So I naturally reviewed the wing after I had taken the section out and decided that I still had work to do on  section above the aperture for the chrome trim which still had a bow on it.  Did a little cutting and welding and that is now better.

Last Monday I visited John from the 100 Register fame to collect my petrol gauge which he has restored for me, it looks lovely:

I then had a discussion with John about the parts I may need before the restoration is complete and we got round to the rear axel.  Now as I have this in my garage as apposed to in my Mother in-law's shed (thanks Avril, still grateful) I was quiet keen to discuss it with him.  He reviewed with me the parts that some times get worn and what I need to look out for.  So I got the axel out and was quite conscious of the state it was in:

So I set about it with with a scraper, some petrol and a wire brush and by the time Spurs were on TV it looked like this:

This afternoon I started the strip down and discovered that apart from a few insects the inside of the drive side of the brake drum was in surprisingly good condition.  The half shaft was perfect and many of the brake components were too.

You can see the half shaft sticking up in the air on the photo below in addition to the wheel bearing which is now exposed.  The eight sided nut that holds the wheel bearing / hub together is showing signs of treatment which suggest that previous mechanics didn't have the correct tools; in other words it has been chiseled to near death.
All the pistons in the brake cylinder are locked solid which may present a challenge but they are quite cheap so it should be manageable.

Having faffed around with the scooter I got down to looking at the Healey.  I did some of the welding that was left over from yesterday and fitted the wing back to the car.  Today is supposed to be the last day of the summer (August still, FFS) with rain due from the afternoon onwards so I decided to get the car out of the garage to look at it.

I know I have posted lots of photos that look all the same but it does actually feel like I am getting closer.   I had spent a while looking all over the car for things to work on when my wife returned from an open water swim.  I made a cup of tea and then the pair of us went round the whole car.  The door gaps are not consistent but other than one of them which I can address by playing with the door skin they are good enough.  One of the front wings, in fact the one I have been working on, had an odd shape in the arch section.  The front shroud is slightly buckled at the front.  The door sill is too low on the driver side for the trim to for correctly.  So all in all not bad.

I am going to deal with the shroud buckle but I don't know how just yet.
I am going to weld a return into the wing that I have been working on and will cut and shut the arch to improve the line down the side of the car.
I will look at the door skin to see if I can improve the door gap.
I am going to ignore the fact that the sill is too high on the driver side.  To do anything about it will require messing with the front and rear wing and the door.  In other words I have reached a point where I acknowledge that enough is enough on that issue.  I will modify the sill cover and be done with it.

I then cut the wing open, extracted a slice of metal and then welded it up again.  I effectively removed the kink or bow in it.

Feeling pretty cool about the car now.  Just need to deal with the shroud, weld a return in for the front wing and I can seriously begin to weld the car up, fit the boot and get on with it.  Exciting times indeed.

So I have just returned from France having spent a month there on the usual summer house exchange.  It was lovely.  In the house opposite where we were staying was this chap called Fay who was clearly a car nut.   I got talking to him and showed him pictures of the Healey.  He invited me to a classic car show in a village called Poussan a couple of weeks ago.  I had the most fabulous time and saw many many fabulous cars.  There were plenty of English cars there and more American cars than I would have expected but the old French cars were the steal of the show, they were just beautiful.  Oh well, summer holidays, happy days.

In the garage and reacquainted with the front wing that I was repairing the rear edge of I felt rather over whelmed by how poor the state of the thing was.

I'd forgotten that I had cut the middle of the wing in a bid to remove the bowed metal.  When I looked along the length of the wing the lines were shocking.  I started welding it up and then set about it with the hammer and dolly.  I finished forming the area to the bottom of the repair and was pleased with the outcome.

Th door gap does increase towards the bottom but overall it looks much better than it did previously.

Got to be happy with that.

What with it being half term holiday and my lovely wife being away for Ironman training I managed to get a few days in the garage this week.  I also managed to get to Orchard Restorations for their annual open day with my wife and Wilf the Bulldog which was great, more on that later.

