More bodges (not mine)

Things started out fairly well: I hooked up the hoses and poured anti-freeze and water into the radiator. Fairly quickly, however, it became clear that there were a few leaks to contend with. A couple were just jubilee clips that I hadn't tightened enough; one was a blocked off hose that wasn't blocked enough, and, unfortunately, one came from the thermostat housing.

As the car doesn't have a convenient way of draining the system without pulling off a hose, I pulled off a hose and covered myself and the garage in antifreeze. That done, I removed the thermostat housing, to discover some unpleasant things. Firstly, the previous owner, rather than spend £5 on a new thermostat, had just modified his to be always fully open. At this point, I'm not at all surprised. Fortunately, thermostats are cheap, so I bought one, and a new housing while I was at it. Secondly, the previous owner had decided to bodge up a "seal" of sorts with silicone sealant instead of a £1 gasket, hence, I assume, the leak. Thirdly, and most annoyingly, he'd clearly not bothered with a torque wrench (well, it would be surprising if he had, given the other bodges), and had torqued up one of the bolts on the engine lifting bracket (which had to be removed for access) so tightly that on removal, the thread from the engine remained attached to the bolt I removed. I could enlarge the hole and re-tap it, I suppose, but it's not really important (at least until I want to remove the engine), so I've left it alone for now.

I replaced the gasket, reattached things, and all is now leak-free.

New thermostat housing.

Rich popped over and we had a look at mounting the seats and harnesses. No big issues here, although a bit of care needed to make sure all the holes lined up, which, in the end, they did. Seats are in and look good with the harnesses.

Seats and harnesses done.

I also took a look at the throttle pedal. Ignoring for now the issue of mounting it (the captive bolt it pivots on is too short, so I've had to grind the nut down from 10mm or so depth to about 2mm - hope IVA don't mind / notice), the return is a bit feeble, so I attached an additional spring. It seems a little more positive now, although possibly a stiffer spring wouldn't hurt.

Additional spring on throttle pedal.