Christmas 2014, day 3, New Years Day in fact.  Started off by cutting a section out of the wing and then tacking it together which improved the door gap.

Then I added the lower section of the wing, again after removing some metal.

The door gap looks good now although I am going to cut out the lower edge and replace it.  However, the wing is looking like a patchwork quilt, this is going to take some work to get it flat and ready for paint.









































The shape is looking better though so I am happy with that.

Christmas 2014, day 2 and still on the wing.  Over my first coffee I discovered that the main issue left with the wing was that it is still too big, as in too tall.  When I pull the wing down it sits much cleaner on the car.  So I decided to cut some more metal out of it only this this time by going across other than down.  I also decided that I should fit the sill first as the wing has to sit over this and I wanted to make sure that it was not going to have an impact on the final wing position before I went too far.  To do this I needed to clean up some of the tack welds on the sill section and indeed finish the welding on any areas that would be covered by the sill.  This meant welding on the chassis section that had been galvanised by the previous owner and this created lots of smoke:

Eventually the sill was ready for fitting having tidied up the inner sill and painted it with the usual weld through primer.

The sill was simple enough but like every other panel did require some modification, this time it was too long in the section that sits between the wings and below the door, the newly acquired Oxy-Acetelyne was called into action for that.

So I then pondered the next cut for a coffee or two and then went for it

Once done the wing settled nicely and looked a much better fit.  However, as this is before I have welded the lower section back on I will avoid getting too excited.  Once again my eye was drawn to the rear section which was not quite right, the door gap was not now as good as it could be and before long I was cutting again, this time over the first cut I did a few months back.  At this stage time caught up with me and I washed up and headed inside to light the fire and debate the days progress with the dog over a cold Guinness.

Well Christmas is past but the holiday period is not, a lovely time of year for a teacher.  I am a little disturbed by my lack of access to the garage during the last term, not a single visit, must try harder, must try harder, must....... you get the gist.  I was lucky enough to get some Di2 components for my bike from Santa so I need to fit some time in for the bikes as well, think I need to be more disciplined.

Anyway, yesterday I had an uninterrupted day in the garage and having cleared the bikes out and moved the car over to one side I spent a few minutes deciding what was next to do.

I decided to finish the wing off properly and then work backwards.  By finish the wing off I meant get it ready for final filling / lead loading.  There are some issues which I tried to capture in the photos.

The lower rear edge is shocking (as is the door gap at this point)
The wheel arch has two shocking repairs
The wing in badly bowed in the central area above and below the aperture for the flash trim

I decided to start with the lower rear edge and cut off a section of steel from an un wanted sill, cleaned it up and folded it into shape but lost my nerve before cutting the original off.

Then I turned my attention to the bowed area which is not that visible in the photos but stands out like a sore thumb to me when I look down the line.  I decided that to reduce the bow I should cut into the wing and weld it up again.  Simple plan.

Sure enough, it got rid of the bow, well, more precisely it changed it from bowing outwards to bowing inwards (convex to concave?) which feels better but certainly not finished, umm.

Having cut and welded below the aperture it made the bow above it more pronounced so I cut in to the top section as well.  So now that area is bowed in as well.  When I look down the line of the car it is better than it was but it is not right.   Also, it makes the area around the wheel arch look really bowed out now.  So basically I have just shifted the problem, such is life.

I'm about to walk the dog, have breakfast and then get back in to the garage for the next stint. Looking forward to it already.

Not much energy to get in the garage after work recently and the weekends have been consumed by other stuff.  Last weekend I did go to the classic cars show at the Birmingham NEC with my wife and had a lovely day wandering around.

I spoke with Pro Strip about dipping the wings and think I will have to bite the bullet and do that.  I feel a little annoyed that I spend £310 getting them blasted only to realise that it isn't really the answer.  My issue with the wings now is that there is clearly some rust still in the steel which is visible in the crevices of the steel and there must be rust in the returns for the wheel aperture (where the wing wraps around a steel wire to form the edge) and in the A post (at the rear of the front wing, where it is bolted to the A post) because these are hidden by metal and therefore not accessible to the sandblasting process.  I knew that the returns wouldn't get blasted but when I saw rust in the wing surface both on the inside and the outside I was a little disturbed.  Anyway, with the wings now clear of filler and layers of paint I can at least cut/shut and beat them to the desired shape.

