Christmas 2014, day 2 and still on the wing.  Over my first coffee I discovered that the main issue left with the wing was that it is still too big, as in too tall.  When I pull the wing down it sits much cleaner on the car.  So I decided to cut some more metal out of it only this this time by going across other than down.  I also decided that I should fit the sill first as the wing has to sit over this and I wanted to make sure that it was not going to have an impact on the final wing position before I went too far.  To do this I needed to clean up some of the tack welds on the sill section and indeed finish the welding on any areas that would be covered by the sill.  This meant welding on the chassis section that had been galvanised by the previous owner and this created lots of smoke:

Eventually the sill was ready for fitting having tidied up the inner sill and painted it with the usual weld through primer.

The sill was simple enough but like every other panel did require some modification, this time it was too long in the section that sits between the wings and below the door, the newly acquired Oxy-Acetelyne was called into action for that.

So I then pondered the next cut for a coffee or two and then went for it

Once done the wing settled nicely and looked a much better fit.  However, as this is before I have welded the lower section back on I will avoid getting too excited.  Once again my eye was drawn to the rear section which was not quite right, the door gap was not now as good as it could be and before long I was cutting again, this time over the first cut I did a few months back.  At this stage time caught up with me and I washed up and headed inside to light the fire and debate the days progress with the dog over a cold Guinness.

Well Christmas is past but the holiday period is not, a lovely time of year for a teacher.  I am a little disturbed by my lack of access to the garage during the last term, not a single visit, must try harder, must try harder, must....... you get the gist.  I was lucky enough to get some Di2 components for my bike from Santa so I need to fit some time in for the bikes as well, think I need to be more disciplined.

Anyway, yesterday I had an uninterrupted day in the garage and having cleared the bikes out and moved the car over to one side I spent a few minutes deciding what was next to do.

I decided to finish the wing off properly and then work backwards.  By finish the wing off I meant get it ready for final filling / lead loading.  There are some issues which I tried to capture in the photos.

The lower rear edge is shocking (as is the door gap at this point)
The wheel arch has two shocking repairs
The wing in badly bowed in the central area above and below the aperture for the flash trim

I decided to start with the lower rear edge and cut off a section of steel from an un wanted sill, cleaned it up and folded it into shape but lost my nerve before cutting the original off.

Then I turned my attention to the bowed area which is not that visible in the photos but stands out like a sore thumb to me when I look down the line.  I decided that to reduce the bow I should cut into the wing and weld it up again.  Simple plan.

Sure enough, it got rid of the bow, well, more precisely it changed it from bowing outwards to bowing inwards (convex to concave?) which feels better but certainly not finished, umm.

Having cut and welded below the aperture it made the bow above it more pronounced so I cut in to the top section as well.  So now that area is bowed in as well.  When I look down the line of the car it is better than it was but it is not right.   Also, it makes the area around the wheel arch look really bowed out now.  So basically I have just shifted the problem, such is life.

I'm about to walk the dog, have breakfast and then get back in to the garage for the next stint. Looking forward to it already.

Not much energy to get in the garage after work recently and the weekends have been consumed by other stuff.  Last weekend I did go to the classic cars show at the Birmingham NEC with my wife and had a lovely day wandering around.

I spoke with Pro Strip about dipping the wings and think I will have to bite the bullet and do that.  I feel a little annoyed that I spend £310 getting them blasted only to realise that it isn't really the answer.  My issue with the wings now is that there is clearly some rust still in the steel which is visible in the crevices of the steel and there must be rust in the returns for the wheel aperture (where the wing wraps around a steel wire to form the edge) and in the A post (at the rear of the front wing, where it is bolted to the A post) because these are hidden by metal and therefore not accessible to the sandblasting process.  I knew that the returns wouldn't get blasted but when I saw rust in the wing surface both on the inside and the outside I was a little disturbed.  Anyway, with the wings now clear of filler and layers of paint I can at least cut/shut and beat them to the desired shape.

