Another few hours in the garage and I did two things.  I measured the car from front to back and side to side and decided that the bulkhead is straight after all.  I think it needs to be encouraged to move over a little and the shroud itself is a little wayward but I hope I can get there with old fashioned methods of persuasion.

I then turned to the petrol gauge (I know there is a lack of logical progression going on here but hey ho).  When I bought the car the previous owner said that the gauge was missing so I was very surprised to find it in one of the boxes when I was rummaging about one day, even if it is a little tired.

As you can see the glass is broken and the gauge itself is a tad grimy.

With the glass removed all I need to do was clean away the insects and get the blue plastic strip back into place around the edge of the fascia.

However, I couldn't get the blue strip out so decided to take it completely apart.  I realised that this was a mistake fairly quickly.  I'm a blithering idiot sometimes.  I turned two small nuts on the rear of the casing which span the coils round on the inside and snapped the wires.  Damn.  So I'm now on the hunt for the type of person who can re-wire 60 year old petrol gauges.  If you know anybody suitable would you mind putting them in touch with me please.

So, another opportunity to get in the garage taken and the last part of the chassis attached, excellent.  Put the shroud on and indeed it is starting to look like a car.

However, it is not all plain sailing as it is clear that the bulkhead is not quite in the correct position.  You can see the front chassis legs are a little covered by the shroud but the left hand leg is clearly covered more.  This is because the shroud is not parallel with the centre line of the car.  The photo below shows the bonnet hinges are out as well.

So when I go back to what I have done previously I note that the main bulkhead position came from the chassis legs that drop from the bulkhead to the suspension turrets as pictured above.  When I originally put the bulkhead on the new chassis I struggled to get the legs to sit flush against the turrets and the near side leg is already 5-6mm away from the turret and it is this leg that needs to go further back by another 5mm or so.  I am a little worried that the turret is incorrectly positioned.  On the photo one can see that the plate that the shock mounts onto is slightly further forward on the off side turret.  plenty to ponder over the coming days.

Got a day in the garage at last.  Spent the whole day listening to Talksport, cleaning up, finishing the push bike, grinding and burning things with the Oxy-Acetylene; it was excellent.  The push bike is complete with new cables and freshly adjusted gears and brakes; I'll not get too cocky about that until my wife has test driven it.  The garage is clear enough for me to be able to work on the Healey and I have made a start on the section of the chassis that supports the radiator, bonnet hinges and front shroud and is to be welded on to the foremost section of the chassis.  I took measurements of how far the top of this section is from the front bulkhead but wish I taken measurements on how high it is from the chassis cross member before I cut it off, oh well.  I am quite looking forward to fitting this section as I will then be able to get the front shroud on and then the wings should follow fairly easily (fingers crossed) which means it will start to look like a car.  I should get some time in the garage again this weekend so will have a go for it.

The new wings are safely in the garage, excellent.  Following the hectic weeks up to Christmas I didn't get into the garage at all so I am looking forward to some good Healey time over the festive holiday.  I need to set up the gears on my wife's road bike having replaced the cables and sort out the stuff that I have piled into the garage over the last month or so before I start.  I'll be putting the rear wings and the boxes of bits from Norfolk into my in-law's shed, and then onto the main event.  I have a plan and everything I need to execute it which is better still.  First of all I am going to fit the front shroud which will require welding the last part of the chassis back on, the front vertical section with the bonnet hinges.  Then the wings, then the A posts for the door hinges, then the doors, then the rear wings.  Then all I'll need to do is paint it and fit it up.  Simple.  I think I may have had too many glasses of pop over the past few weeks.

On a more serious note the wing man (thank you), suggested that I have the wings dipped rather than sand blasted as it is less damaging and I think he has a point.  So I need to find somewhere to get them dipped near London.  Dad used to get internal house doors and cast iron radiators dipped locally but I don't remember where and I'm not sure if that is the same process I require.  I'm not worried about doing this before I use the wings to fit the doors etcetera so at least I won’t be held up by it.  Having said that though it would be best to get it out of the way, urmm, food for thought.

The only other thing I would like to sort out over Christmas is the Audi's roof which stopped working whilst we were in Rome last summer.  We pulled into a supermarket on the way back from the lake at Bracciano, if you get the chance it is worth going to, beautiful, and discovered that the roof had just stopped working.  To say I was cheesed off is an understatement.  The only reason we had sold the old car and borrowed money was to have a month in the sun with the roof down and the damn thing broke.  I managed to disable the hydraulic lift mechanism and raise and lower the roof manually for the rest of the holiday which caused the panic to subside.  I discovered on the tt forum that this is most likely to be a £70 sensor, phew.  However, to find out which sensor I need to patch the car up to the Audi software which is not easy, that or I could hand it over to a dealer/specialist and pay about £400 to get it fixed and I can't be doing that now can I?  How can I be rebuilding a Healey and give up on a roof sensor on the tt, especially at an extra cost of £300 plus.  My wife and I could have a couple of nights out at the Oxo tower for that and as we haven't been there since I chucked in the sales job and became a teacher, so that is a no.  Having returned from Italy and back to the life of a teacher I decided to wait until I got the car serviced to get the reading from the software.  The specialist Audi garage,  motorcontinental.co.uk, in Crouch End did a good job and were really easy to deal with however, I didn't realise that the fact that I had disabled the hydraulics would be the first and only fault that shows up so I am none the wiser.   I have since discovered that my old pal Rob at K-Max, www.kmaxmot.co.uk, has the software required so I intend to get to Barnet and see him over the next two weeks.  I'll keep you posted.

Having had a bit of a cold I have been hiding in front of the fire for the last two weeks.  I did get back into the garage today though and continued work on replacing the brake and gear cables on my wife's road bike.  The Healey has been ignored.  However I have made a big step forward today as my wife and I took a trip north to meet a man who had some wings for sale.  He was very amusing from the start, feigning surprise at the notion that one could go Healey parts shopping with his wife.  He was also very knowledgeable having owned, restored and worked in the Healey world.  Most importantly he had a set of useable wings which he sold me, excellent.  We had a great conversation about a wide variety of things to consider whilst rebuilding a 100 and I learnt a lot in a few minutes.  We’ll be borrowing my Mother in law’s Rav4 again to collect them over the Christmas holiday which should be good. 

It feels like I needed a good turn on the motoring front as I have had an awkward couple of days.  Firstly I got a speeding ticket from Ireland following a recent visit to Limerick to see Simon.  Then I got a £65 penalty charge notice from Islington, the second in a month, for parking the scooter on a pavement.  The last one was for riding in a bus lane.  Naturally my wife was confused as to why I had been parked on Holloway Road on the way to work so I had to explain that I had a secret.  I’ve gotten into the habit of buying a little egg and bacon baguette on the way to work.  This she found amusing but not the fact that I have picked up £200 worth of fines in the last four weeks.  Oh well, I guess that kicks the breakfast into touch for a while, perhaps my tummy will be better off for it?

I am hoping that I can get the Healey some way forward over Christmas as I should be able to get a few days in the garage an d when the wings are here they will allow me to start getting the show seriously on the road.