I knew about the tray, but,....

I'm adjusting to life of the long holiday, miles from home and nothing to do apart from read, swim, food and drink.  I can't pretend that it is hard but every year it takes a while to settle into.  This year I decided that one of the things I would do is to watch all of the 100/6 restoration videos created on youtube by Matthew Randell.  Oh how I wish he had bought a BN1 rather than a 100/6.  So I was settled down for the night and gently ploughing through #38 when I noticed this:

There are many things to admire about his work, his attitude and his skills so it should be stated quickly that what shocked me about this is that it highlighted what I haven't done.  Damn, I'm such a donkey.  It is only five days since I happily finished spray painting the chassis and I know now that I have got more damn, big bloody damn, welding to do.  I never got round to welding on the bracket for the panhard rod, damn, damn, big bloody damn.  I wouldn't mind but the bracket has been kicking around my bench for years, I'm sick of the sight of it.  It would have taken about 3 minutes to weld on. Damn. Seriously, how could I be such a donkey?

Now there has been a little elephant in the room for some time, I know that I haven't welded on the sets of steel U channels that are mounted upside down on chassis in the very same area as the panhard rod bracket to support the batteries.  I remembered that I'd cut them off the original chassis a year or two ago (18 months to be precise) and that I'd had no option but to butcher them to get them off.  I'd been somewhat perplexed that Ahead 4 Healey's hadn't sold them and that I'd need to fabricate some for the car.  I haven't done this because I am not entirely convinced that I should go for one battery rather than two.  And, what type and therefore size of battery.  I'd consciously decided to leave this and make some brackets up at a later date and bolt them to the car rather than weld them.  Deep down I suspected that I might come to regret this approach but I was none then less aware of it.

So I took a look through the photos to find my recollections from the day that I cut the last bits and pieces off the original chassis and found these:


The collection of brackets taken from the original chassis in February 2016

Included in them are picture of the battery mounting

channels, seen here from the underside.

This is what I managed to salvage.  The bracket 

includes a threaded section for the battery clamp

The final part of my discovery was this bracket:

This is the bracket that the flexible brake hose mounts to.  

So I guess that I should bite the bullet and manufacture a set of U channels for the a battery mount, a bracket for the brake hose and weld the lot on along with the panhard rod to the one chassis leg that is exposed in the rear axel area.  I really hope I contain the damage caused by the grinding and welding to a very small area.  Oh well.