Working this weekend, which for a teacher is a pain and doing a coast to coast cycle next weekend so not sure when I can get on with it.

Today, Saturday and I have a whole day in the garage, yippee.  I was a little troubled by the after effects of the sandblasting as I really expected the process to get rid of all of the rust on the wings but it didn't.  I'm not sure if the person who did it did not really do it well or if I was just expecting too much.  Either way I have spent the idle moments of the past week thinking about it.

The first photo shows the outside of one of the wings and it doesn't look too bad.  You can see the lead work to the very right of the wing, just above the headlight aperture.  All the wings had some lead work on them.

The next photo shows the inside of one of the wings and it is easy to see that there is still rust present in the pitted section of the metal.  This is what has been stressing me.

Even on the outside of one wing rust is still visible.

I have firm memories of the MKII MG Midget that I 'restored' (I use the term loosely) when I was a kid that started bubbling up with rust within months of finishing it and it stressed me out in a major way.  I know I'll be so cheesed off if this Healey does the same so I cannot plough on from here without knowing that I have it under control.  I have POR15 rust encapsulator paint and some weld through primer but couldn't work our the best way forward so I contacted Frosts, the classic car restorers supplier for advice.  They were very cool and suggested I use the primer for now to prevent any new surface rust developing and then complete all welding work.  Once done I should then use the POR15 products.  This I decided was a sound way forward so I decided to get the painting over and done with asap.

I woke quite early and was pleased as the weather forecast was for rain from mid morning onwards.  I had to feed the dog, do some shopping and then feed myself before I could head for the garage which meant that I didn't get out until 9:00.  I got the car out of the garage and hung the panels off the roof supports for painting.  I did a quick dust coat and then a full coat as quick as I could.  It took until gone 10:00 and by that time it was looking like rain so I patiently waited for the lot to dry so that I could unhook them and return the car to the safety of the garage, I only just made it.

Painting cars is lovely, It felt really nice to see the wings looking smart in a single colour and hanging from the roof.  Whilst waiting for the paint to dry I tried the aluminium bonnet I brought back from Norfolk for size, you can see it isn't great.  I'm rather glad I also have a steel bonnet to use, I must dig that out and try it too.

I then got rather distracted by the boot area and tried the boot floor for size, of course it didn't fit and so I spent a while cutting, hammering etc. before I started to put the wings back on.

I felt that the inner wing had too large a return on it so I cut that back to enable the rear shroud to fit better.

Here you can see the trimmed section.

With the floor in and the shroud on it became clear that I needed some further cutting and shutting.  I did some but lost patience with it so I took the floor out and returned to the wings.

I put the wings back on and realised that the rear shroud was in need of quite some adjustments so I took that off and spent some time 'adjusting' it.

Once the wings were back on I realised that the car is starting to look a lot cleaner.

Next job, fit the sill and finish the off side front wing before working backwards.  

Until next time.

I picked up the wings on Saturday, photos to follow.  I will hopefully get them in primer tomorrow after work.  They looked better than I suspected they would although a few new holes did show up.  I will need to use metal ready to get the rust out of the area that have returns such as the beading around the wheel arch and the return on the rear of the wings.  It was surprising to see that there are more than a few repairs by lead on the wings and this escaped the dipping and sandblasting procedure, I'll be leaving it now.

I did walk the dog then overcooked my scrambled eggs so the dog had a great start to the day, he's sleeping and snoring as I type.

I tacked the two wing sections together and felt happy instantly:

As you can see the door gap looks reasonable for the time being and it all lines up well.  I removed it again, welded it, ground down the welds and refitted it to the car:

The line along the car is much, much better.  There is still a slight bulge but it isn't massive, I suspect I will still have to make some more cuts to remove it but we are talking very much better than before.  Once ground down the welded area hardly shows which will make paint prep easy enough when that time comes.

I took all four wings to Vernon to get them dipped and blasted which all be done by Saturday, excellent.  I'm away now until the weekend so I suspect that my opportunities for the Healey will be somewhat restricted moving forward but I'm feeling positive from recent progress so I hope I get in on it as often as I can.