Working this weekend, which for a teacher is a pain and doing a coast to coast cycle next weekend so not sure when I can get on with it.

Today, Saturday and I have a whole day in the garage, yippee.  I was a little troubled by the after effects of the sandblasting as I really expected the process to get rid of all of the rust on the wings but it didn't.  I'm not sure if the person who did it did not really do it well or if I was just expecting too much.  Either way I have spent the idle moments of the past week thinking about it.

The first photo shows the outside of one of the wings and it doesn't look too bad.  You can see the lead work to the very right of the wing, just above the headlight aperture.  All the wings had some lead work on them.

The next photo shows the inside of one of the wings and it is easy to see that there is still rust present in the pitted section of the metal.  This is what has been stressing me.

Even on the outside of one wing rust is still visible.

I have firm memories of the MKII MG Midget that I 'restored' (I use the term loosely) when I was a kid that started bubbling up with rust within months of finishing it and it stressed me out in a major way.  I know I'll be so cheesed off if this Healey does the same so I cannot plough on from here without knowing that I have it under control.  I have POR15 rust encapsulator paint and some weld through primer but couldn't work our the best way forward so I contacted Frosts, the classic car restorers supplier for advice.  They were very cool and suggested I use the primer for now to prevent any new surface rust developing and then complete all welding work.  Once done I should then use the POR15 products.  This I decided was a sound way forward so I decided to get the painting over and done with asap.

I woke quite early and was pleased as the weather forecast was for rain from mid morning onwards.  I had to feed the dog, do some shopping and then feed myself before I could head for the garage which meant that I didn't get out until 9:00.  I got the car out of the garage and hung the panels off the roof supports for painting.  I did a quick dust coat and then a full coat as quick as I could.  It took until gone 10:00 and by that time it was looking like rain so I patiently waited for the lot to dry so that I could unhook them and return the car to the safety of the garage, I only just made it.

Painting cars is lovely, It felt really nice to see the wings looking smart in a single colour and hanging from the roof.  Whilst waiting for the paint to dry I tried the aluminium bonnet I brought back from Norfolk for size, you can see it isn't great.  I'm rather glad I also have a steel bonnet to use, I must dig that out and try it too.

I then got rather distracted by the boot area and tried the boot floor for size, of course it didn't fit and so I spent a while cutting, hammering etc. before I started to put the wings back on.

I felt that the inner wing had too large a return on it so I cut that back to enable the rear shroud to fit better.

Here you can see the trimmed section.

With the floor in and the shroud on it became clear that I needed some further cutting and shutting.  I did some but lost patience with it so I took the floor out and returned to the wings.

I put the wings back on and realised that the rear shroud was in need of quite some adjustments so I took that off and spent some time 'adjusting' it.

Once the wings were back on I realised that the car is starting to look a lot cleaner.

Next job, fit the sill and finish the off side front wing before working backwards.  

Until next time.

I picked up the wings on Saturday, photos to follow.  I will hopefully get them in primer tomorrow after work.  They looked better than I suspected they would although a few new holes did show up.  I will need to use metal ready to get the rust out of the area that have returns such as the beading around the wheel arch and the return on the rear of the wings.  It was surprising to see that there are more than a few repairs by lead on the wings and this escaped the dipping and sandblasting procedure, I'll be leaving it now.

I did walk the dog then overcooked my scrambled eggs so the dog had a great start to the day, he's sleeping and snoring as I type.

I tacked the two wing sections together and felt happy instantly:

As you can see the door gap looks reasonable for the time being and it all lines up well.  I removed it again, welded it, ground down the welds and refitted it to the car:

The line along the car is much, much better.  There is still a slight bulge but it isn't massive, I suspect I will still have to make some more cuts to remove it but we are talking very much better than before.  Once ground down the welded area hardly shows which will make paint prep easy enough when that time comes.

