A Viking’s Journey into GD MK4 land

01/06/2026

What a fantastic job by Martin - he really knows his game and continues to turn out amazing work on Gardner Douglas cars (plus a few other lesser marques as well 😉)

29/05/2026

Another stunning job by Martin and the team at ReemMachine Paint & Body Specialists. Can’t speak highly enough of them with quality and care coming right from the start of any commission.

09/05/2026

Absolutely fl**getastic!

Firstly, a big shout out to the folks at Gardner Douglas Sports Cars for an amazing open day today. Weather was perfect and the turnout was perhaps the best I’ve seen in years - dozens of Mk3s and Mk4s plus a few T70s. Lovely history lesson from Andy too - makes you realise how authentic a car the GD is compared to any of the other Cobra marques out there.

Andy, Meena, Ayisha and Lee (plus everyone else of course) made us all feel very welcome with tea, coffee, pastries, sandwiches and cakes throughout the day.

Great to meet up with fellow owners and builders and to chew the fat (thanks Greg's Gardner Douglas AC Cobra Mk4 427 Build, Roy Farr and many others). No other club event comes close to the generosity and sharing that goes on at the open days.

I did come away with a few shiny toys to move Hela on to the next stage. Whilst I continue to wrap up the wiring (it’s now just the extra systems I’m adding that need sorting - all the base systems work 100%) I need to keep in mind that at some point in the not overly distant future Hela will be going to visit Uncle Martin at ReemMachine Paint & Body Specialists for her paint job. So to make sure it’s as uneventful as I can, all my holes need to be drilled. Cue small drum roll to the latest shiny - my brand new Aston filler cap and fl**ges etc.

These will need to be dismantled and sent to the boys at CSP Shotblasting & Powdercoating to be given the velvet black treatment (along with a bunch of other small components) but for now I can get the holes drilled for the fl**ge and tick another little project off the list.

Gratuitous photos below of the offending items from GD.

25/04/2026

And the video to go with the last post

It’s 50 seconds long and shows firstly the fade out after closing the doors (mimicked using a momentary switch) and then secondly the fade out from switching off the courtesy lights.

It’s really exciting - not!

25/04/2026

25/04/2026

Now this is an illuminating natty little doo-dah!

Well, it’s a courtesy light dimming module to give it a proper name…

I’ve been working on more electric trickery and it’s time to deal with the courtesy lights. It’s taken me a while to get round to them because (a) they are earth switched which is a relatively new concept to me and (b) I wanted to get the guts of the dashboard electrics sorted before getting onto the “nice haves”. Oh and I also needed to sort the under dash trays which have been loitering in the boot out of sight for a long time now and needed the mounting method finalised (rubber lined p-clips).

Key for me on courtesy lights is to have a fading out effect and a delayed cut off. I know this can be done with delay relays and such like but I came across this natty little solid state device on fleabay that looked worth a shot. Not the cheapest thing on earth at £12.50 each plus £6.50 postage from Romania, but it worked out at about £15 each for two which isn’t a million miles away from the cost for wires and relays.

Anywho, wired it all up and tested it with a 9v battery. The moment I connected it the courtesy light went on and stayed on. Bu**er. Spent two hours checking wiring, taking it all apart, re-wiring, checking continuity. No change. Bu**er again. Tea break needed in my new Hela / unofficial GD mug (more of that elsewhere).

Whilst supping on the aforementioned nectar, the little voice at the back of my tea-infused brain came to my rescue. Amazing what a dose of builder’s tea (strong, white with one sugar if you’re offering) - the module has a variable delay setting that you dial-in with a small potentiometer on the circuit board. Perhaps it turned up to 11 (if you know you know)?

Well to cut to the chase it was - turned it all the way back to the left, then backed it off a bit. Tried again. Still lit up immediately on connecting the battery but then it faded out. Wowser. It worked and did exactly what was promised. Turned the pot to about a 20 second delay and all is good. The initial lighting up is essentially the unit charging the circuit’s capacitor and doesn’t happen after the initial set up.

One small downside is that the lights fractionally dim when it switches over from battery to the dimming controller, but I can live with that in the greater scheme of things.

Now to wire it all in properly and fit the manual override switches to the ends of the dash board for each of the driver and passenger to have individual control of their own courtesy lights. I’m using a blank latching aluminium billet switch from Car Builder Solutions to match the rest of the switches - wish they did one with a proper courtesy light logo on it but for now it will just be a blank button. I might be able to get someone to laser engrave a courtesy light label onto the blank at some point in the future but for now I’m fine.

