I spent the afternoon looking at the car from loads of different angles.  I started to question the back section of the car which I have largely ignored since putting it on in the first place.  The rear shroud does not have a uniform curve to it on the cockpit edge and there is a little split below one of the trim mounting holes.  When I push the shroud up the crack closes and the wings pulled together slightly.  This made me think that it is possible that the rear inner wings are slightly too far apart and that maybe I should working on that part of the car as it has a part to play on the lines of the car.  Then I remembered that fitting the rear shroud was really tricky and that I had to push the rear inner wings in to get it fit.  If I made it slightly more narrow on the rear, particularly on the offside then I would also achieve a better shape to the body.  Whilst looking at this area I trial fitted the panel that sits above the battery and supports the spare wheel only to remind myself that since I fitted the shroud it is now too wide to fit in place.  I then trial fitted the vertical panel that supports the shroud and sits on top of the spare tyre supporting panel and that took a lot of messing about to get it in place.  Only I can see that it won't fit with the  horizontal spare tyre panel in place.  None of the panels are accurate, I don't think that they are inaccurate either, its just that they all need adjusting.  Then it occurred to me that the whole of the back is built with these new panels and so the whole of it could be wrong. This is driving me mad so I decided that I needed some guidance on it and called Bell Classics as it is the closest classic car company to me.  I spoke with Andy there and he has offered to come and look at the car the week after next.  Phew.

I then took a look back through this blog to see what I'd written about fitting the rear bulkhead at the time.  I was rather horrified to see the car 18 months ago and to discover that I am  what feels like hardly any further forward since then.  I need to get a wriggle on with this.  Hopefully Andy will be able to give me some pointers to moving forward.

Back on it and having put the wings, doors and shroud back I discovered that my efforts had made a difference.

Felt more comfortable with the car now.  The nearside might still need to drop down a little but it is better. Sorry about the finger over the lens, feeling a little old and duffery now.

 The nearside line is much better

The offside too

 The door gaps have altered a little, not so bad above but definitely worse below.  The sol now seems to be in the wrong place and I thing I may have a look at the whole lot again.

 From a distance, sorry about the scooter, it looks better than it does close up.  The lines down the side are getting close to ok but I'm having a bit of lunch and typing this whilst I consider repeating everything I have just do to see if I can make it better still.....

The offside is slightly off from being straight whilst the nearside seems ok.  I remember seeing a Healey at one of the open days and it looked great but the lines down the side were worse than mine.  I say this because I am not sure how far to go with it all, food for thought and time for another sandwich.

I have two days ahead of me in the garage so I'm going to look at the front end again in more detail.  I am unhappy with the shape of the nearside front shroud and the line of the car down both sides.  The wings and the doors make different lines as you look down the length and it troubles me.  When I was a young man I had a 1965 MG Midget which I got on the road having spent £50 to buy it, this wasn't a lot for a car even 25-30 years ago and it reflected the fact that it was knackered.  I did the usual work on the car such as new sills, floor pans etc and got it on the road, if I can find a picture I'll add it later.  Anyway, I was 18/9 and off to university and it felt like I was king of the road.  I had it 5 years and never got round to buying a hood so if it rained, and this is England so it, I got wet.  Madness really.  Anyway after about a year I discovered that my father whose workshop I had used to rebuild had loosened the throttle cable so that I never had it fully opened in an effort to keep me from crashing it.  I told him that the cable was loose and he confessed to it and followed up by saying that I'd wreck it now.  I remember being full of teenage bravado and rather indignant.  Naturally the following weekend I stuffed it in to a tree at some unearthly speed, again I remember the moment well, I had motored round a long sweeping bend in Oakwood, North London and lost the backend and the car did a few 360 degree spins in rather slow motion as I hurtled toward this tree and I hit it on the front wheel with the car sideways on.  The car then bounced off the tree and span at great speed a few more times until it came to stop in the middle of the road, missing all the parked cars.  Part of the car were sprayed over the road and in peoples driveways.  Dad was very forgiving, never once saying I told you so.  Anyway I tell you this story because it took a year for me to rebuild the car and I never realised that one of the front wings was slightly bowed until it was on the road.  Boy did it annoy me, every time I looked at.  So back to the Healey, I am sure that if I left it as it is now and finished it the car would look good.  However, I would notice the differences in the lines along the side every time I walk up to it and I can't possibly progress from here knowing that it is not as good as it could be.  So wings and doors off and some enjoyable hours looking, thinking and procrastinating; oh the joy.

I Started by looking at the shroud and managed with some gentle clubbing to get the front nearside a little further over to match the offside.  I then started looking at how the shroud sat on the bulkhead and began to feel that the bulkhead is slightly off from being perpendicular to the chassis and therefore sending the shroud to one side at the front.  I checked the measurements that I could make but they seemed to say that it was square.  I spent some hours cursing myself for welding up the nearside A post a few months back and then decided to have a look at what I could do.  I noticed that the line of top bulkhead panel was slightly off central and decided that as the shroud fits to that that this is where I should start.  I spent some hours trying to coax it across, back, forwards etc until I felt comfortable that I had mad a difference.  Now to fit the thing back up and have a look but it was beer time so I will do that tomorrow.