[Mick O'Malley]

Progress has been slow over the last couple of weeks whilst I've concentrated on the back brakes. To make absolutely sure that my demon handbrake effort multiplier is mounted optimally, I realised that the rest of the linkage back to the shoes would need to be in place. I checked my mound of parts to find that I had no backplate levers, so these I ordered. I examined the four drums and decided they were too worn to use in that condition. When building the A352 I'd come to the same conclusion and had them skimmed and faced locally. I just was about to march down to the engineering workshop with them when I thought to check the price of new ones, which was considerably less than I'd paid for machining. These I ordered. Once they'd arrived I assembled my bits, jacked up the back end and removed the wheels, only to find no adjusters . More ordering, more delay.

In the meantime, having noticed some de-lamination in the edges of my plywood 'floors', I purchased some superior marine ply (buy cheap, pay twice!), removed the existing which made handy templates, and cut and fitted the new ones. This time I corrected a previous omission and screwed on a vertical back for the luggage area behind the seats. Thinking that this might drum, I made a pair of angled brackets to prevent this. Excuse rubbish picture.



Yesterday, at long last, all the new brake bits were to hand, and were successfully fitted.



Another Spitfire based Monaco had come up for sale in the Moss FB group, so I gave the vendor a ring for a chat about a possible viewing for ideas, as it was dismantled after being on the road. In particular, I was interested in the windscreen from which to take a paper patten as my efforts were rubbish. He said he'd have a look for it and get back to me. However, in the interim, I'd scrolled back through this thread and decided to go down this route....



Moss (bizarrely) in Bristol only had one in stock, and this I received yesterday. I'm hoping that I can get the second at the Classic Car Show this Friday, especially if there's a 'show deal' available .

Regards, Mick