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.