At some point in the past somebody had hacked the rear panel about, I suspect so they could mount exhausts coming out the middle of the car, something that would look rather cool. Sadly they had cut out all the strength and it was what race engineers refer to as flopping about all over the place. I got it back in to shape by bending some 6mm round mild steel rod and welding it to the edge of the sheet metal, I clamped it up so it was in about the right place before starting. I started in the middle and worked my way out, it worked out rather well. There were quite a few dents where somebody had massaged it with a hammer so some filler had to be applied, the bumper covers most of it but I wanted it to be right, I don't want to be embarrassed when I tell people I built it.
I am now half way through 3 jobs on the car, I am waiting for all sorts of parts and can't cross anything off the job list right now, hopefully everything will be here in the next 3 or 4 days and all of a sudden the job list will be quite a bit shorter. Talking about job lists, building a car like this is a daunting task, if you wrote down every single individual job you would probably never get started. It is true to say though that if you fail to plan you plan to fail. What I like to do is compile a to do list of no more than about 25 different tasks. Alongside the to do list is the ta da list, every job on the to do list moves to the ta da list once completed, it's a great way of showing progress and reminding yourself of what you have achieved throughout the build. I find it helps a lot when things get tough, there is only me in the workshop, no workmates to pick me up when things get difficult. Anyway, it works for me, that's all I'm saying.
I have fitted the window motor in to the second door, which is now ready for fitting to the car, I will finish off the side steps first, for which I need some 2mm steel sheet 1300mm long and 180mm wide, it is on order along with the 1mm steel for doing the door inners. All I can do for now is nip to Halfords for some more filler - I only need a tiny bit - and fit the roof panel that has been sat there for the last couple of months. I also need to have some quality time with my new bead roller, I don't want to be making mistakes on the door panels,steel is a ridiculous price these days.
I ran out of filler and had to wait until the next day to go and get some, I only needed a small tin, which works out at about 4 times the price of a large tin. At the time of writing this a 250ml tin is 9 quid, a 3 litre tin is less than 3 times as much at 24 quid - that's for 12 times the quantity!! I didn't need a massive pot and it does go off once opened if you don't use it so I went with the smaller tin.
I received the exhaust pipe clamps this morning but not the mirror I ordered or the gun gum exhaust assembly paste. As I was in Halfords and a small pot was only a couple of quid with my discount card I picked a tub up, at least that means I can finish the exhaust today. On line buying is crap for us these days, everybody is using cut price couriers and when the drivers see where we live they can't e bothered to come here. Stuff is so often either late, doesn't arrive at all or gets delivered to somebody 1/2 a mile away. It's not much fun when you are just trying to get on with things.
Update - There was me talking about things not arriving and I get a notification that my mirrors have been delivered - except they haven't. The Evri delivery driver has delivered them somewhere, the photo shows a patch of grass that could be absolutely anywhere, the GPS co-ordinates show a house down the road, the notes say he put it in an out building. I went down there but no sign of my parcel anywhere. Of course you can't speak to the driver or anybody else at Evri for that matter so not only is it a waste of time and money I am unlikely to get it resolved. Ebay will only look at the courier's tracking and see the item has been delivered so that doesn't help either. Sadly you simply can not buy stuff locally any more so when you live out in the sticks like I do it's got really bad. Every single courier typically used by ebay sellers- DPD, Royal Mail, Evri and Yodel have all messed up multiple times now. The Chinese sellers don't care, the goods show as delivered so they don't lose out by it, this one hasn't responded to my messages yet, from experience I don't expect he will, the last one offered me a discount of 60p. Very helpful. I guess I will have to pay the extra and get some from Amazon, at least they usually deliver when they say they will and their tracking actually works and is honest. I can't keep affording to lose money like this, it's really hurting the budget.
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