A Viking’s Journey into GD MK4 land

14/06/2026

Carry On Screening anyone?

Just a little update after a busy weekend and an awesome trip to Glyndebourne last night to see Tosca.

The real dash is now test fitted and all is well. Some trimming needed around the scuttle edge to allow the gauges and tell tales to clear, but not much else worrying me at the moment.

Took the time to test fitted the screen for the stereo - a lovely Pioneer unit with remote screen and a head unit which goes in the boot. The screen fits nice and snug up against the bottom of the long dash and leaves just enough room at each side I reckon to fit the heated seat switches and the courtesy light manual switch. I will probably put them on the curve I’ve marked with the chinagraph pencil. Lower row of gauges still clearly visible and I can reach all the other switches from the driver’s seat.

Next step is to lay down a sheet of 9mm marine ply on top of the tunnel to allow me to (a) route the cable from the head unit to the boot, (b) speaker cables perhaps coming back the other way and (c) maybe even a pop out cup holder in the passenger footwell. It also allows me to screw down the screen bracket without breaking through the transmission tunnel. That said there will be a rather large hole through it for the gear lever so perhaps I’m overthinking it for a few rivnuts?

12/06/2026

Holy Dashboard Batman!

Well the time had come to put my big boy pants back on and cut the holes in my GD long dashboard. The plywood one had done its job and helped me get everything sorted layout wise, but now I needed to crack on with finalising the dashboard wiring and getting all the other wiring and heater ducting finalised behind and under the dash.

Cue lots of work with compasses and checking the various moulding pips on the GD dash to make sure it all lined up properly. Then it was out with the rather large (100mm and 52mm) hole saws for the gauges and then the tapered drill bit for all the switches and warning lights. All polished off with my Dremel.

I so hate fibreglass cutting and trimming - itches for days afterwards even with gloves and the shop vac running full blast.

Happy times until I realised that I had forgotten that the heater rotary switch is a smaller diameter than the Car Builder Solutions billet switches. Fudge. Out with the Isopon P40 with reinforcing fibres and some tape. It says it works for large holes so I hope it does! That can cure overnight and I will re-drill the 20mm hole for the heater switch tomorrow.

The glove box is also now bonded to the dash and I’ve started the filling around the front rim to get that all nice and level. I I’ll leave it to Robin and the team at Intatrim to tell me if I’ve gone too far.

For the glove box door I’m using the piece I cut out of the dash. Hinges will be rather special thanks to the rather wonderful and very kind Nigel Cooper who let me have a pair of his very natty and beautifully designed hinges. More of those in another post. I’ve got a tidy little black lock for the glove box door which I will also fit at a later date.

I’ve fitted cage nuts to the scuttle edge so that I can attach the dash to the body. For the IVA I will use pan head M6 screws but they will be replaced with some nice M6 thumbscrews in due course. Should make it relatively easy to remove the dash in future if I ever need to rather than ferreting around trying to undo nuts and such like.

My final task this weekend will be to refit the dash and make sure I’ve slough clearance on the scuttle edge around the gauges and the indicator telltales. More itching beckons as the Dremel comes back out👿

I’ve ordered two APEM heated seat switches from Demon Tweaks (CBS don’t stock them ☹️) so once they come in I can check the layout on the bottom part of the dash to see if I can fit both a heated seat switch and the courtesy light override switch in the not of the dash below the support bar whilst not having them hidden / inaccessible behind the floating screen for the stereo that I’ve bought from Pioneer.

One of these days I will finally finish the interior wiring and I can move onto the chassis build. Sadly that’s the name of the game when building a car in half hour / hour increments and having a family life.

11/06/2026

Resting on my laurels?

Do you ever get one of those ideas for your GD Mk4 that just ni**le at you for months on end? Like an itch that you can’t quite scratch?

Mine was a little nerdy tbh - how should I accommodate my iThing into the car? I’ve got Apple CarPlay through the Pioneer head unit I’m fitting, but I don’t really want to have my phone stuck on a stalk somewhere or rattling round the glove box tethered to a cable that’s going to get in the way all the time.

My daily driver has wireless car play and a charging pad. Could I put a charging pad cleanly into the car? I would like the phone to be hidden / out of the weather (they don’t like direct sun!). Where to put it? The glove box is an obvious choice but then I couldn’t put anything else in there. Mmm. Mind churning.

Head explodes. What about an arm rest? One that opens like a clamshell. With a little bit of additional storage and a charging pad. I reckon there is about 14” / 35cm from the rear bulkhead where I could put an arm rest about 2” / 4cm high. Nicely rounded and padded. Very comfy. Won’t get in the way of the gear lever. Wires can all be hidden nicely.

Time for a trip to Mr CoPilot. Blah blah and lots of design talk later, something half decent emerged. Complicated. Can it be 3D printed and then trimmed by the very nice team at Intatrim? The latch mechanism and hinges can all be sourced online. Definitely a starter for ten - and do remember I’m not building a classic Cobra replicas - I’m building a Restomod concept so please don’t shoot it down in flames.

So here are the renders and design plans. Now I just need to get the thing designed in CAD in a practical way. Time to learn how to use CAD!!

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!!