Final Ali Panel Rivetted and Bodywork

Wonderful summer weather meant the 15 minute pick up of Allanah from dance turned into a marathon journey through water that threatened to wash over the bonnet on Tricia's 807.  At one stage Allanah was walking ahead of the car, testing the depth of water, before I drove through.  All this meant that work on the car was delayed until 15:00 but, by then, James was ready to help.

The first task was to remove the bonnet, scuttle and side panels that had been put in place to allow the exhaust cut out and bonnet hinge preparation. Next tasks were to torque up the engine mounts, apply heat reflective foil to the +12V battery - starter cable loom where it passes under the exhaust manifold

Next was to seal and rivet the drivers side panel - final hedgehog!

James had set this panel, fettled it and drilled all of the holes in the middle of May so it seemed right that he should do the rivetting - 90 off but the "must have" air rivetter made very light work of it (once we'd reset it's internals).










Final task of the day was to fit the bodywork.  First we re-bolted the bodywork back together which was straight forward as all the rear wheel arches had been drilled and the bolts/washers prepared earlier.  After making sure all the rear wiring was clear of the chassis we offered the assembled rear body to the chassis at ~45 degrees and then lowered the front. The N/S seemed to clip over reasonably easily but the O/S seemed to be no where near a fit.  After a bit of head scratching and experimenting with screw drivers as levers, the two of us pushing and pulling, and a bit of brute force & ignorance, it fitted! James put the scuttle in place and we refitted the bonnet to act as the datum for the rest of the bodywork.  

Then things went wrong - the bonnet seemed too low at the front and was levering over the chassis rather than sitting on the side panels.  During the original fit we'd fitted the bodywork side panels so this didn't seem right.  Multiple removals- adjustments gave some improvement but all still wasn't right.  Enough messing around, we went back to basics and drilled out the bonnet mounts from M5 to M6 using + and - on the hinge, bonnet and chassis mounts everything eventually success! Battery box rivets don't look very good from under the car - might drill out and replace with shorter countersunk rivets.

Still along way to go but, after fitting the engine/gearbox,  this seems like a big milestone - 3.5 hrs for me and James - total 129 hrs.  Tomorrow will be drilling, rivetting and bolting the bodywork to the chassis.