Earth straps
A little wiring work to fix the rear loom grounding point to a rivnut, and start securing the remaining loom. I need to get under the car & offside rear wheel off to complete this though:
Then engine earth strap, which needed a custom short bolt into the engine block. Not pictured here I also changed the spade terminal for an eyelet on the starter solenoid loom:
Thermostat housing
While installing the engine earth strap I wanted to double check the space on the nearside engine mount plate for the cooling overflow bottle... got distracted and started assembling the thermostat housing which was in the same bag.
First up a blanking plug which has both a copper gasket and some instant gasket:
Then onto the adaptor plate in order: Gasket, metal ring plate:
Thermostat sits flush into the metal ring plate with another gasket on top. The thermostat is 95 degree operation (stock from GBS) & already has a bypass hole (bottom of picture) to provide some flow until it opens. I think I'm right in putting the bulk of the thermostat on the underside so it sits in the hot water from the engine jacket to open it at the appropriate temp:
Then the thermostat housing sits on top:
Update - Reference Paul's build for some advice on cleaning the mating surface between the water rail adaptor & thermostat housing. Reference my later re-assembly for the mating surface between the head and water rail adaptor
Update - Its worth making sure the cap seal surface on the casting is completely flat and makes a good air tight seal and the cap innards are tall enough so the pressure gasket makes a tight seal on the inner casting surface. Reference later remedial work on the cooling system