It took 3 more days of rubbing and polishing but I got there in the end.

I got to a point where I realised that I needed much more rubbing and a little less polishing to get it to a suitable level.  When I look at the first trim that I did I realise that it would have benefitted from being rubbed down more, oh well.  I guess that in years to come I can take it off the car and spend some more time on it but for now I am very happy to move beyond this job.  I feel like I have been rubbing down for the whole year and I don't want to rub a thing down again, ever.

I did some some sums and realised that I need a fair amount of money to get the car on the road. So I started selling stuff on eBay, lots of stuff, in fact anything I could get my hands on.  Now I had some old Healey bits kicking around that I listed and during the process got talking to some very interesting people.  I feel oddly like I am the only person in the UK restoring a Healey 100 even though I know that isn't true it is quite uncommon so I have greatly enjoyed talking to the people who have been in touch.  One of them got his trims polished professionally for £10 a trim.  I found this out last weekend when I still had 2 full days worth of effort left on my trims and I was sorely tempted to send them off.  I settled on the thought that this is a hobby and so I should do it rather than throw money at it.

What I did throw money at was a cover for the car whilst in the garage, eBay £20.  I have been getting worried that the car is going to get scratched rotten whilst I am working in the garage and so decided it needed some protection.  It is a 2 layer cover but pretty thin however, it is a start.  I might get an indoor one to put underneath it as well, something to ponder.

I have been in contact with John regarding the parts I need and discovered that he has a screen glass which I can have which is great as that will save some money.  The screen surround is being re-chromed and will take 12 weeks which means I can leave that whole area for now.  This is my list of things to do and a rough order:

You can see that fitting the wing chrome trim is top but for some reason I just don't want to do it, I have a deep feeling of impending doom which is without foundation so whilst I am girding my loins I will probably do all sorts of stuff apart from which is logical.  I bought a new propane blow torch yesterday and can see me removing all the bits of old metal from the windscreen pillars even though there is no need for that to happen.  I could do the steering wheel but that requires some rubbing and, well, I've covered that already.

The other thing I am going to do is order the bits I need for the seats even though I don't think that is a priority.  I going to do this as I think it is a possibility that I could get sent home from work at some point because of the Coronavirus outbreak.  Now it is a low levels in London at the moment but if we have an escalation of the likes seen in Italy then it is a real possibility and in that case I would want to have the stuff I need to do plenty of work on the car.  Feel quite grim to think like this.

On a brighter note I've discovered a few things in the last two weeks due to my conversations with people.  The first is that as a result of my desire to fit a modern and starter motor I have removed my current one and stuck it on eBay.  In conversation with an interesting chap called Nick I discovered that my current starter isn't from the car originally but from a Jaguar 1 1/2 litre or Triumph 1800 from the late 1940's.

In a separate discussion with John he thinks that there is a possibility that my solenoid might not be knackered, that would be good news.