Roof Interior

I’ve spent a lot of yesterday and today fiddling with the headlining and roof electrics.  It’s a bit “chicken and egg”, with the wiring having to be installed before the headlining, but the electrical fittings going in afterwards.  It’s damned tricky with the size of the headling panels too – really a two person job.

The roof wiring is all complete.  The left gutter channel carries the wires for the rear left speaker (to be installed in the headlining above the rear windows) and the roof rack spot light feed for the first few inches until it exits the roof via a grommet.  The right gutter caries the right speaker wire, the interior lights (x3) positlve feeds, the lighs courtessy switch earths (all strung so that any door will activate all three lights) and the rear worklight feed.  The interior light switched earths are via the screws securing the light assemblies to the roof panel (inside of the external centre rib).  The feed for the front light also feeds the map lights on the underside of the Range Rover rear view mirror.  The wires have all been secured into the exterior corners of the gutter rail with generous globs of silicone sealant at 6″ intervals to prevent them moving or vibrating (making noise or sustaining damage as a result).
The centre section of the roof lining has been fully fitted.  The trimming of the appertures for the alpine lights and the inserts that fill the gap between the lining and galzing was a time consuming job; there were no templates and the cutting of the appertures and reduction of depth for the inserts had to be done by trial and error, involving a Dremmel and a lot of GRP dust and patience.  It fits very nicely, and the mid section interior light does a neat secondary job of supporting the centre of the headlining panel to the roof.

I have made up a template to cut the sunroof apperture in the front lining (allowing 1/2″ overlap for the sunroof’s inner trim seal).  I’ll be cutting it out tomorrow and fitting the panel.  If the new SIII lower seat belt anchor points (being used as shouler mountings like the second row) arrive tomorrow, I’ll also be able to fit the rear section of the lining, in which case I’ll get some photos to show on here.

Completing those sections of wiring has brough electrics completion a little closer.  I have wired up all the rear lights; I just need to connect the trailer socket.  The front lights need connecting.  The side lights and indicators will be wired as standard, the head lamps will have one relay for main beam and another for dipped.  The bullbar spots and twin horns will also have  relays, all mounted on the top of the original rad panel for easy access, individually fused and feed directly from the battery.  The accessory relays and fuses should be quite simple to mount below the centre of the dash, concealed by a Defender fuse box cover with a bus bar and individual fuses fed from the auxiliary battery.