Yak shaving and the definition of finished...

How we laughed when the adage was thrown at us that the last 10% of a project takes 90% of the time. Well, we're not laughing now...

On screen, it's relatively easy to "fudge" a shot or a part to look like it's finished when in reality, it's anything but. And at the end of episode 38, the interior looked pretty much done except for the dash. So, the idea was to crack on with the dash and finish everything else off later. Except for an overwhelming desire to actually finish stuff off properly before embarking on the next phase. So, Dean from Trimworks made the 300-mile round trip to collect the rear seats as he wasn't happy with them along with the floor mats which weren't perfect. Meanwhile, we made the new permanent floor coverings and carpeted those, re-wired and finished the passenger door, made new tweeter mounts because the Alpine supplied units were awful, changed the fuel pump, added more noise mitigation, and then took a look at the steering column cowling. It looked amazing covered in black leather and fitted brilliantly. Except, the ignition barrel wouldn't fit within the confines.

It's a hybrid of Mini and MG and has a great big, complicated switching mechanism on the back that goes to a large plug. The plug wouldn't fit so we had to completely disassemble the switch, work out how it operates and then solder some fly leads to be able to remote mount the plug somewhere with room. While Nik was tearing what's left of his hair out over that, I added a load more wires into the loom. The loom that was finished and wrapped. That loom...

Two wires into the Lucas 5AS box up to the column surround to add in the key proximity transponder that somehow Nik has managed to fit, two wires from the ECU up to the instrument cluster for a special surprise CAN reason, (you'll roll your eyes just like I did) and a permanent live up to the auxiliary gauges because of the was the dash works. I sucked my teeth...

In addition, to match the carbon fibre dash, we've been learning how to successfully (or not) use hydrographics to finish a few of the small items of the interior. A simple process in theory and a colossal pain the arse in practice. However, the results are good, and the subtle finish works well.

Meanwhile, our Chevron story has had to be delayed to the ill health of the main man behind the story, Ben is finishing the Silverstone Classic video in the coming days, the Toyota Celica video for BOM TV is imminent, we've got an interesting vehicle restoration found in a friend's garage that's in production, and we're filming in August a car that turned 100 years old this year.

Meanwhile, Binky 39 - which is likely to be the penultimate build episode - is well under way too. Episode 40 is going to be the little finishing off bits then there'll be the dyno episode which necessitates a trip to Ireland and then some performance and fun stuff. Fun... I remember that...

They say that don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough - well that doesn't apply in the shed, especially with the mini. 

Thanks for your continuing patience and support. We're always humbled by it and we're doing everything we can not to let you down. 

Cheers,

Nik, Richard and Ben.