[Mick O'Malley]

Yesterday dawned bright so I decided to tackle some of the woodwork.

First job was to make a paper template of the seat back and transfer the outline to my ply. I knew it would be unlikely to come out perfect first cut so I sketched the outline about 30mm oversize. I lay the ply sheet on some stout lengths of 4 x 4 timber and set to with the jigsaw. The new blade made short work of this.





I offered up the newly cut seat back to the body and sketched in the areas that needed cutting back and chopped them off. During one fitting I tried turning it round to see if it was any better and discovered that the body is far from symmetrical! I was back and forth four or five times before I was satisfied with it. I'll sand the edges when it's time to fix the foam and vinyl on.



Next job, after stowing the seat back in the shed, was to recruit my son and remove the body, lying it upside down for better access to the boot space. I couldn't find a big enough piece of cardboard to make a template of the first portion of the boot floor so some head scratching was required.

I lay a stout batten on the inverted floor and cut a short length of ply to size down to the cut edge of the boot aperture. With a bit of gymnastics I was able to mark where the floor would sit on the inside of the body. I could them measure and mark out my next cuts.

These turned out more or less perfect, except for the straight edge to the body aperture which I discovered was bowed. One more cut and it sat nicely. It'll be glassed in around the edge, bolted to the suspension turrets and I may support the 'straight' edge with a couple of short lengths of angle or batten. It'll also need a rectangular hole and cover for access to the leaf spring retaining bolts



My son, who takes the lighter front end of the body for removal etc. had pointed out how floppy it was where the bonnet opening, which is reinforced at the sides with glassed in wood, had been cut away for the DCOE. I found a handy length of aluminium angle and drilled and screwed it bridging the gap to put the strength back temporarily.



We popped the body back on and I tidied everything away as I was very pleased with the day's progress and didn't want to push my luck.

Regards, Mick