well its been five months since i put any updates on this thread.... Marc gave me some gentle grief at W&P about it, so i have cobbled a few images from my FB account to give a glimmer of the progress.
as stated the riveting is all but done however i need to do the centre divider plate (i need measurements for where the rivets go.. i have original armour squares for the ends which are sorted its just the two right angle bars that run the width of the carrier that i need to plot the holes)
I am glad Shaun pursuaded me not to use the coach bolts as the job is much stronger now. I need to rebuild the armour intake boxes and somehow make the radio battery box, but we are getting there slowly... here are some pics
note my fopar in the first attempt at sand guards.... the second attempts will be correct !
the front armour was fun with a few querky angles chucked in to make riveting more tasking..
here the paint on the nearside corner needed rubbing back (which has since been done) the rivets in the armoured steering box are original many thanks to Kevin for the trade.
if you recall my center div plate had been hacked up in all manner of angles, I cut off anything above the track guards that remained and patched in using the original metal for the missing bits below the track guards.... the remains that i had after were kept for the glacis plate...here i have made one bit and tacked it on using an old mig... i ended up pulling it off then re doing it with the new gas mig that i had got. in total the top section has a plethora of patches put back in.. the welds deliberately left proud on the underside so folk can see what has been done.
you can see the two holes i welded up which had been where the upper seat bracket had been.
cutting a patch
by this point i was wondering what i had let myself in for...just for the sake of retaining as much original fabric as i could (inspired by the Bluebird K7 project i guess) i was ready to chop the whole top section off until Shaun gave me yet another pep talk to spur me on assuring me it would be worth it.
and he was right
paint still wet (and a few notches to fill)
the glacis has since been drilled and fitted
whilst all this has been going on, i have been pulling rusty chunks out of the molasses bath and restoring them such as linkages, seat mech's bits of gearstick etc etc
this little widget was totally rusted solid when it went in
