Long time no posts - not least because I've been busy doing other things...
Finally I've got round to starting to sort the old shed out. Unfortunately, it's been one step forward, several steps back...
I took her down to work (I work for a firm that makes and repairs steam engine boilers, so we have loads of rather handy kit and quite a big yard), picked her up with the 25T yard crane and carted her over to the quiet corner where all our projects hang out (on one side of her "plot" is a LWT landrover, on the other side a Fordson Supermajor).
As I was waiting (with her about 15' in the air - I'd had to lift her that high to clear the gantry crane's tracks) for her to stop swinging a bit so I could lower her down, disaster struck - the back end came round, touched a (small) overhanding branch from a tree, and she gradually slid through the slings (as I watched pretty helplessly), flipped upside-down and descended all too rapidly, to land rather heavily upsidedown, with a pretty sickening crunch.
As I watched her descend, I'd already mentally written her off - I mean, cars don't generally take kindly to being dropped on their roofs from a great height. Anyway, I figured I'd better see what had happened, and collect the wreckage - so I went and had a look. Imagine my surprise on finding that while the bonnet and wings were a bit flat, the cabin was still intact, and, and as far as I could tell, nothing on the underlying shell was significantly damaged, apart from possibly the front inner wings.
That meant a certain amount of head scratching about how to get her back the right way up without doing more damage...
We then strapped the hiab on work's lorry (needless to say, my boss had happened to show up moments after I dropped the car) to the front and pulled her back round level before lowering her to the ground... before picking her up again, and flying her to her new location. (Incidentally, the "out of tracking" on the front axle doesn't seem to be dropping related - looking at old pictures she's been like that since I bought her - I suspect an incompetent previous owner).
The good news is that now I've had a good chance to look underneath, she really isn't very rusty - although doubtless things will look worse before they get better. My mission for Monday night after work probably involves cutting the remains of the bonnet off so I can see what damage has occurred under in there, then taking the engine. box and interior out so I can turn her over (in a more controlled way) and get welding.
I've some (not very special) spare wings and a spare bootlid, but if anyone has a bonnet, grill panel the bonnet catch panel (not sure what it's known as) up for grabs locally (I'm based in Buxton, Derbyshire the car is stored near Matlock), I'd love to hear from you.
I've also pretty much decided on the power plant and gearbox for her - I just need to find a scrap LDV pilot van of the correct era to liberate the bits from.
I'm not usually much cop at working to deadlines, but my mission is to get her back on the road before it gets too cold to want to hang around outside at work working on her.
)...
