[Mick O'Malley]

After a most enjoyable and lengthy midwinter break, I at last motivated myself to wander down to the chilly cave hoping that I could find something simple on which to break my 2019 duck.

I'd realised some time ago that there was no rear access for the number plate and light; reversing lamp and GB plate fixings without removing the body, far from ideal. My first thought was to make an access hole in the plywood floor, but I soon rejected this because of the contortions which would be required to use it. Next thought was maybe a hole in one body side with a removable ally plate over it? Ugly, but do-able. It then dawned on me that there was going to be an ally plate on the rear body anyway - the number plate - D'Oh!.

A little head scratching and Rivnuts sprang to mind. I marked and cut out the hand hole, then cut two short strips of 3mm ally, fitted the nuts and drilled 4mm rivet holes either side of them. Correctly spaced number plate bolt holes had been drilled long ago, so I fixed my strips on back to front to make sure everything lined up properly, drilled through them and countersank the outside of the resultant body holes. I luckily had a few suitable rivets left over from fitting the fin on the A352, I re-bolted the mounting plates to the inside and four pops later the job was done.



As I was fitting the number plate the noonday sun crept over the house roof for the first time after the solstice, lighting a small strip of the cave, a heartening sign of happy building days to come.



I quit while I was ahead.

Regards, Mick