I'm going to be making the front bulkhead panel soon (i.e. the one that butts against the GRP scuttle and often has the battery sitting on it...)

The Haynes Roadster book recommends a design that I can't see the sense in - splitting the panel in half down the centre of the car.

I'd like to keep the GRP scuttle removable - and I also plan to make the dash fittings easily accessible so that I can remove that as well.

But would welcome hints/tips from others on how they've approached this one would be good. With pics even better! :-D

I split mine into 3 sections, easier to access the pedals and battery

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Made mine from a single piece of Aluminium sheet. It had the battery sat on it and was riveted in place after I was satisfied the footwells were finished.

Separate sections with removable scuttle for easy access to the spaghetti wiring.

Scuttle off
I would have kept it one piece but wanted the battery lower down.

Gosh - changed mine rather a lot - you'll have to look at my link for photos - I cut the bulkhead out of the MX5 donor car and welded it to the Haynes chassis - then created a support for the pedals so the driver side was based on the brakes including the MX5 servo. The rest was simply paneled in ally and ecu mounted under the scuttle along with fusees and transponder computer thingy.
If I want to take it apart its going to be drill the pop rivets out but there is access from the other side through the dashboard which is easily removable.

Mine is in one piece, but I have nothing mounted on it, the horizontal bulkhead is split into two to allow easy access. My dash is fully removable as I included plugs and sockets in the wiring loom.


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Finished Engine [/img]

Cheers guys - really helpful pics - good food for thought. Definitely looking at shifting the battery - be it into the passeger footwell or the boot even. And definitely will look at separate pieces for the horizontal and vertical rather than getting one piece bent to fit the scuttle.