Back from Blackpool and straight back on with it.

Going to work early today so not only got about half an hour in the garage, just dressed the edges of the floor and turned it back up the right way and stood in it to test the strength of the floor - it's plenty strong.

And it's got a floor!!!

This afternoon I riveted on the floor and front panel, also sealed up with silicone sealant. This is for 2 reasons, one is it acts as an adhesive, and the other is that it makes the panels watertight.

It's a good job I got so much done in the week, as I'm off to Blackpool for the weekend! I have taken some pictures, but unfortunately my phone is in the shop for repair, and I don't know how to get the pictures off the one they gave me as a loan phone. I will try to get them up.

The plan for next week is simply to finish painting the chassis, and finish cleaning up the rear axle carrier and trailing arms, as I'm not allowed to spend any more money on it this month.

Just a quick update on what I got done in a few hours this afternoon.

I made a small aluminium panel to fit under the radiator at the front, drilled and temporarily riveted it to the chassis, then removed it to clean up the chassis tubes and give them a coat of paint.

I then finished off marking up the floor and gave it the same treatment as the small panel, drill, rivet etc.

So tomorrow, when the paint has dried, I can go back in and rivet on the floor and the front panel - let's hope i can keep going at this pace, it's just flying along now!

ok, this evening a dismantled the wishbones again, as I needed to flip the chassis over to gain access to the underside.

I spent an hour and a half painstakingly grinding off the chequers from my floor panel. I made it from a sheet of 2mm chequerplate, but for it to sit flat and seal against the bottom of the chassis, I had to remove the chequers where the 2 meet. It's not safe to do this with a grinding wheel, as the aluminium builds up in the stone, clogs it, expands and the stone may explode! So the safer way to abrade aluminium is to use a flap wheel or disc. These break up easily as you use them and cannot be clogged by the ground aluminium.

I actually went through 5 flap discs to do it, my hands are stinging and my ears are ringing but it will all be worth it in the end.

After this, I flipped the chassis over (which is getting harder - it's getting heavier all the time!) and clamped the floor panel on flat and marked out the lines to drill the rivet holes along.

All in all one very productive evening.

The polybushed for the front wishbones arrived today, along with the reaming tool required to open up the holes on the bottom of the sierra uprights for the Austin Maxi bottom ball joints.

So this afternoon I reamed out the uprights, assembled the polybushes into the wishbone bush tubes, and fitted the drivers side all together. It all went together without much drama and moves quite freely. Looks nice too!

I'm going to have to take it all apart again though as I need to flip the chassis over (again) to finish some of the welding and install the floor.

Here are the front wishbone mounts - as soon as the bushes arrive i'll trial fit everything and weld on the top shock absorber mounts as well.
The rollover hoop, really changes the look of the rear of the chassis - and I like it!

And just to prove I actually did it - the tidy garage! Notice that I chopped the legs off my build table to improve access to the chassis. Hopefully I won't need it at all soon!

Well that last few days have been quite productive, after making up some basic jigs, I have welded on the front suspension mounts!

I really need to get on with cleaning and painting the rest of the chassis so I can move on with the rest of it.

I have taken some more pics and as soon as I can be bothered to transfer them to the laptop i'll post them up.

Well today I finally got on with it again! I've welded on the rollover hoop - what a difference to the look it makes! I took some pics and will post them up soon.

I also ran out of wire in my MIG welder, will have to get some more tomorrow.

Since my last post I've finally gotten round to welding in the rear bulkhead tubes that I had been avoiding.

After finishing them, I decided that I waqs fed up of working in a seriously messy garage, climbing over things and falling over other things and decided that I had to clear up. So, with my driveway finally empty (I sold my spare car) I had the space to take everything out of the garage, throw out loads and generally clean it up. It's now a far more pleasant place to work and I'm looking forward to getting on with more. The other thing I did was to pull all the legs off my build table, so it's now only about 8 inches tall, should improve access to most of the chassis.

I unfortunately didn't get anything done last weekend, as I had to go and do extensive repairs to my sisters horse box. But hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of mornings up there this week, as I'm on afternoons. However the wife has come down with the dreaded Lurgy - swine flu.