 Keeping true to my promise to show you everything (good and bad) in the building of this car, it is with great embarrassment that I show the next photos. If you had been here when I test fit the toe board after drilling the holes you would have heard me say "what the hell?" (maybe worse) It seems I somehow miss-measured for my steering column hole. How could I be so far off? Was I asleep?
A second hole was measured marked and drilled... "What the hell?" Again, it was still wrong! The 3rd time I guessed on the location of the hole. As Goldie Locks so eloquently put it... "Ah... just right!" Of course the toe board now looked like Swiss cheese. Oh well, its only fiberglass. |
I found that I could keep the rear of the tunnel "stock" width and "pie" the pieces with a 3 1/2-inch gap at the firewall. This meant that the sides of the toe boards needed to be trimmed and the flanges that rest on the floor were not at the correct angle. You can also see the black marker line on the floor that shows were the panel lined up before it was cut.
I made cuts in the appropriate areas to open up the pieces so they could be fastened down correctly. A piece of poster board was covered with clear packing tape and taped in place from the under-side of the panel. The cuts were also taped with 2-inch packing tape from the under-side so that when the resin and glass is applied it will fill the cracks (and not leak all over).
The panel was test fit again and then screwed (temporally) in place so measurements could be taken for the brake arm and steering column holes.
The (disconnected) brake arm was swung upward until it hit the toe board and a marker was used to draw the location of our future hole. Going from the pedal location and the notes I had made during mock-up I marked the location of the steering column hole and removed the panel from the car to drill the holes. 
The brake arm hole is a 3/4-inch wide vertical slot that was formed by drilling 2 holes and sawing between them with a saber saw. A 1 3/4-inch hole saw was used for the column hole.