I was going to start with the washers but got distracted by the grille.  I lined it up again and realised that it is a little further out than I would like.  I also realised that the screws that hold it to the trim were not all in and when I tried to add the remaining few it became obvious that it was out of alignment so I took it all to pieces again.  You can see the edges on one side are straight but not on the other.  Naturally I just hung it on the wall and got on with the washers.

I greatly enjoyed making the washers.  It probably took less time than it would have taken me to earn £16 as well, mind they still need a coat of paint.  The first picture shows the strip of metal marked for cutting.

So, having procrastinated for a long time I got the seats out.  And boy did the fun start.  First thing I noticed is that the piping is blue and I thought it would have been white.  I have bought blue leather with blue piping but in my memory the colour is a lot lighter than this navy colour, I will have to have a look.

I had a little try and thought it was very comfy.

 The strip down revealed a very rusty seat back.

The original seats had a lot of wadding on the inside of the cover and as my cushions have none of that I hope the seat covers have.

I had a little try of the electric seat panels for size, a very good fit, but don't tell anybody.

Then I started grinding.

And I did some more and then had lunch.  Then I came back and did some more.  Flippineck I had this wire wheel on an angle grinder going for hours and I only did one seat.  And I got proper dirty.

Once done, many hours later, I set about making a metal insert for the one area that is rotten.  By the time this was done I was too whacked to actually weld it.








































Now I realise that I need some more stuff.  I need the tacks which hold the leather on to the wooden strip on the bottom of the back, the rivets that hold that wood to the seat back, some wadding for the seat back and 4 bolts for the base.  This of course means I can't finish it this week.  I should have seen that coming.  I could start the second seat but every ounce of my common sense tells me to keep that intact until I have finished covering the seat I have started so I will wait.  I can do the bases though.

As an aside, have a look at the picture of the Healey next to our car.  The 100 is known as a big Healey because it was a big car and the BMW is a small 2 series.  The smallest new BMW dwarfed the biggest old Healey.