Leaderboard

The boot lid was tried in place, the doors closed and were level with the bulkhead so it was time to move forward. A 2 x 2 was cut to length and the body was supported under the top of the frame just at the back of the door pillars with another support under the frame of the bulkhead. There was a lack of wheelarch front frame and inner wheelarch steel at this point and even less to attach any new material to The construction here is what I can only describe as a plank of ash 7/8" thick, tapering from 7 1/4" wide at the rear to 4 1/4" wide at the front of the bulkhead bolted to brackets along the side of the chassis and to this there is bolted and screwed a sill member which follows the lower body from the rear wheelarch to the front bulkhead and forms door shut. You can see this better in the photo - these are the two pieces nearest the camera In this next photo you can see the aluminium section that covers this sill member one piece on the top and then a side cover that meets the front wing and running board. These are two separate pieces that are just fixed under the door so can be removed without affecting the rest of the body, but boy were they well nailed down, there was a lot of cursing and swearing at this point as every thin chisel and small screwdriver available was pressed in to service. The flat plank was relatively easy to make but when I had initially measured how much ash I would need I had measured it at 6" and not 7 1/4" wide so my 6" wide thicknesser was as useful as a chocolate ashtray. Luckily a retired joiner a few houses away still had his 12" planer and he obliged by taking it down to 7/8" thick. The sill member also posed a problem at 2 3/4" wide as I only had 1" and 2" material available but planed a 2" piece to 1 3/4" and glued and screwed it to a piece of the 1" to get the required width. This piece should have gone the full length but tapering and angling the rear needed numerous trial fits so I cut it in two and joined it at the front joint of the aluminium sill section. There was enough of it left to give me the required sizes and I cut a template of its section from a piece of 1/2" skirting board and screwed it to the rough (very rough) sandwich of ash. The router was then put in to action with a 3" long bit with a ball bearing guide on the end and this was used to follow the profile on the skirting board. It was a bit scary at times as it dug in to some rather thick bits but we got there and it had the correct upper and lower curves, the side angle was cut on my brother in law's table saw and I persevered with the plane and the belt sander until it fitted the body aluminium and the top sill aluminium. Although the body frame is primarily ash there are quite a number of substantial steel brackets, one at the bottom of the door hinge pillar and one holding the front bulkhead to the 7/8" board at the front. These are the finished nearside before the aluminium was replaced I nearly put a match to the whole thing when I had bolted and screwed the offside together as the door bottom was striking the sill member before the aluminium was even on and the front of the door was now about 1/4" above the front bulkhead with a huge gap as well, I really thought something had moved and I hadn't noticed. Time for a fag and a beer and some deep thought, sand down the timber for clearance and play about with the hinges? Then I thought what would happen if I took out the original spacer between the chassis bracket and the 7/8" board? Did this and the bulkhead was now touching the door and it was about an 1/8" low - it then dawned on me that by fitting different thicknesses of spacers was how they had originally set up doors and sills when they made the car, thinner spacer made and fitted and all was well.

I did buy a pump a few years ago and it copes when it's about 2 ft deep but that's about 3 1/2 ft and there's enough water on the grass already. Wading about in the wellies is such a pain and trying to find the dropped bolt is near impossible.

A bit more progress on the Bolens HT snow plough replica. In this video we make up the brackets on the frame for the hydraulic cylinder and make the pins for the frame.