Saturday was lost to my annual tax return creation and filing, watching Spurs win a FA Cup game and sorting out the scooter, oh and a very long bath.  Sunday was free for Healey time though.

The new leaf springs arrived and looked good.  I was confused though because Ahead 4 Healey's sell a pin for BN1/2 cars to ensure that the leaf springs mount to the car correctly, I had bought a pair at a cost of £21.44 plus shipping only to see the springs arrive with the exact same type of pin as the original leaf springs had?

I set about cleaning the packing plates and fitting the bump-stop rubbers.  The rubbers had the holes drilled in the wrong place, or was it that my frame had them in the wrong place?  Who knows, I drilled the correct holes and bolted them on.  Once done I couldn't help but wonder if they were in the correct positions as they look too far back, no idea at this stage.

At some point I will stop cursing the person who got the frame galvanised but it will be long after today.   The mounting brackets on the chassis for the front of the leaf spring were well and truly covered in the zinc coating and consequently the bolt for the spring bush was nowhere near to fitting.  It took an age to get the holes cleaned up because of such limited access.  Once done I fitted the spring and was struck by two thoughts.  Initially, the centre pin as shown below is clearly a long way in front of the bump-stop rubber.  Secondly, look how far below the chassis the spring sits.

Time for the axel installation.  I was dreading this as the axel is so damn heavy,  Whilst taking it out I was struck by the thought that when I wrapped it up I thought it would be in hiding for years rather than the few months it had been.  It was a tough job for one man, I needed many coffee breaks.

Eventually I got there.

Can you see how far above the leaf spring the axel is?  I knew this would be fun from here on in.

I went for the obvious option first, i.e. the jack and a block of wood but I was dreaming if I thought I'd get remotely close to it, the car lifted when the axel and spring were still 3+ inches apart.

So I called the Calvary in.  Vic had been cycling with her friend Patrick (100km, approx 4 hours, hills and constant rain/drizzle) and I knew they stopped for coffee towards the end so I sent a text asking if they could help me.  When they arrived I think they thought they'd be used in a technical capacity rather than just for ballast!

It took quite a bit of fiddling but I did eventually  I did get the thing mounted, amazing what a bit of ballast will do.

The time was slipping by so I decided to resurrect two of the wire wheels from the pile at the end of the garage.  They were pretty grim but it did occurs to me that they had been sat in the garden for over five years so I guess they had a right to be.

So today I painted the body of the U bolts then did some maintenance on the scooters, which naturally took longer than expected.

In my efforts to fit the axel and the wheels to check wing positioning I have decided that even though the old leaf springs are available I should fit new items.  I have ordered them but they are not with me so in need of something to do I decided to procrastinate by making some blind cavity nuts for the rear inner wings.  It was kind of fun.

Last week when I took the shroud off I saw plenty of the holes on the inner wing and shroud that didn't line up very well on the driver (off-side) of the car so I marked them.  When I removed the shroud I filed them back.  When I replaced the shroud I had a little bit of a heart attack because the near side holes didn't line up (they did before, perfectly) and the off-side now lined up with the original inner wing holes perfectly.  Bloody hell, I dread to think what the wing position and dreaded door gap is going to be now.  

Naturally I started thinking about everything again and had a bit of a brain wave, why not fit the rear axel and wheels to see if the wheel position is good within the wings?  So I sat down last Sunday evening and looked through the Ahead 4 Healeys online catalogue for all the bits I'll need.  I was pleasantly surprised when I read the details for the clamps and then horrified when I took a second look and saw the small detail about BN1- BN1.221535 and realised that my bill was going to be significantly more.

Now at about £29 plus tax and postage I was looking at the best part of £150 which when compared to the cost of the other U Bolts was very alarming.  So whilst moaning to myself very loudly I decided to see why this was the case.  I started by writing an email to AH4H to ask why there was such a price difference.  Then I decided to look back through my photos of the car when I stripped it down; it was so long ago now I couldn't remember what that area was like.

