Whilst waiting for the new regulator there was plenty of other things that needed to be done. First one being the weather strips on the doors.
Next the rear bench seat (please note that this is a pre-1985 vehicle so no rear seatbelts).
Consoles for the BMW front seats and then the seats themselves.
With the Maruti Suzuki front fenders the headlight mounts are exactly mirrored. Surprisingly the stock reflectors have a corresponding tab for this setup as well.
... and then the whole front came off again, so I could flush the block and "install" a new radiator.
Let's just say, the claim of the seller that a Maruti 413 radiator is exactly the same as the one for a 410 is right only to the extend that you can actual "install" it. But it will not sit straight at all. Still a lot better than the old one and it'll be hidden behind the grill anyway.
I don't quite know why, but a black engine bay just looks the part. Much better than have it painted in body color.
With the tailgate now being from an even early SJ410 (clearly recogniseable by the lack of stamping on the part below the body line) fitting the spare wheel to the rear door was completely out of question as these were reinforced at the factory on later models, because they were just too weak to hold the weight. So a couple of M10x1.25 stainless bolts closed the holes.
The main reason why I swapped all the door locks wasn't so much because they were a bit sticky, but primarily because the ignition barrel had shorted out internally and was by no means to be considered reliable anymore. As it wouldn't exactly take a genius to hotwire one of these little Suzukis, as even the color codes make it pretty obvious how it is done, the only challenge that remains is how to get them out and install a new one instead.
The next one might sounds trivial, but this was in a way the biggest victory on that very day. Not so much because it was such a monumental thing to achieve, but because it was the one failure that broke me on the Lada. There's a working hood latch.
And lastly installed the door locks and fresh, basic military model, door cards and sprayed the insides with cavity wax.
Next up: make the blinking lights blink again and make sure the angry pixies stay put in their cables.
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