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.