---->

Well I had a day for the Probe and made some progress, I begun doing the trunk stuff at this point.

I'm making a new floor from plywood to the trunk, to support the weight. The stock is basicly a cardboard piece that covers one third of the trunk area, so that was useless.

I'm doing it in two pieces, so it'll fit in and also I'm putting hinges so I can lift up the front piece to access the spare wheel well. I don't know if you can actually lift off the wheel through there, but I'm not going to

Here I'm cutting out the template from cardboard;

 The back seat is covered with the old deafening mat, I'm reusing that between the body and plywood.

 And this is the end product of the days work, fits perfect (after making adjustments over and over)

 This is how the front section flips up after I get the hinges, you can also see the frames I put for strengthening the structure.

 Also, I finished early so I put the dash stuff back together. Goddamn weak plastic, it is very likely the last time it can be removed/installed, over half of the screw connections are broken and gone, so it's all put together with glue and about five screws.  I wish we had more Probes in this country, so I could get myself new bits from a scrap yard, but unfortunately there's no such thing.

Nice to have the LEDs in the buttons working again, we'll see how long they last this time! Also, the clocks new as you may remember. :)

 So that's that, I just bought more stuff to continue the work in the trunk, I'm expecting to go there next Wednesday. After I'm done with the trunk, I might drive the Probe a bit, since after that I need to remove all the panels and carpets, meaning no more driivng a few months, in which time the summer will be over.
Just started her up again, runs like a champ still :)

Well I'll get back to you ASAP!

Gatherer/hunter

Heyhey, it's been a while. I've been superbusy since our fleet of cars has completely renewed, except of course for the Probe. So there's been a lot of stuff and also I've made a few jobs for my friends here and there, only got like 2-3 days on the Probe since last post. Also we dropped by Rome and are heading to NYC next month, which is eating the crumbs of Probe's sad little budget but especially since we won't have access to cheap flight tickets anymore after next month, it's well worth it & justified.

I've been able to gather necessary stuff for the Probe quite a lot, should keep me busy for a month or so, so I guess I could show you what I got so far.

Most of the RPi stuff is here at last, still missing a few bits. Here's the Raspberry, Numpad for working it, USB hub for sticks and stuff, a new welding station I found and a breadboard so I can try out a electric schematic I've made. I want the Raspberry to automatically detect when the key is turned off and turn itself off automatically, and since it's a PC it needs to go to shutdown on itself as well. Well that's pretty much solved, just need the bits and pieces.

Also there's a amplifier wiring kit, still missing a lot of cabling but that was the only real money hole there.

Actually got this stuff earlier, there's Raspberry stuff mostly. Also a DVB-T digibox I got since I wanted a radio for my car and the ad said it had one; turns out it has only the digital radio DAB which is useless in Finland. Also, I discovered a normal digibox doesn't work well when the car is moving, so it's not going in after all, shame. Oh well only 20€ for a recording digibox, thank you anyway China. :D
 

Just today I got some carpet for the floor and trunk. Swheeeet! It's actually a bit more tinted to red wine than what it looks like in the picture, but I think it's still red rather than burgundy so I'm cool. At least it's not orangeish.

Here's my paps power tools and some wood I finally got my hands on. Now I can start building the trunk rig and new floor panel. That should be the next project.

Also, some pics of things I've been working on;

This is a 230V AC --> 12V DC power supply custom install I made so I can try all the LEDs and gadgets before putting them in the car. Girlfriend approved it in the house. ;)


Also here's the paint operation I finished a while back for my friends car fender, it turned out to be probably the best paint job I've ever done so I wanted to share it with you. Near flawless, even though I had to do it with aerosol and in our dusty and dark garage.

So that's that. As you might see, I'm not even in the middle point so might be that I won't drive the Probe this summer, but I don't think I want to either, not without the interior done. Because it would be pretty easy to wrap it up now and just drive for the summer, but I think I'll rather keep working on it. The budgets tight as you know so it's taking a long long time to get things done..

But we'll get there eventually!

Expect some work pics next time.