917-037
November 24, 2003

The nose cover (cooler cover) consists of two parts, the inner duct and the outer cover.
In these two pictures, the inner duct is being made.

The cooler cover is on the car awaiting the inside duct to be glued to it. This can only be done after the cooler is installed. The photo on the right is the cooler cover from our Gulf 917.

The duct is now sitting on the cover.

Now, I'll install the oil cooler Carl sent me. The cooler was missing the 6mm nut retainers.
These nuts are still available and easily installed.

First the inner duct is fit around the cooler, then the cover is installed and cleco'd to the duct. Then, the two parts are glued together with cabosil while in place.

This is the finished product. The photo on the right is the mold of the doorsill.

The base of the dash is now fit and indexed. The window edge has also been made in the same area around the dash.

This is done by making a pattern from a bondo squeegee, utilizing the shape where the window meets the body. This is the radius where the window sits and get glued to the body.

The switch pod is the one part I didn't have. Andy made me a pattern from the Gulf car and I utilized this pattern to make a foam buck.

The shape is close, but can't be finalized until it's glued to the existing dash and can only be shaped after it is attached.

The bondo is what I use to glue the foam to the dash.

Now, I can shape it. The black switch face is a lighted face which lights up all the switches with words (ignition, fuel pump, etc.). This is very handy for night racing. I have actually never seen one in a 917 probably because Vasek Polak got them all from Porsche and Carl got them from Polak.
We both think they are very cool, so Carl is going to install it in 037.

Now I tape off all the foam and the surrounding area and glass over the tape.
(remember, tape is a great mold release)

After the mat is applied and cures, I will remove it and final fit the pod.

I am adding a 12mm edge of glass to the bottom of the switch face.

Now I am releasing the mold from the plug that you saw in an earlier picture. A crazy thing happened. When I was cutting off the excess glass off the mold, the dust made these weird cosmic patterns on the mold surface.

After making a part from the doorsill mold, I trimmed it to fit on the driver's side. To finish off the dash, I added the front radius where the dash meets the steering column bulkhead.

The top of the doorsill has been trimmed and fit and will be final installed after the chassis is painted.

To index the fender area of the nose, I glassed a small brace from the fiberglass to the chassis. You can see I glassed over tape so this can be removed without sticking to the chassis. The reason I am doing this is because the side pods will be removed today to make molds and the rest of the body has to stay indexed to the chassis. Don't forget to keep checking Carl's website at www.pbase.com/917carl

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