The hood was made and fitted by Eric of Trimania, Finchampstead. He has also made the hood bag and we got him to trim the top of the centre armrest in the parchment leather that we supplied, so as to match the rest of the trim. He also re-cut the foam of the rear cushion, so that it sits underneath the seat belt reels properly and re-aligned the trim to suit. The hood and hood bag are mohair. The hood has a zip out window and it took Eric just over a week to make and fit all the items. As mentioned in an earlier blog, the cost is not that much more than buying one off the shelf. I'm not a trimmer and whilst I have fitted an off the shelf hood before, I think this is so much better than anything I could have done. It's tailor made and a lovely fit. In my view well worth the extra cost. The extra cost is marginal. I won't quote the cost here, but it's very close to buying a mohair hood and hood bag off the shelf. Then you have to fit it..

The seat belt guides were a bit difficult to source, but eventually I found some. This type fits over both of the headrest posts and therefore doesn't swivel around when you pull the belt through. Just the right length and made out of stainless steel.

Here is the boot. TR5's don't have a boot light and as the boot hinges are on the top of the boot lid, you can't fit a switch, like those fitted for example to a TR6. I did consider and try all sorts of options, but finally decided to use a brake light switch, that switches on, in the out position. I'm lucky to be able to use the fixing underneath the boot rack to act as a plunger. To line it all up and make the bracket to hold the switch in the right position did take a lot of messing about, with trial and error before I managed to get it in the right place. It was then a fairly simple task to connect up the wiring for the lights. Fortunately, I had much earlier on, ran the wires from the ancillary fuse box in anticipation. I've then used stick on LEDS, left and right of the boot area tucked up inside the wings. I'm falrly confident that the switch and the lights are out of the way enough, so as to reduce the risk of getting knocked about, Famous last words, but...

Just got to find homes for the jack, wheel brace, warning triangle etc.

Now to get some miles under her belt when the weather improves, find some more teething problems> I've had some already and I'm sure there will be some more.

More soon..