I have worked on two areas in the past few  months, the rear axel and the front wing.

I stripped the brake components off the axel and set about cleaning them up for replacement at a later date.  I was very pleased to see that the differential looks in fine fettle with no obvious defect in the gearing teeth.  It took quiet a while to clean up the edges that mate together with a gasket.

I have been having a battle with myself over the past month about final wing preparation.  I had decided last November at the Classic Car Show that I would get them all dipped and e-coated at an estimated cost of £320 for the four wings.  Recently though I have been having doubts about it, principally around the two main issues I have with it: cost and agro of getting the wings to the stripping company and back again.  I tried to find the name of the company I met at the show last year but haven't managed it yet but the costs of getting it done with the industry leader is prohibitive. I then decided that I should go it myself and buy a sandblasting machine.

I also bought a sandblast cabinet and a whole load of sand/grit.  The machine shown above did a grand job of the axel but used £30 worth of grit in a blink of an eye.  This was the reason I bought the cabinet as it recycles the sand.  I bought fine sand to do the wings with and rough grit for the cabinet only to discover that the cabinet wouldn't work with the grit and the fine sand is too fine.  It feels very frustrating as I have spent over £120 on sand/grit so far and yet to get the right solution.

The axel ready for paint.

And painted:

The brake drums ready for paint.  I ordered hi temp POR15 paint for it and am looking forward to seeing them done.

I have greatly enjoyed working on the rear axel, it makes a fine change to welding, grinding, hitting, removing and refitting and all the other things I have been doing to the panels.  However, I am very close to being finished with the main panel beating which is great.  The passenger side is now sorted out.  I think the the driver side needs some work doing on the sill area to overcome my errors in fitting it too high for the aluminium door shut trim.  I am a little worried about this as this side has been more extensively welded than the passenger side.  I will have to get the car out and swap it round so that I can have a look.

To finish of the passenger side I needed to weld the wheel aperture edge and file it off to get the correct shape and create and fit a return edge for the lower section of the inner wing.  Below you can see the missing section and then the newly fitted section.

I need to look at the sill area on the there side next but am starting to think that I can finally blast the wings and then take care of the rust before I move on to the welding of the chassis.  I have the boot area to create and then I need to run over every weld I have done to make the care solid and ready for painting which is pretty exciting.

Well I have a confession to make, I have been in the garage in the last two months but got our of the habit of updating this blog, sorry.  So when I look back at the photos I have taken I realise I can't remember what I did and when, oops.  When push comes to shove I didn't get in the garage as much as I could have over the last two months but I did do other car stuff like visiting the International Auto-jumble at Beaulieu for the first time (I've been to the museum before but never the jumble) and I couldn't believe how cool it was.  I was lucky enough to go with my wife and the dog on what was a fabulous weekend weather wise.  I visited every stand and only bought some gasket paper which is amusing.  


The dog left in the dog area whilst we look round the museum.

When we return he isn't looking so happy!

Cow challenges on the way home, freaky for a Londoner

I also visited the annual open day at Rawles which again was with my wife and the dog.  It felt amazing to be around so many Healey's although there were only a few 100's in the crowd.  I have pretty much been to both Rawles and Orchard Restorations open days for the past 5 or 6 years and every time I went for the first 2 or 3 years I saw a 100 in pieces being worked on then nothing but 3000's.  Better luck next year.