25 August 2007 - Getting on with it....

It has been 5 weeks since I posted an update, primarily because we had a holiday for two weeks and I have been tremendously busy at work, so not had a chance to get on with the restoration.

However, today the sun was shing so I thought I would do a little bit of work or her. Spurred on by the fact that I proposed to my girlfriend on holiday and ratherly stupidly suggested that the Herald should be the wedding car! So now the wedding date is set for the 24 May 2008 next year, so I best get cracking on the old girl, otherwise my darling wife may have to walk to the wedding!

Today I stripped the last few ancillaries off the spare chassis and gave the chassis a wire brush over before painting with gloss black smoothrite paint. The chassis is really good all round and so it it just a bit of cleaning here and there before the paint went on. I put the chassis on a couple of Workmates so it was raised and easier to paint. I have always tried to work smart, not hard!

The plan from here on in is to prepare the spare chassis and then start to strip the herald down and build up the new chassis from the bits I take off. I have managed to build a great covered store area at the side of my house and have moved the motorbikes out of the garage to give me space to do the restoration.

This is great as it allows me to start the strip down with a vengeance and really find out what needs to be done.

I tooks some photos of the main rotten areas that will need to be looked at and when I take the body off I will move each bit into the garage to repair it. Good news is that I think I have sourced a good bulkhead and bonnet, so that may save me heaps of time!

The plan is to get the Body welded by the end of October (2 months away) and then buidl up the chassis over the winter. If I can do this I can then get the rolling body off to the painters in January. Working on around 4-6 weeks in the paintshop (I have a friend - I hope - who is going to paint her for me) than that gets her back to me by the end of February. If I can then rewire, and put the interior in during March and arpil, I am aiming to have her MOT'd at the end of April so I can run her around for a couple of weeks before the wedding on the 24 May 2008.

So now the race is on to restore the old girl for the wedding, good thing actually because it will make me get on with it.....