So I naturally reviewed the wing after I had taken the section out and decided that I still had work to do on  section above the aperture for the chrome trim which still had a bow on it.  Did a little cutting and welding and that is now better.

Last Monday I visited John from the 100 Register fame to collect my petrol gauge which he has restored for me, it looks lovely:

I then had a discussion with John about the parts I may need before the restoration is complete and we got round to the rear axel.  Now as I have this in my garage as apposed to in my Mother in-law's shed (thanks Avril, still grateful) I was quiet keen to discuss it with him.  He reviewed with me the parts that some times get worn and what I need to look out for.  So I got the axel out and was quite conscious of the state it was in:

So I set about it with with a scraper, some petrol and a wire brush and by the time Spurs were on TV it looked like this:

This afternoon I started the strip down and discovered that apart from a few insects the inside of the drive side of the brake drum was in surprisingly good condition.  The half shaft was perfect and many of the brake components were too.

You can see the half shaft sticking up in the air on the photo below in addition to the wheel bearing which is now exposed.  The eight sided nut that holds the wheel bearing / hub together is showing signs of treatment which suggest that previous mechanics didn't have the correct tools; in other words it has been chiseled to near death.
All the pistons in the brake cylinder are locked solid which may present a challenge but they are quite cheap so it should be manageable.

Having faffed around with the scooter I got down to looking at the Healey.  I did some of the welding that was left over from yesterday and fitted the wing back to the car.  Today is supposed to be the last day of the summer (August still, FFS) with rain due from the afternoon onwards so I decided to get the car out of the garage to look at it.

I know I have posted lots of photos that look all the same but it does actually feel like I am getting closer.   I had spent a while looking all over the car for things to work on when my wife returned from an open water swim.  I made a cup of tea and then the pair of us went round the whole car.  The door gaps are not consistent but other than one of them which I can address by playing with the door skin they are good enough.  One of the front wings, in fact the one I have been working on, had an odd shape in the arch section.  The front shroud is slightly buckled at the front.  The door sill is too low on the driver side for the trim to for correctly.  So all in all not bad.

I am going to deal with the shroud buckle but I don't know how just yet.
I am going to weld a return into the wing that I have been working on and will cut and shut the arch to improve the line down the side of the car.
I will look at the door skin to see if I can improve the door gap.
I am going to ignore the fact that the sill is too high on the driver side.  To do anything about it will require messing with the front and rear wing and the door.  In other words I have reached a point where I acknowledge that enough is enough on that issue.  I will modify the sill cover and be done with it.

I then cut the wing open, extracted a slice of metal and then welded it up again.  I effectively removed the kink or bow in it.

Feeling pretty cool about the car now.  Just need to deal with the shroud, weld a return in for the front wing and I can seriously begin to weld the car up, fit the boot and get on with it.  Exciting times indeed.

So I have just returned from France having spent a month there on the usual summer house exchange.  It was lovely.  In the house opposite where we were staying was this chap called Fay who was clearly a car nut.   I got talking to him and showed him pictures of the Healey.  He invited me to a classic car show in a village called Poussan a couple of weeks ago.  I had the most fabulous time and saw many many fabulous cars.  There were plenty of English cars there and more American cars than I would have expected but the old French cars were the steal of the show, they were just beautiful.  Oh well, summer holidays, happy days.

In the garage and reacquainted with the front wing that I was repairing the rear edge of I felt rather over whelmed by how poor the state of the thing was.

I'd forgotten that I had cut the middle of the wing in a bid to remove the bowed metal.  When I looked along the length of the wing the lines were shocking.  I started welding it up and then set about it with the hammer and dolly.  I finished forming the area to the bottom of the repair and was pleased with the outcome.

Th door gap does increase towards the bottom but overall it looks much better than it did previously.

Got to be happy with that.