I took all four wings to Vernon to get them dipped and blasted which all be done by Saturday, excellent.  I'm away now until the weekend so I suspect that my opportunities for the Healey will be somewhat restricted moving forward but I'm feeling positive from recent progress so I hope I get in on it as often as I can.

So having eaten breakfast, walked the dog and consumed too much coffee I headed to the garage and the front wing.  I decided that I could cut the wing in serval ways but before I did anything I wanted to see the wing fitted to the car without being forced into position by bolts, mole grips etc. so I completely unbolted and unclamped it and left it hanging in place to see what it looked like.  It looked much better from a warping point of view but didn't fit the space I have for it.  The fact that the bulge almost completely dropped away was key though.  So I broke down what was wrong into three categories:

The bottom of the wing hangs too far out from the car.

The bottom of the wing is low.

The wing is too long for the car.

The first of these was easy and I so sorted it out initially.  I remembered I had this trouble on the other side and that I had cut away the return and placed some oval holes in the return edge to the chassis, or sill.  So I removed the wing having taken some measurements and cut the return off, cut a length of steel out and welded it back together.  I then put some holes in for drainage as I had seen on John's 100.

This had an immediate impact of bringing the bottom into line which was positive, however I may need to repeat to shave a little more off.  I'd rather do it twice than do it once and cut too much off.

I then turned to the third point, the wing being too long.  I kept moving the wing backwards and forwards until I could see where the main cause of the problem was.  I decided that the front section of the wing was a good fit.  When the front headlamp section of the wing was lined up with the shroud then all other key markers were in line such as the holes for the wing on the shroud and more convincingly the holes for the piece of metal that mounts between the wing and the shroud to accept the windscreen when the screen is lowered (I can't think of the correct name for the part)  there are also marks for previous fitment of this part that lined up and that bodes well even if the wing and shroud wern't original to car.  I decided that the wing was too long between this section and the very rear of the wing.  The fact that the door lines up well to the top of the shroud convinces me that the door and the A-post are in reasonable shape, so a long wing it is.  I made some measurements and marked out the section to cut then procrastinated some.

As one can see, it is quiet a big strip.  It is wider as it descends but probably not wide enough however, I lost my bottle at the thought of cutting more metal off in one go so decide to go with this.  So out came the angle grinder and off came a little strip of old metal.

Having cleaned up the edges I put the wing back on in the correct position and placed the separated rear edge on and found that it looked good at the top but as suspected a little out on the bottom which will need a little more material taken off, but not now I had to clean up, jump in the real car and drive to Reading to meet some old friends for a pizza.

I am, as I did yesterday writing this in the morning of the following day and find myself once again in the position of having to walk the dog (it's raining today so not as pleasurable) and cook breakfast before heading back for some more.  I would like to finish the rear edge and then perhaps look at doing the second item, raising the lower edge by essentially repeating the process but by cutting horizontally along the bottom of the wing.  However, I need to get the wings and any other items I need sandblasting over to see Vernon this afternoon so I will have much less time, we'll see how it goes.

Yesterday I got in the garage in the morning and started looking at the wing.  I bolted it up and positioned the rear edge to give a very reasonable door gap.  The issue I have now is that the wing bows out in the centre.  Actually the wing is quite out of shape.  Not having another car to look at mens that I don't know how the shape of the wing should be exactly but it is clear that it needs some cutting and shutting to remove some metal and lose the bulging but where is not clear.  So I took to thinking about what was needed when I became distracted.

Initially, by chance, I found the original door hinge bolts that were rusty and tired looking.  What I noticed was that they were steel made whereas the new bolts I have been using are some kind of alloy and as a result too soft which cause the cross head to deteriorate when being screwed in and out of the door frame (I have the correct Phillips bit too).  I turned on the wire wheel and got cleaning them as it seemed that these would be better to use than the soft new replacements.  After I had cleaned up about six or seven of these I caught the wire wheel with the bolt and it pulled it out of my hand into and around the metal guard cover before spitting it out at high velocity.  As it is a good day I had the doors open for some day light and therefore the bolt was able to sail out of the garage over my garden and into the neighbours garden where they were sitting having a cup of tea, damn.  We are having a little battle about falling apples and broken glass house windows so I thought it best to check the bolt hadn't landed near them, fortunately it hadn't, phew.  I put the bolts down and turned my attention to other stuff.

