Sunny Sunday and the garage door was opened again, yippee.  One of the struts that I extended yesterday was quite rotten on the opposite end to one I worked on the day before so I cut it off and set about making a replacement.

I think it has taken a long time for me to renovate these components but I have really enjoyed it, would I have paid Ahead 4 Healeys for the part if they had actually sold it?  I suspect I would have done,.......

I then tack welded the rear shroud support strut in place and removed the shroud.  I can't remember the last time I have had the shroud off the car and it certainly looked different with all the recent additions.

When I removed the shroud the front support panel popped forward an inch or so which troubled me some.  The panel below is the dividing panel between the spare wheel area and the battery switch compartment and as you can see it doest fit well.  This makes me think that front shroud support is positioned well, flippineck it never ends.

I removed the door catch when I took the shroud off and decided to get involved with the door shut, yet again, by grinding down the top section of the welded up join and adjusting the B post back at the top.

I know this isn't the actual door shut below but at least the supporting body work is pretty good.  I think I might be going a little soft in the head.

The newly restored struts in place, I am ready to refit the shroud.

Earlier, before I removed the shroud I noticed and marked up the holes that didn't quite line up on the off side inner wing and shroud.  When removed I then enlarged those apertures to make sure they aligned well.  The near side was fine so I left it well alone.  So I was naturally frustrated to see that when the shroud was reinstalled it lined up perfectly to the original holes on the off side but was out on the near side.  Flippineck.  I haven't put the wings back on yet but I suspect that the door gaps are going to be all over the place, again.  I suspect I am going to need lots of patience with this car.

Saturday again and in the garage for some more car time.  I nearly got a ticket for the Spurs game against Sunderland but lost out in the death so I nearly never made it in here at all.

I decided that I needed to weld the panel at the front of the shroud in first before I could weld the rear one in; no reason for that, just felt right.  Played around with it for a while and ended up screwing it in to the shroud to get the panel located nicely, then I welded it in. 

I then set about making the struts that go between the two vertically mounted panels longer.  They had been cut down by whoever made the car in to  2 + 2.  Here you can see the original strut next to the extended one.  I did this by welding to L shaped sections together that I cobbled together from an unused inner sill.  It was very enjoyable work but I spent the whole day in the garage and feel like I didn't exactly get loads done.  Oh well, there is always tomorrow.  And Spurs won 4-1 so I have Match of The Day to look forward to tonight.

I started Sunday morning by looking for the part that I thought I had bought.  It was nowhere to be seen so after a lot of head scratching I decided that perhaps I didn't buy that section after all.  So I continued with the rust removal.

I decided to make a 'jig' for the section of the L shaped metal that needed replacing and essentially screwed it to the bench then cut out the rusty piece.  I cut the new replacement section to length and welded it it as shown below:

 Having replaced the section I painted it.  All done for the next time.

Decided to keep the shroud mounting rear support and as that is next of the parts to fit working from rear to front I set about cleaning it up.

The original part is shown in the red paint I obtained it in. (I know the original colour was Healey Blue).

Having attacked it with a wire wheel on the angle grinder I removed the components that were really rusted to allow for better rust removal.

So it is Saturday night and whilst sat on the sofa chilling out I look back through the original document I have which details what inner body panels I bought from Ahead 4 Healey's a while back when I realise I have bought this panel already.  I'm confused as I cleaned the garage out last week and never saw it, some thorough detective work is required.....

Having tried the panels that fit on top of the battery and realising that things are not well aligned I returned to the original chassis which is growing old gracefully outside the rear of our house.  It was very nice to measure something and know whether or not I was in the correct position; it feels as if I have been making educated guesses for years now and all of a sudden I have actual tangible reference points.

I noticed a few extra brackets on the original chassis that I don't have on the new one such as the brake pipe one shown in the picture above and the one next to the battery mount in the photo below. I don't even know what that does!

So armed with tangible data I knew that the very first thing I put on the new chassis was 1cm too far back so off it came.

I was a little concerned that the handbrake was 1cm too far back as well so fitted it to check that it worked properly.  It did, but it looked awfully tired, especially around the teeth area.

With the chassis cleaned up and ready for replacement of the tunnel:

I became a little concerned about the alignment so got the laser guide machine out and set it up the show the centre line on the car.

Once happy I had the tunnel central I welded it back in place.  I then mounted and welded the panel that the spare wheel sit on.








































Next was the rear shroud support panel that fitted in place and made the car feel more like a car.  I have some fettling to do on this and it was rapidly approaching lunch time so I called it a day in order to take down the Christmas tree and get ready for the pub as Spurs were playing Everton at
4:00.

I think I should have posted a picture of the finished clean up yesterday:

It feels much roomier now.  Temporary procrastination over and I looked at one peculiarity on the rear inner wheel arches.  The bump stop boxes fit on the near side but not on the off side because the captive nuts were welded in the incorrect position; something that always baffled me.

You can see that the captive nuts are about 1 cm too high.  The other side is perfect though, weird huh!

So I took the captive nuts off and welded up the hole then replaced them in the correct position.

I then turned my attention back to the boot and welded in the rail that runs around the very back of the boot area.  Then I completed the brackets that support this rail.

The next job was the panel that the spare wheel sits on which I temporarily positioned as shown.  

I then tried to fit the panels that sit above the batteries only to discover that they don't exactly fit.  I then looked at the rear tunnel cover and rear heel board only to decide that the tunnel cover is too far back in the car.  Odd really as this was the very first panel I fitted and I am sure I would have measured it to death.  It is only tacked in place though so I think it will be removed and repositioned next time.

My wife and I were looking back through some photos on the computer over the Christmas holiday when we came to a picture of John Henderson's 100 that I took when I went to see him and his car.  I had a lovely time and got a lot of useful information from that meeting.  We came across the picture because I had looked at it earlier in the day for reference purposes.  Anyway, we saw John last summer at a Healey open day at Orchard Restorations and his car looked fabulous.  He asked how my car was getting along and I said it was in about the same position that his was when I saw it.  On the drive home I felt good about things as that original meeting hadn't been too long ago and therefore I felt that I was making steps with my car.  However, my wife commented on the date of the photo which was 2009 and all of a sudden I felt a little glum.  You see that John's car at that point was way ahead of where my car is now.  I have a lot to do and the years are floating by.  Also, the parts are getting more expensive by the month.  In fact the finished cars are getting more expensive too, I got a eBay notification of a 100 put up for sale at £79,500.  How much is that for an old car?

So I decided that I really should get a wriggle on with the car.  My wife asked how I was going to do that and I said a few things including that I wouldn't procrastinate any more........

Today I went into the garage to continue with the boot area.  I'm not sure how it happened but I got distracted and started cleaning up the garage.  My wife came in, snapped a few photos and asked me about procrastination with a smile,........  I spent the afternoon in the garage and did nothing but clean out under the bench.