It was a lovely bright morning in sunny North London so I decided to make the most of it and extract the original chassis from it's long term storage in the pursuit of any remaining clamps or brackets that I may need.

I quickly found some brackets in the boot area for tank straps and the like.

The chassis in all its glory.

The main thing I was after was the battery brackets.  I managed to obtain the brackets for the battery clamps but the bars were a little tricky to get at so I left them and thought I'd find out how much a new set would be.  If they are very expensive then I'll return for the originals later on.

This was my plunder.

So I returned the chassis to its resting place and headed inside.

I got the wiper motor tray and removed the surface rust and coated it with my new paint.

I then started on the near side inner wheel arch.  I noticed during the fitting process that the chassis leg needed some welding before I could fit the wheel arch and duly took care of it.  I did wonder if the other side had the same issues that I failed to spot, umm.

I had to remove the bracket for the shroud again which was no surprise.

It went in quite easily with the knowledge gained from yesterdays events.

I noticed something quiet quickly though which set off a chain of thoughts that were far from settling.  The joint on the wheel arch is on the outside of the shroud.  All the pictures I've seen of other cars have it on the inside, as is the case for the off side I installed yesterday.

Now I have two scenarios that quickly play in mind.  Initially I am troubled by the thought that I have the body installed on the chassis in an off centre position.  Something that has plagued me since I installed the shroud and the front bulkhead all those years ago.  If this is the case then it is for this reason that I tack welded all of the panels to date, just in case I have to return to them and move them.  However, if that is the case then I am looking at completely going back to the start and it would be horrific to say the least.  Now at every stage I have measured what is available and it has been as even as I could expect so surely I can't have gone and got it wrong?

The second scenario is that the inner wheel arch is just made differently on this side.  Not an impossibility by any means. I wouldn't be troubled if this was the case as the joint in the inner wheel arch is very much hidden from view on a completed car so it would have no impact.  My fingers are crossed. 

The only way to be sure is to repeat the process of installing the wheels that was tried on the back end a few weeks back with great success.  It occurs to me that whilst the wheel position at the back was very even from both sides I didn't actually look at the back of the car from a distance to see it looked balanced which I now wish I had done.  Anyway the front king pin / wishbone set up is still intact albeit with the shocks and the drums removed so it should be a simple task to get it mounted and check.  I will dig these parts out over the weekend and go for it.  I'm either going to be happy, very happy or extremely stressed by the outcome of this little adventure so I will be doing it quickly as this is no time for procrastination.  If it is a positive outcome then its full steam ahead and if is not then I will have some soul searching to do.  I can imagine somebody reading this and thinking, what sort of amateur am I.  After all, how can anybody expect to build a 100 BN1 out of a chassis of unknown origin and a bunch of replica panels in a shed at the end of their garden and get away with it?

Back to more humdrum thoughts, taking the front wings off and replacing them will be much harder now that the inner wheel arches are in place.  This is made worse because the car is on a trolley and so higher up than it would be on its wheels meaning that I can't actually reach in to the wing bolts from the shroud because I'm a about a foot too short; I'm not a short man.