? That's fine, neither am I. My knees and hips are killing me... half-tempted to drill and tap them for grease-nipples.
...
I finally decided on a colour for the cab interior, though: BS381C 626 Camoflage Grey. It's nothing too special, but I think it's fairly easy on the eyes, so I can live with that. Painted some bits as a test, and they turned out mostly okay.
And since that picture was taken, I've refitted the handbrake lever; which does help the cab feel another step closer to finished, even though that's a long way off. Still feel like my self-imposed goal of having the engine back in my September is reachable!
Can you tell what it is yet?
...
That's right! It's a ...
Wiper spindle. 
Don't mind the wonkiness, the trial/test version was a
misaligned loose mess for an assortment of reasons but it proved the
concept enough that I decided to go ahead with it. There's some
o-rings, washers, and a bit of grease involved as well in the final
assembly.
The shaft will have a flat filed on it so that I can fit the land-rover adapter bobbins; now if only I could find the wiper arms and the other adapter bobbin. The adapter that I know where it is, is stuck on the other (original) spindle and refuses to come off; and the arms have disappeared into the aether. Thankfully, they're not too expensive and at least this way I'll have spares if the first set I bought ever turn up again.
(They're probably in the lockers that I can't get to, on the other
side of the truck. 
)
Crunching on forwards... Noodle wrangling, and painting.
Taking a break from noodle-wrangling for a little bit, I decided to tackle something else. I'm a fan of using modern production parts where they make my life easier, but I also have Weird-Brain where there's just stuff I don't want to make permanent modifications to.
So! I want nice grippy rubber pedal pads on the brake and clutch, but I also don't want to trash the original pedals because they're worn from hundreds of thousands of applications of size eleven boot, and that tells a story of its own, yeah?
Well...
And, as they say, wollah!
(Can you tell what they're off? 
)
There's still some adjustment and tweaking to be made to line them up perfectly, but they're functional as they are. They were made to the same dimensions as the factory originals, other than the metal pedal itself. The brake pedal maybe needs a stronger return helper spring, because it doesn't quite fully return every time.
But, of course, to fit that clutch pedal I had to clean and paint the clutch pedal arm, and refit it with some grease in place of the powdery rust on the pivot shaft.
And then I had to temporarily move the return spring to give a much heavier return pull on the pedal, because it turns out that having grease in place of rust means the pedal moves that much easier now. It'll probably be fine once there's a clutch pivot there.
Oh, yeah, and a bit more painting happened.
And a bit more noodle-wrangling.
Which brings our engine-bay to looking like this!
I've started P-clipping brake lines and whatnot, but that's stalled out on needing some more appropriately sized bolts. (Or I could just get happy with the countersink tool and use a bunch of those nice countersunk stainless screws I have. Hmmmm.)
I've also managed to get the floor panel between the seats screwed down into place, so that makes me feel better. But that did let me notice that I don't quite have clearance for the transfer case levers to go all the way back without hitting my floor mounting bracket.
I'm chipping away at the priority "blocking items" for getting the engine back in, with the intent of having ... well, the engine back in, before September. From memory, I have...
- Clean & paint the chassis and crossmember behind the engine
- Clearance the bracket at the back of the cab, so the transfer-case levers clear
- Finish cleaning, priming, and painting the engine bay.
- Clean, prime, and paint, the inside of the dash! ...which probably means I have to weld up all those extra drilled holes, too.
- Secure brake pipes & wiring properly
- Passenger footwell welding nearest the engine. (and maybe take out that shoddy attempt at a hammer-formed bead)
- Maybe clean and paint the front axle, while I have the room? ...hmmm, the bottom of the diff cover is leaking a touch too, so maybe I should sort that out as well!
On the note of all the extra holes in the dash, I'm still scratching my head over how many of them I'm going to need to fill, and what else I might need to add in.
Oh, yeah, and I need to fix the remote trigger for my tig welder,
because a wire broke off that the other week and as I went to fix it I
discovered my soldering iron had run out of gas, and when I went to
fix that I discovered that my refill can is empty.
More to come as it happens. I had a productive Saturday this time
around, with several hours of tinkering; and paid for it this
Sunday. Unfortunately, work on the truck is constantly plagued by a
lack of time, lack of money, and a lack of health; but as long as I
keep chipping away at it when I can, it will become something nice!
(...or it'll kill me. One or the other. )