I have the use of my Mother in Law's 4x4 this week so it seemed like a good idea to so see if I could get the wings sandblasted.  So I called the chap who did the bulkheads some time ago to discover that he has retired.  He is an interesting chap and was kind enough to recommend two people to me who were both nearer me in sunny North London (it is today, even in October) which was good.  He went on to criticise the first for using soda blasting which he thought was too gentle to the metal as it 'needs to be aggressive to get the rust out and find the holes' but then said the second one he recommended did something better, but what I didn't catch what exactly.  The second chap had an eBay advert which I looked up and it looked pretty impressive so I gave him a call.  He seemed knowledgeable and was happy to do the work and better still he could do it in the timeframe that suited me this week.  I asked for a price and got a guide of £65 per wing but maybe more depending on the amount of rust.  This made me wish for the preretirement days of the original man, oh well.

I then got back to looking at the wing and decided that I really should get the welding equipment situation sorted as I had a week off work to enable me to collect the cylinders.  A few phone calls and I had it sorted.  I had previously rented a set of cylinders from BOC the dominant supplier however they were charging me north of £130 a year for the rent and some years I hardly used the stuff so I decided a last April to return them.  There are a couple of companies who now stock rent free cylinders which seemed a much better deal for me.  I paid £220 to rent two cylinders and £108 for the Oxygen and Acetylene gas which can now sit in my garage until I need a refill without worry that I am wasting money.  The only worry is if the company goes bust and I end up with two worthless cylinders and no one to refill them but it was a risk I had to take.  I duly headed north to Hertford to collect the bottles.  Job done and I could return my attention the wing, or rather I could start procrastinating again, time for a beer and some dinner!

The only issue with yesterday is that having spent or committed £600 plus to the wings and gas I have raided my 'toy' fund which means I will have to wait some time for the Di2 electronic gears upgrade I have planned for my push bike, oh well.

For now I need some breakfast, Wilf needs a walk then I have a good few hours to look at the wing and get brave with the angle grinder.

Had Saturday free to tinker so I thought I'd do one of the jobs that has been disturbing me for a while, the off side door.  

It is easy to see that as the door rises it falls back away from the front wing leaving a dreadful gap. 

I had planned to weld a section of aluminium to the door to make up the gap as shown above but when I called Bell Classics in the week to ask if they wanted to do the job for me (I don't have aluminium welding facilities) they were a little reticent.  They advised that the new piece would have to be a sheet that has been folding to match the edge of the rest of the door and that the welding was likely to cause a few issues with heat warping.  I had quiet a long chat with Andy and he casually asked if I had enough metal to unpick the edge, fold it flat and then bend it back again in the new position.  I look back now and wonder why that hadn't occurred to me.  

I got home that day and checked and realised that I probably did have with the exception of one bit that had been cut away to fit over a rib in the door frame.  I got to thinking about dealing with the small section of the door skin that had been removed and how I might cover that up when I remembered that I had some Lumiweld left over from my kit car building days.  I had, in my mind fallen out with Lumiweld as I had previously struggled to work with it successfully so I decided to google it to see if there was any fresh advise on how to use it.  I eventually came across a post that I made ten years ago  on a kit car forum saying how good it was which really surprised me as I had it down as a little Mickey Mouse in my mind, I guess that I once felt differently about it.  Anyway, I watched a few youtube videos and decided that I should practice with it.  Having returned my Oxy-Acetylene to BOC (the rent was killing me) and not yet got round to getting some rent free bottles I was reduced to using the butane gas canister I have for lighting the fire (don't ask, bad down draft in the chimney in the cold weather on our wood burner).  With the benefit of hindsight I realise that this is a much better source of heat because it is gentle and somewhat broader.  Anyway, a few reasonable practice solders (or whatever one might call using Lumiweld) I got on with the main job.

