Garages

it's on the road, 12 weeks to the day since I picked up the shell, and 6 weeks since I took the old one off the road. Still lots to do to the interior and setting of the suspension but I have all winter

Well I think exhaustion is starting to get to me, I have had to take three days off this week as I just couldn't get motivated. Could be that I knew I was going to miss my target to be finished but the rest did me good and I have made some good progress since then.

Big Big  smile on my face this week, filled the engine with thin oil,(thanks Arthur) new plugs wired the engine poured petrol down carb and turned it over- it hasn't been started for 20 years so it did well even attempting to fire. Oil pressure is good  so I just kept the battery on charge and kept trying it all day, at about 5pm it started to fire well so I gave it full choke and kept it going on the starter until it finally picked up with clouds of rust and smoke out of the exhaust but after about 2-3 minutes running it was as sweet as a nut.

The report for this week is kind of late  as I have been so busy, but I have lots to tell you. I managed to get the old car stripped completely which is a big step as I have everything I need ready to fit the new one. It was very heavy work removing the engine and box by myself but I managed with a little help from my angle grinder to cut the front end off. I removed the wiring loom and was amazed how heavy it was, I am making my own loom for the car so there will be a big weight saving there.

Another week over and more progress has been made, The rear axle is in all fitted up, just needs the handbrake connecting and the rear brake pipe running in and connecting and that's the back end all finished until I stast the wiring. Got the fuel tank cleaned out and fitted and ran the fuel line in , I have decided to use an electric pump so plumbed that in as well as the in-line filter Drilled yet more holes and fitted the seat belt mounts, then took the plates out again to wait till they are painted to fit 

I am starting to see some real progress on the build now that I have taken the donor off the road and started to strip out the bits I need. I took the car out on Thursday Friday and Saturday for runs for the last time, and to keep me going till I get back on the road. Stripped the front suspension  out on Sunday and got it stripped , cleaned and painted  ready to be fitted on Monday.

I havn't made as much progress as I had planned as I was catering for 20 relatives at our Wedding aniverary party- two days preperation and two days cooking and two days recovery, but it went well, it jost means i am going to have to work a bit harder to get it finished.

Not as much progress as I would have liked this week due to getting the Exmo ready for the run to Duns, new  valve oil seals and re-setting the timing and mixture, and i lost a day on the run-our What I did manage was to have a trial fit of the nose-cne and bonnet to see how they were going to fit and found that I am going to have to put some hoops inside the bonnet as it sags in the middle.

This week saw me finishing cutting off the last of the rustybits on the shell and started fitting some new parts. The last part to take off was  the gearbox mount, the mount itself had fallen apart but the bolts remained, so out with the angle grinder and that was soon sorted, the bolt into the gearbox after soaking in wd40 and tapping with a hammer  leaving overnight-snapped with about 5lb torque applied good quality bolt !

The bodyshell on my Exmo is getting rather tired with stress cracks appearing on a too regular basis, so when I got the chance to get a brand new stainless steel monocoque body as a direct replacement it was too good to miss.