While the paint was drying, I tended to some other little things I've been meaning to do. One was to put the (really dirty and stained) floor mats back in. On the driver's side, I used Birdman's Mat Grabbers to keep the mat from sliding forward. On the passenger's side, I made a mounting bracket out of aluminum to mount my 2.5 lb halon fire extinguisher. Hey, maybe it's paranoia but I've read too many horror stories about these cars burning up. The extinguisher is mounted just in front of the passenger's seat. It's within easy reach and should not interfere with the passenger getting in and out.
The other little detail to deal with was a missing access plate on the engine. At the top of the bellhousing, there is an access port to see the timing mark on the flywheel. Normally, there is metal plate covering this hole so that nothing falls into the bellhousing onto the clutch. Sounds like a pretty important piece, right? Something falling onto the spinning pressure plate would be a bad thing. Well, like so many things on this car, the access hole cover plate was missing. I noticed this a while back but did not do anything about it. A new plate was like $50, for just a flat piece of metal. When the bellhousing was off, I made a cardboard cutout of the access hole so I could make a new plate out of metal.
A little cutting, a little grinding and a little high temp paint and I've got myself a new cover plate. All I need now are the right sized nuts to hold it on as well as a gasket that I'll cut out of a roll of gasket material.
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