The chassis is now almost complete, front shocks fitted, the lower bump-stops were a bit of a hassle as there is no weight in the chassis to compress the springs. I got around this by holding the chassis down with a tom from the ceiling of the garage and raising the stub-axle with a bottle jack. I still have to find out where the petrol pipe starts and finishes. Arranging to get the body shipped from the UK, a bit of a hiccup here as the shipping company now want the thing crated, something not mentioned up to now, but all in hand.

I have spent a considerable amount of time making the joining pieces for the windscreen frame. These I have cut from 3/16 flat steel with the extra offset brazed on. A lot of work with the hacksaw and file. Found out the hard way that the hole spacing on bottom ones on each side are different, but managed to save having to make a second replacement one. The fastening screws are 2BA ½” long. Considering the very corroded originals I had to copy, I think I have done a good job- even if I do say so myself. The bottom frame member was badly distorted in the accident so have had to do a lot of work to get that to line up with the glass. Have to wait for the screws to arrive before I can assemble the frame and really see if my bending etc is up to standard.

As a result of the crash almost half of the dash was turned into kindling so a new one has to be cut out of plywood. Not wanting to buy a whole sheet of 15mm ply I made several phone calls trying to find where off-cuts of ply can be purchased. In the end I found “Plywood City” out in Otahuhu. They have a huge range of plies and will sell off-cuts. And do it while you wait. One of our club members who is doing a partial rebuild loaned me the dash out of their car to copy, this has enabled me to fill in the missing parts much easier. Cutting out was a straight forward jig-saw job, there are some shallow rebates that were done with the router, holes marked, counter bored and drilled. I will have to follow the return of the borrowed dash to see what and how some of the mountings work. I am making up the threaded fittings as mine are missing, 4– ¼” NF & 2 – 2BA, just have to cut 22mm discs of 18g, braze the nuts on and drill the small holes for fastening. There are special fittings for fastening the padded dash on but I will let the trimmer fit these as he may have something different he wants to use. The hinges and lock for the glove box are all OK, so will be transferred.

It seems as if the body from the UK is still at least 8 weeks away and I’m running out of preparation jobs to do so not too sure when the next work will be done.