This week I have mainly been in the shed..

Christ I'm getting a bit bored of post midnight finishes I seemed to have spent most this week doing nasty jobs,found another hole tonight that needed welding,and of course it was surrounded by 40 year old under seal rust and other crap,anyway jobs done on the 2000 MK1 this week-

• Seam welded cover sills (these had been spot welded on by a previous owner I got told to seam weld them at the last MOT)- Ive resigned myself to the fact I will have to replace the sills within the next 18 months -certainly before the car has a safety cage fitted and gets any ideas of getting let out on a forest stage,the plan in the mean time is to get some road events under my belt again

• Rebuilt the struts with new tops-on the RBR the insert nut came loose on the O/S
• Strengthened set of tie bars ready to fit ARB
• General under body maintenance -this involved getting covered in old undersodding seal welding up random holes hiding under said under seal , putting out burning old under seal,painting etc

Ive only the O/S inner arches and sill to do now,then I can get back to the nice jobs like suspension bolting back on,service and engine tune- oh I also stripped and clean the rocker shaft/rockers when I got hacked off with picking lumps of tar like under seal out of my hair earlier in the week

Ive also got a wheel / Tyre dilemma to sort out,more of that later

I would post some pictures up but buggeringbollocksbloggertoss.com is having an "error" uploading so I will post some when its Lucas moment has past

Wire brush rash..

Beware the wire brush I say, whilst the struts were out on the 2000 mk1 I took the chance to clean up the inner wheel arches etc scrapping off flaking under seal I opened up some holes in the chassis rail a pain in the arse area to repair properly with the engine in ,its also a double skinned area -just underneath the battery tray (viewed from the engine bay) -so with the wire brush rash exposed I set about some temporary repairs which I will make permanent next time the engine is out

First off I welded in a thick chassis repair plate , then a thinner plate shaped to fit the inner wing- over lapping the top of the chassis rail as per original,strong enough to last until I swap back to a MK1 2000cc engine (to satisfy the pre '68 historic regs for some of the events I want to take on next year)whilst the engine is out I will re visit the whole area

Homers new seat

After extensive materials testing this seat came out tops as the the one that can withstand the effects of 12 packets of "flamin hot" monster munch 14 peperoni's and several meat based savory snacks after homers bottom has "worked" on them

Shedtune F1

I'm liking this new F1 look managed to catch highlights on the BBC red button after being woken by 1 year old sleep thief

Great to see local Tractor boy up there on Pole the only bitter sweet point being his team boss looks like a cross between a slug and a sleazy used car salesman -I just cant seem to warm to him! Also good to see the Williams on the pace - I have a lot of respect for Frank Williams, I reckon he has a bit of Shedtune in his blood! Speaking of Shedtune the MK1 2000 is in the Shed having a few jobs done to get it ready for the forthcoming Club Triumph HCR event on the tinker list;

Install comfy passenger seat - The buckets are fine for shorter events but no so good for relaxing in on the long distance endurance events and as the start is a 300 mile trip away from base I cant put up with Homers whinging about his numb arse!

Throttle cable modification - more on this later

Full service- fluids,brakes etc

Tune- I might even get it down to the Rolling Road

That's about it really

When that lot is done the Snag will be rolled into the shed for its resurrection- pictures of the thing above

Constipated Shed

Following accidentally buying a 1974 Stag on the way home from work last Tuesday I have caused a bit of a blockage in the shed - garage/shed is now full of bits for the estate project and the drive full of Stag-I have found myself in the unfortunate position of having to plan what I an doing next! The plan looks something like this Estate -finish front end work ,plonk suspension back on to allow it to be rolled out and put under cover- this week MK1 2000-into garage sort a few jobs to prepare it for the HCR -first week April Stag-into garage finish welding, fit engine- April / May Estate- back into garage get ready for 10CR See when you write it down and make a list it all becomes a piece of piss!

"Bread roll with those spares Sir?"

This weekend was the CT Dinner and awards night -thanks to everyone for getting it sorted

I found myself on the noisy "Northern Gits" table so felt right at home -apart from the lack of scantily clad slappers it could have been a re-run of the RBR08 Forton Services stop Raider looked after

I used the excuse of visiting the London area to pick up/drop off a few spares my route on the Saturday took in Guildford and Milton Keynes and I ended up with the following-

Perspex rear 2000 screen -Doug T promised me a money back guarantee if it didn't make the rally car go 10mph faster!

14" Steel wheels -I will give these a whizz on the MK1 rallyish car

MK2 Front valance -for the estate

MK2 n/s wing

LT77 5 speed box and shortened shifter -for the RV8 estate MK2 -(I now have a spare RV8 LT77 Bell housing if anyone is interested)

All I have to do now is get cracking and get all these bits on the various cars

Winging it

Well following the "scissor jack" shed puller experiment which worked pretty well the next stage was to track down a decent wing to go back on,thanks to the CT forum i got in touch with a fellow rust collector in Clevedon named Phil -he is also the area organiser for the TSSC in Somerset top bloke and he was breaking a 2500 with a decent drivers wing -which is now ready to weld onto the estate

Wing trimmed and trail fitted -still needs a couple of repairs

Inner arch needs a bit of rebuilding but not in too bad a state at all

Shed estate project

new bits going in!

all the bent bits removed!

bent engine cross member

bent rails cut out

more bent bits and previous bodge

Engine out

bent bits!

Shed estate starts-

Cutting out the bent bits and starting the slow process of putting straight bits back in!-Will let the pictures do the talking

Project Shed estate underway

After blagging back my old 1973 MK2 2000 Estate following a front end and rear end crash it needed a

bit of sorting out

The crank was thrusting so much the clutch wouldn't work and it generally needed a "good seeing to in the shed"

The basic plan was to sort out the bent bits then slap in a Rover V8 engine-easy!

The bent bits turned out to be a bit more bent than I thought -

Front chassis legs

Headlight panel

Radiator panel

Engine cross member

inner wings

Top of O/S wing U section

O/S wing

I will let the pictures do the talking!

I managed to get hold of some chasis legs and a headlight panel through club members so the grinding started .....and the slow rebuild was underway!