And sanding.  Seriously sick of sanding now and I have loads to do still.

To take my mind off the sanding I decided to take these bolts out that are for the exhaust mounts and which had been placed in the frame prior to it being galvanised.  Like a donut I just put a socked on it and turned which caused it to sheer off.  I was somewhat frustrated with myself.  I got the heat out and the second came off easily.  I then drilled  a hole in the snapped bolt and heated the area before trying the stud extractor tool I have, to my complete surprise it came out instantly.  A complete result.

Now, back to the sanding.

And sanding,

Been sanding.

My wife and I went to a wedding last weekend which was rather enjoyable but limiting in garage time.  I started this weekend with a visit to the opticians at 9:15 but as I had woken early and the weather was nice I took the Triumph out for a pre-breakfast ride.  This post comes with a history lesson; the bank in the background of the picture is actually Barclays Bank in Enfield and it was the first bank in the UK to have a cash point machine in 1967. 

I'm biased but the Triumph looks bloody lovely.

Back to the garage and I am in full pre-paint mode.  I have spent quite a lot of time researching paint and the best order to do things in and have settled on the following:  I am going to rub down all easily visible paint and apply an epoxy primer to the inner bodywork.  Then I will paint with top coat and lacquer.  My main issue is that I want to paint the whole lot in a small number of days so that I don't have to get in to keying up the primer for the top coat.  This seems simple but as I have to prime both the underside and top of the inner bodywork before doing the same for the colour coat I have got some challenges.  Aside from everything else actually getting the car on its side so that I can paint the underside is very tricky and requires two people.

There are a few last minute jobs before I commit to paint including fitting the screen to check that it is properly aligned.  To do that I needed to renovate the frame, well I did at least have to get it back together having dismantled it to get the broken glass out.  One of the screen pillars is still attached to the frame but the other is in need of some work because the screws that attach the frame to it have sheared off during dismantling, I assume. 

I did get them out of some of the holes but I had to be a little assertive on two of them which needed me to put a larger hole and then thread in.  I may drill new holes in the frame in new locations and go back to the original size screws prior to final fitment.

I need to buy a frame mounting kit which isn't too expensive but I saw no point in ordering it at this stage so I took a fairly crude approach to getting the frame together.

So the purpose of doing all this was to check that the screen fits onto the inner bodywork correctly. Naturally I expected it not to fit and for me to be faced with lots of head scratching but no, if fitted just fine first time.  I was quiet shocked.

The frame does look a little higher on one side but I suspect this is only because the shroud isn't fitted so I am ignoring it.

I also trial fitted the tunnel and connecting section just to see if all was ok, it was.

Then it was down to some serious sanding.  My hand still hurt and I have loads to do.

I always thought that I would relish this phase but I am mind numbingly bored by the process of sanding and sanding and sanding.  Oh well.  I have a school holiday coming up and hope to get it primed and then into colour and that will be exciting.

A fairly nice day on the car.  I managed to find out that this peg that a linkage sits on is a UNF 3/8 24 pitch thread from the AHEXP website.  I also happen to have a dir of that size so after cleaning up the spigot section I run the die along the thread and it cleaned up very well.

I finished the welding underneath the car and got Vic's friend Vas to help me get it back onto the trolley.  My lovely wife offered to help initially and I stupidly agreed toggle it a go but it was too heavy and she is now walking with a crutch.  I am keeping my head down and doing exactly what is requested.

Once on the trolley I started cleaning up the inner body and have a fair amount of it ready for paint.

I got the windscreen out of cold storage and discovered that it is tired.  I knew the glass was cracked but The frame has it's issues too.  One side of the screen has the screen pillar attached and one side doesn't. That side has been wrapped off at some point which is a tad frustrating.

The frame is clearly damaged where a mounting screw has been wrenched out.

However, if you look carefully you can see that the screen frame on the other side is also cracked which makes me think that is a common fault.  Now all I need to do is find out how to repair them.

I have three weeks until half term when I would like to paint the inner body work.  I have check that the tunnel fits, fit the windscreen successfully and get the body ready for paint.  Ouch, this is going to hurt.

However, this evening I saw a video I took 4.5 years ago and the car didn't look too dissimilar from how it looks today, I need to up the pace on this.

Here goes,....