Well, it appears I survived the opening of the new year, just about.
I've made a start on deleting some of the natural ventilation in the roof, around the cupola hole. Turns out the cupola is only spot-welded in place, so it's not proving too difficult to work my way around with a grinder and a sharp chisel, with only a little hammer work needed afterwards. Don't hit the pink squishy bits.
Took advantage of some semi-decent weather, a little bit of sun making the temperatures more tolerable, and opened the shutter so I could get into the back of the dash to tidy up some wiring.
Next on the haphazard agenda was tackling the wipers a bit more. I shortened the arm on the offside spindle, to match the nearside; and then, happy that I've got the positioning right, I welded the bolt in place so I don't have to try assemble the linkage with spanner and ratchet through the little access panel.
Tested with a bottle of very dilute washer fluid, and both wipers almost sweep the full width of the screen, but something still seemed a little off. There's definitely some binding going on at some points, and it keeps popping the clip off the shaft of the motor and then the linkage jumps off after it. Also, the retaining screws for the little spindle adapters stripped out because they're tiny and the material of the adapters is very soft; so I ended up drilling and tapping the adapters to take a 1/4UNF screw instead. Time will tell how that works.
Driver's side (yellow line added to mark end of sweep, because it's really hard to photograph in a way that's clear):
Passenger's side:
You might be able to see that the passenger side wiper isn't quite making it all the way across the screen. Turns out the end of the original linkage rod has been catching on the bodywork (two tiny shiny spots centre of image) and that holds things up just enough that the linkage rod buckles slightly instead.
(...also, yes, I need to tackle the rust there, too, before it gets much worse! It's on my list!)
It was well into the evening, by this point and getting both dark & chilly; while I was on one of my many repeated trips in and out of the cab, I got fed up with dragging the interior light about by its wiring getting snagged on my fleece, so I decided to do something about it.
Two captive bolts...
...in a little bracket that mounts to the excess length of the beacon studs!
That's a pair of P21W. Casts a pleasant amount of light without being overpowering.
If I can manage to cart myself down to the shed tomorrow (that is, "today, after sleep"), hopefully I can get the wipers sorted. I've got some bits on order to get the washers portion of things sorted out. Worst bit is going to be coming up with a decent washer bottle location, I think.
No further progress made on the manifold, as yet. Had a brainfade moment and ordered the wrong bolts for the injector hold-downs, and haven't yet got replacements, which is holding up fitting the injectors & making up the fuel lines.
As far as the org-mode document tree goes, it's showing 58% of my mechanical task-list completed. :) (Engine tasks are at about 80%; driveline is the same, mostly because I'm still pondering over the PTO setup; brakes are 70% ticked off; bodywork is still sitting at 37%. Now, not all of those tasks are critical for roadworthiness, etc, and the list is in flux because I add and shuffle stuff about from time to time, but it definitely feels like I'm chipping away at things.)