I returned to the car and set about finishing the wing.  I fitted it to the car and decided to get straight to the chase and weld it up without any faffing about and it seems to have come out really well.

I then looked at the rear inner section which had lots of pin holes in it (not clearly visible in the photo) so I set about cutting off the original and making a new section.

I kind of like this type of activity, It is one big puzzle to be solved.

Slowly but surely I got there.

It took most of the day though, measuring, cutting, bending & measuring again etc.

At last, all welded.



























I then looked at the side in a little more detail and decided I needed to work on the front wing lower rear edge.  I did the same on the other side so I know what to do.

One of the things that has been teasing my brain is the amount of cut-off that I need on the B post.  Not sure why actually apart from it being really obvious that it would need cutting back from the very first time I welded the inner wing on.  I decided to buy the  aluminium panel that sit on the inner wing and sill to enable me to work out what metal I need to remove.  Only when I fitted it I came across an unexpected issue.  This is what they look like on John Hendrusson's 100 BN1.

And this is what they look like when trial fitted to my car from the inside, miles out.

So in typical fashion I ignored it and got on with the rest of the car.

Happy with the door gap on the rear near side.

In the garage the line down the near side looks good too.

The rain stopped and I got the car out.  I have been looking forward to the moment when I realise that the wings fit, the door gaps are good and I can can get on with the task of welding up the inner body and and fitting the boot panels etc.

I knew that moment wasn't now though.  The lines down the side are just not good enough and the sills must be in the incorrect positions.  So I did what I always do, cut the lot off and start again.

I am not  sure how easy I will find the other side, but this side was easy to remove and reposition.  I am a little worried that I cut too much out of the front section of the rear wing last weekend but I can always modify it again if need  be.

I managed to get to Hertford to replace my Acetylene bottle yesterday which was good.  I wanted to use the gas to remove some lead from the front wing because several sections had holes in and I wanted to know if there were more than I could see.  There didn't appear to be any more but it soon became clear that the wing is very thin in places towards the front.  I cut a few sections out and replaced them only to find that I was blowing holes left right and centre, it was a pain.  My mig welder is lovely but I wish it would operate on a lower power level than it does, boy does it get mean with the thin metal.  You can see in the photo that there is a lot of damage from an accident in the wings past life which I will have to look at later.  I am a little worried that the wing will corrode again  in a fairly short period of time due to the thinness of the metal but as I don't have the money for a new set of steel wings there isn't any more I can do,

I had promised myself that I would start at the very front of the wing and work backwards finishing ever job as I went but I could not help but jump around a bit.  The next thing I did was to fit the wing and work on joining the rear of the wing up where I had cut a section out.

I went well so I completed the job.

The wing must be a little photogenic as the door gap doesn't look as good in real life as it does there. The very bottom section is bowed out at the very rear of the panel and I am still concerned about if the wing needs a horizontal section removed as I did on the offside.  The line down the car is better than the other side though so I am going to make a judgement on that once I have removed the car from the garage and can take a long distance look at it.

I then started to fit the new inner door panels that cover the sill and B post.  They don't appear to fit which has me wondering about the position of the sills as these were fitted by the previous owner.

They sit about and inch and a half too high, urmm.

So I did the most logical thing and ignored the problem for a while.  I started on the rear wing.

I eventually got frustrated with it and too the wing off and then the B post off as well.

I got a little further then called it a day
Until next tine,....

Ventured into the garage and finished off the rear wing by welding up the rear section that I repaired earlier and the join from the new lower section that had been attached previously.  I tided up a few more bits and pieces then took the car out to check the lines and swap it round to attach the other side (my garage is not big enough to work on both sides at the same time).

It is hard to show the lines cleanly on the photos but this side is now ok, I can't say its perfect but I think it is acceptable so I am going to move on.

I am however very happy with the lines around the door.  Earlier on I also adjusted the top of the door at the rear to match the lines of the top of the wings and door.  There is a slight difference in the height of the rear wing and the door but not anything that can't be dealt with later on.

Having looked at the other side it became clear of the work that lies ahead as the lines are in desperate need of attention.

However the lines along this side are excellent.