A few pictures below of the device and a short video of my jury-rigged set up showing it in action. And yes, my courtesy lights are green but so is Hela😈. All part of the overall theme.

20/04/2026

Just a wee bit o’ tinkerin’

Not a lot of any great materiality to report on the build front. Just a lots of little bits and bobs.

Decided it was about time to tidy up the garage a bit and most importantly get rid of all the mess and rubbish lying round inside the cockpit. You know the stuff - bits of wire, those innumerable bits of cable sleeve from the wire st*****rs, dozens of little tag ends from shrink tube and bits of printed labels. Putting all those extraneous washers and bolts back into the right packets is strangely therapeutic IMHO.

Whilst cleaning up I remembered what was in a box that has been annoying me under my feet for months. It had the last few bits of powder coated metalwork in it from my first visit to CSP Shotblasting & Powdercoating! So a quick diversion was made to reassemble the doors and fit some sound deadening inside them whilst I was at it.

Sound deadening - a wonderful topic of discussion for an open topped beast with sidepipes and a bloody great American v8! Why fit it? Well, firstly because I really like a heavy door that shuts with a good solid clunk. Adding a few pounds of sound deadening material will help with that. Secondly, the added benefit of minimising any risk of door drumming or similar is of added value, especially if I end up putting loudspeakers in the doors.

Sadly I must have knocked one of the doors at some point as there was some damage to one edge. Hopefully Martin at ReemMachine Paint & Body Specialists can sort it as I don’t want to have to get hold of a new door. My bad if I do.

Other bits and pieces include starting work on the two under dash trays (drilling for p-clips at the back to act as hinges), sorting out the heater ducting into said trays, cutting holes for the courtesy lights in each footwell (timer units on their way from eBay to give a nice delayed exit and soft fade out) and working out where to put the manual courtesy light override switches. Finally I’ve added a USB port to the glove box and a 9-way D-connector will go in there too so that I don’t have to f***y about under the dash when / if any changes need to be made to the ECU in the future.

Here’s a picture of a door to make things more interesting than just words!!

10/04/2026

Looking tasty?

Thanks to Chat GPT I’ve been able to make a half decent rendering of my mock dash, taking the actual instruments, layout etc and adding some colour.

To***co stitched leather seems to really complement the Evil Emerald Green paintwork.

I will have a glove box on the LHS in the final version but I think this looks really nice. The starter button will also be given the black treatment from CSP Shotblasting & Powdercoating alongside a load of other bits and bobs when I have enough pieces ready for them to process. The buttons will all be much closer to the actual dash when I remove the spacer rings so it all be nice and flush and IVA compliant - I just didn’t drill the holes big enough this time round🤫

I’m sure the Intatrim boys will make it even nicer in due course but for now this will do me!

08/04/2026

The Easter bunny is alive and kicking!

Having finally cracked the secret HMRC code that is the EORI application process to import goods from outside of the UK, the very kind man from DHL brought me a slightly belated Easter present from Oompa Loompa land.

Big shout out for the boys and girls at Speedhut Custom Gauges for an awesome service and a superb turnaround. Your design team are brilliant and the speed with which you processed my design and got the gauges here is seriously impressive.

So, what do they look like?

I think they look awesome and can’t wait to try them in the mock up dash tonight. Assuming they fit nicely and I don’t have to move switches etc around to get even gaps everywhere, I am hoping to drill and cut out the real dash openings over the next week or two.

Then it’s back to more electric trickery as I finalise the dashboard wiring loom. Still debating whether I take out the extraneous GD wiring from the loom originally included for their gauges - what have others done in the GD Owners Club? I can simply remove from the dash end of wires in the multi plugs and it gets rid of quite a lot of mess - I therefore don’t mess with the main loom at all.

In the interim, here is a box shot of the gauges fresh out of the packaging:

04/04/2026

Does the Easter bunny pay customs charges?

Just had a lovely note from DHL. Good news is my gauges from Speedhut are at Heathrow. Bad news is they can’t dispatch them until they have an EORI number.

This normally takes a few minutes online, but guess what - HMRC electronics are closed for Easter! You couldn’t make it up in a modern world.

Guess I will have to wait until Tuesday to get my number - even though it’s a standard format and then wait a little longer for my gauges.

So here’s a tip - get your EORI number in advance as they are perpetual and free. I think it’s just to allow Rachel from Accounts to keep track of us even more closely.

Bet Santa doesn’t have this problem at Xmas…