10 Days to go! - Its going to be a push - can we do it?

Last week we dragged back the shell from the lock-up where it had stood for the last 6 years. Closer inspection showed we needed to repair, floors, sills, boot floor, inner and outer bulkhead, bonnet hinge panel and inner wings. Not an easy task especially when we are against the clock like this! Basically Saturday became of full welding and a donor lower half of a shell was cut back to leave the main parts we needed (mainly just the seat box section and the sills).

We obviously could have bought new sills, but we have pretty much no budget and I had some left over bits of second hand sill so grafted them on and it was now ready for the original body to sit on top. I winched it up on a ratchet strap from the roof beam and lowered it on to the sills and seat box. Some minor magic angle grinding later and it fitted!

There are very slight differences of course to the old type panels and sills and the new ones but these are minor and could always be changed again at a later date to make it 100% original. One advantage is we will have better seat belt mounts rather than the seat belts just being bolted through a hole in the floor! Another couple of hours of welding and jacking out the bent pillars tonight saw the door pillars all alined and the doors fitted to check.

So whats left? Well a good few more hours welding to put in the floors, bulkhead and the bonnet hinge panel. I'll do some of  that Thursday, and tomorrow me (Rich) and Robin Swannell will hopefully install all the brakes. Can't do any work Fri, Sat or Sun so that leaves big shifts for all of next week but i'll have my right hand man Stu Mac on the case and I'm sure I'll be helped by my brother Matthew, my Dad (who has the reworked engine), Jess and Rob! Oh, and the MOT is booked Wed 4pm! - Optimistic but I really want to meet that deadline if we are going to make the start of the trip! Wish us luck and remember all this is to raise more awareness (and some extra funds) for Motor Neurone Disease Association MNDA in the work that they do to support those suffering and the research they do looking for the cure! Visit our Just Giving web page  - http://www.justgiving.co.uk/2CVedgeofworld