The folded section of the door skin was very easy to unfold, a result.  I hammered it flat then started working out where the skin should be bent back from.  A few trail fits and a bit of hammering and all was good.  I had split the aluminium in a few places which I think may be from ageing in the metal?  So I got out the butane gas canister and started heating.  It took ages, like fifteen minutes to get the door hot enough to solder/weld with this stuff but when it did flow it flowed well.  I filled the various sections that need it and then waited for it to cool down.

Once done I ground it down and mounted it on the car.  It might look like there is room for improvement but, on the car, it looks loads better as the wing is only roughly fitted so the gap will end up being parallel.

Very happy am I.

The new wing gap

So I have the shroud sorted, apart from the grille aperture, and the off side door.  Both front wings are close but I suspect that they will need some cutting and messing with to get the lines acceptable.  The near side door needs some of the treatment that the off side has had this weekend and the rear wing, near side sill and B post are roughly done.  It almost feels like I am making progress!  I am going to make the off side front wing correct next and then switch sides to other front wing/door so that starting at the front and working back the car gets done.

I have a few days in the garage planned for the week after next due to it being half term holiday which is very cool.  Today I started on the off side door gap which is suspect.  I feel like I have been here lots of times before so I just welded on the panel that has lots of big holes in it and so looks like a piece of cheese.  It sits between the A post and the bulk housing and adds rigidity and strength to the A post, I'm not really sure why it wasn't fitted before.? I then started on the outer sill and realised that I needed to weld up the bottom edge of the inner sill as it will be covered by the outer sill.  This was all nice and easy fun.  Then I trial fitted the outer sill and realised that it didn't fit (of course!) so I then spent some time hitting it with Dad's old hammer which was most enjoyable.  Eventually it got there and I deiced that was enough for one day.

I came into the house and started thinking about the way forward as there are lots of options.  I could get the door edges welded to make them the correct shape for the aperture or I could get the wings sandblasted.  My worry with that is if I get them done when I have the opportunity to work on the car I will miss out as I won't be able to get much done without the parts.  On the other hand I have the use of my mother in laws 4x4 over the half term holiday next week and I do actually need to get them done.  So I decided to look for more local welders and sandblasters and got on to an advert for lumi-weld which I actually have from the kit car days and began thinking that perhaps I could do it my self.  This is clearly worrying so I am going to have a think about it before I decide.

It was the last Sunday in September and a fine day too.  I had the whole day to make the final sections of the shroud lower front brackets and fit them.  I started by cutting out the pieces of steel that I welded to the bulkhead to keep it in the correct position for two reasons.  Initially it occurred to me that these might be doing their job too effectively and preventing the bulkhead from adjusting as required to get the front aligned.  Also, I needed the angle iron to make the brackets.  Anyway off they came and cleaned, cut and ground into shape they were before being painted in primer.  I then attached them to the shroud, refitted the wings and with the use of some straps and ratchets pulled it all into place before drilling and bolting together.  I released the straps and stood back to see the fruits of my labour:

I realise that I have shown loads of these photos before but this is the first that looks square, even and dare I say it, right.  I appreciate that the photos are hard to see subtleties on but it does look better, the chassis legs at the bottom look well spaced for example.

Both sides look similar and appropriate.  The lines along the top of the wing by the join with the shroud look even too, they were miles different before.

The body just looks better.  However, I am not without my challenges moving forward:

Both of the brackets for the lower front of the shroud look similar but the angles are not the same.

When one looks from above the front panel looks warped somewhat.  From the front this doesn't notice but it is there for sure.  I am confident that I can do something about that but what worries me is that when I take the shroud off, for painting for example, it will return to its original position and undo and of the repair work I do.  Will have to put some work into this.