I then realised that they were completely different to the regular U bolt shape.  I couldn't remember taking the axel off and had a horrible feeling that I may have got heavy with the angle grinder and just cut the brackets to pieces.  Even if I hadn't done that I was worried that the things were just too worn to be re-used.  I was worried.  I wrote a second email to AH4H to explain that I'd been a silly billy.

On Tuesday evening I managed to get to my In-laws and rummage around in the shed.  I couldn't believe my luck when I saw the springs which contained the clamps and the aluminium spaces (£15 each so another good one).  For sure the threads looked a tad rusty but I hoped they would work again.

Yesterday, Saturday, I got to grips with the brackets and found that they have weathered well.

Above they are de-rusted and below they are drying on the radiator having had the threads painted.

Sunny Sunday and the garage door was opened again, yippee.  One of the struts that I extended yesterday was quite rotten on the opposite end to one I worked on the day before so I cut it off and set about making a replacement.

I think it has taken a long time for me to renovate these components but I have really enjoyed it, would I have paid Ahead 4 Healeys for the part if they had actually sold it?  I suspect I would have done,.......

I then tack welded the rear shroud support strut in place and removed the shroud.  I can't remember the last time I have had the shroud off the car and it certainly looked different with all the recent additions.

When I removed the shroud the front support panel popped forward an inch or so which troubled me some.  The panel below is the dividing panel between the spare wheel area and the battery switch compartment and as you can see it doest fit well.  This makes me think that front shroud support is positioned well, flippineck it never ends.

I removed the door catch when I took the shroud off and decided to get involved with the door shut, yet again, by grinding down the top section of the welded up join and adjusting the B post back at the top.

I know this isn't the actual door shut below but at least the supporting body work is pretty good.  I think I might be going a little soft in the head.

The newly restored struts in place, I am ready to refit the shroud.

Earlier, before I removed the shroud I noticed and marked up the holes that didn't quite line up on the off side inner wing and shroud.  When removed I then enlarged those apertures to make sure they aligned well.  The near side was fine so I left it well alone.  So I was naturally frustrated to see that when the shroud was reinstalled it lined up perfectly to the original holes on the off side but was out on the near side.  Flippineck.  I haven't put the wings back on yet but I suspect that the door gaps are going to be all over the place, again.  I suspect I am going to need lots of patience with this car.

Saturday again and in the garage for some more car time.  I nearly got a ticket for the Spurs game against Sunderland but lost out in the death so I nearly never made it in here at all.

I decided that I needed to weld the panel at the front of the shroud in first before I could weld the rear one in; no reason for that, just felt right.  Played around with it for a while and ended up screwing it in to the shroud to get the panel located nicely, then I welded it in. 

I then set about making the struts that go between the two vertically mounted panels longer.  They had been cut down by whoever made the car in to  2 + 2.  Here you can see the original strut next to the extended one.  I did this by welding to L shaped sections together that I cobbled together from an unused inner sill.  It was very enjoyable work but I spent the whole day in the garage and feel like I didn't exactly get loads done.  Oh well, there is always tomorrow.  And Spurs won 4-1 so I have Match of The Day to look forward to tonight.

I started Sunday morning by looking for the part that I thought I had bought.  It was nowhere to be seen so after a lot of head scratching I decided that perhaps I didn't buy that section after all.  So I continued with the rust removal.

I decided to make a 'jig' for the section of the L shaped metal that needed replacing and essentially screwed it to the bench then cut out the rusty piece.  I cut the new replacement section to length and welded it it as shown below:

 Having replaced the section I painted it.  All done for the next time.

Decided to keep the shroud mounting rear support and as that is next of the parts to fit working from rear to front I set about cleaning it up.

The original part is shown in the red paint I obtained it in. (I know the original colour was Healey Blue).

Having attacked it with a wire wheel on the angle grinder I removed the components that were really rusted to allow for better rust removal.

So it is Saturday night and whilst sat on the sofa chilling out I look back through the original document I have which details what inner body panels I bought from Ahead 4 Healey's a while back when I realise I have bought this panel already.  I'm confused as I cleaned the garage out last week and never saw it, some thorough detective work is required.....