My Aeon GT3
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Day 66 - Steering wheel and catches

The first thing I did was to shorten the stand I'd made for the header tank.

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There's now plenty of room. I then painted it.

Next, I cut the four main panels I needed - two for the top of the side pods, and two that need a 90° fold in them for the inside of the door.

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I'll get them folded later on - probably mid-week.

I then started work on the steering column. Firstly, the boss.

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The boss to the left is the new one I bought that fits a Sierra - the one to the right is the original Mondeo one that I cut up a couple of weeks back. The hole size is too small for the Sierra - although it does look like it fits (albeit with only a couple of turns on the bolt). The new boss is actually in two parts, with the 4 counter-sunk bolts holding the two parts together.

After a lot of measuring and drilling, I got the top of the new boss on the Mondeo boss.

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It's very central!

I then put the Sparco steering wheel that arrived last week (it's a Sparco 353 steering wheel in black suede - I wanted Alcantara, but couldn't find anyone who did it in black in a style that looked good).

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One of the things that I'd been worried about was flexing in the steering column, so I added some more braces to reduce it.

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With the paint on the steering column braces drying, I started work on the catches. I fitted the three other catches to the panels. Then, I drilled the side pods to hold the pins. They need to be moved out a little bit (the instructinons show that the pin centre is 15mm from the outside of the body, but it looks nearer to 10).

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And then I fitted the steering column back again, and also stuck some cable tie clips to hold some of the wiring and also the windscreen heater hose.

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I've left the cable ties uncut for the moment, as they're a good reminder as to where they are (in case I need to feed more wires near it).

And as a final day's activity, I had a go at welding aluminium.

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I need some more practice! As a result, I'll get someone else to do the turbo tube.

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