 Also, the doors have moved alignment.  Now I realise that I should have sorted the front out before I did things like attach the doors but I couldn't wait for ever as well.  The off-side rear wing now sits a little low compared to the door but the swage line still lines up meaning that I am going to struggle to raise it.

The door gaps have shifted, and for the worse.

 Over all though it feels good to have made progress with this car.  It was a lovely day.

Stole another few hours in the garage and extended the box section that runs from the bulkhead to the suspension turret.  It is just tacked in place and looks somewhat neater in real life than it does in this picture.  Ready now to get the shroud back on and finish the clamps to the lower front section.  I am feeling quietly confident about this and hope that it helps to align the shroud correctly because I am keen to make some headway with the car.

This feels amazing but I actually got back in the garage today, two days after the last visit, whatever next.  I essentially welded on the new brackets that I had made for the shroud that mount to the front of the chassis legs.  Seemed like a nice job.

I don't think I'll get in the garage before next Tuesday so I hope to make the brackets to attach the shroud to chassis brackets.  That way I can spend some time in the garage the weekend after next and if the weather is good I can get the car out and start to fit up the front wings, doors etc all over again.  Should be fun.

Since my last post I spent a happy couple of hours last weekend cleaning the gearbox with petrol and a brush, it came up wonderfully but like a sausage I forgot to take a photo before I put it into storage at my Mother-in-Laws.

Today I had a whole day in the garage so I dragged the car outside again to take a look at it.  I decided that the near-side is too high so got out a strap and tightened it to a pole clamped to the trailer to pull it down and I felt it looked better, at least the headlights looked level.

So I'm looking at it and thinking to myself that if I could get it to stay there I'd be happier.  If I could get it to stay at that height and shift the front slightly to the right I'd be happy.  So I start looking at the car in detail and realised that I could possibly use the return for the bonnet aperture but failed to secure it in the same place with mole grips and started to think that there must be more to it than this. I make a coffee and sit and stare at it.  I glance at the old original frame that I have under the green sheet to the right of the car and notice the bit of metal at the front that connects to the bottom of the shroud and suddenly feel excited.

On inspection I realise that the metal would have been strong enough 60 years ago to hold the shroud in place and feel like I have had a Eureka moment.  With those inplace I can definitely move the shroud around before adding the wings etc.  I had always thought that I would make some brackets out of thin steel t weld on at the latter stages, it had never occurred to me that I might need them for positioning.  So I set about making some brackets for the frame which I again forgot to photo, think I was too excited to think straight.  I did take a photo of the chassis legs having stripped the galvanised coating off and painted with weld through primer.

The fitting will have to wait until another day though, hopefully not too far away.....

Well it has been a long time, I got into work and then summer holidays without a moment for the car. I was distracted by building a bicycle from a frame that I bought direct from China but that is another story.

Since last time I haven't managed to get Andy round which is a shame.  John contacted me to say that he is thinking of selling his spare parts which rather focused my mind.  I can't think of anything that I need desperately but I am unsure of what I may need for the gearbox.  John suggest I take the side plate off and have a look.

I have arrowed the only cog that appears worn with the rest appearing in rude health.  I'm hoping this gear is for the reverse and so slightly less important?  The oil was clean as well so all in all that seemed to be a good development, fingers crossed.

On the outside of the housing noticed some damage to the bakelite cover but do not know if this serious or not, will have to investigate.

The rubber seal highlighted on the solenoid looked a tad worn but I hope they are easily sorted.  It moved freely though.

I was rather struck by the classic engineering of the gearbox, it seemed really solid, logically made and designed to last by somebody who had pride in their work.  Having battled with the bodywork it also seemed really good to be looking at mechanicals, perhaps I should start doing some of the mechanics now rather than waiting until when I need to fit something?

Or perhaps I should just get on with it.....