I was working on the front end but as a boot hinge I had ordered arrived in the post I switched ends. The boot lid looked like a much easier project,  I figured if I had a go at that and made a good job it would boost my confidence moving forward. I had watched a video where Bad Chad Hiltz had repaired a similar area with fibre glass bridging compound so i thought I would give it a go, it also gave me the chance to try out the new battery powered sander / polisher that I had picked up from Temu.

I got up early to catch the best of the Winter sun, as I expected the job to be a lot harder than it actually was. Within 15 minutes I had the front bumper loose and the lights out of the car. As they came out both spilt significant quantities of water on to the floor. As it was cold I took them indoors and started to get out as much water as I could, there was still  an awful lot in there, my Wife's hairdryer was pressed in to duty to get the rest of it out over the next few hours.

I started my working life as an apprentice learning the art of electronics. Back then it was mainly simple stuff, starting off with the very basics learning about the functions of electronic components and going on to make stuff that had some useful purpose or other. It gave me a great basis for building a useful career that took me all round the world and made me a good living, it helped me start my own business and then allowed me to take life much more easily and slowly from my mid 40's. Life took me in a different direction from there but just recently I have somehow had my interest rekindled and decided I needed to get back into the world of electronics. That passion was further stirred when I was tidying out my workshop and found a light display that I had built when I was about 20 - some 40 years ago.

Malcolm had ben asked to lend one of his cars to the local car club so they could show it on there stand at the NEC in Birmingham, which was nice. It meant we - me and Russ -  had the opportunity to get a cheap bus ride and have a most enjoyable day out, which sounded splendid. It was agreed that we would catch the bus at Boston bus station at 08:00 on the Sunday morning, Russ very kindly picked me up from home so with lunch bag in hand we set off in good time and arrived some 15 minutes early.  We decided that the best thing to do was to pay for the parking and sit in the car with a view of the whole of the bus station so we could see when the bus arrived. We waited about 20 minutes - no sign of the bus or of anybody waiting for a bus, which was odd. After about 10 more minutes of unsatisfied anticipation we came to the conclusion that shit had happened and started making phone calls. Sadly Malc most likely had his hearing aids switched off and we couldn't think of anybody else whose number we had that would have the faintest idea of what was going on. We concluded we had a choice - go home or drive the 100 odd miles, not much of a choice really, I paid the parking, Russ paid the fuel.

Definitely been doing too much work on Malcolm's cars recently and not enough on my own, various personal crappy things have got in the way too but at last got a few minor bits done over the last few days. I had a job list but couldn't find it, I remembered that securing the fuel pipe better in the trans tunnel was one job so I did that first, the DVSA are really hot on stuff not being properly secured, quite rightly so really. it was never really going to be a problem where it is but installing another two p clips makes absolutely sure of it.

Malc had taken the car out a couple of months back and had reported that the brakes weren't working very well and that the handbrake wasn't working at all. As it will be in action at the Lombard Classic event at Revesby abbey this weekend we figured it was time to have a look and see what was what. It was easy to see that the master cylinder on the handbrake was seized, replacement or rebuild was the only option. As soon as I looked at the footbrake master cylinders I noticed some seepage so decided they would need replacing or rebuilding too. I looked up prices and found the price of 3 new cylinders was about a fiver more than rebuilding the original Girling items so we just bought new. Two of them were 625 - 5 /8ths of an inch and the one for the fronts was a .75 or 3/4 inch one.