Wings waiting

After a strip down, some reshaping, prime and repainting the wings are waiting for the welding and then to go back on again

Katy naked

If that title doesn't get lots of hits on the interweb nothing will!

For those of you who came here not looking for Land Rover stuff.. sorry :)

I've watched loads of videos and read lots of things which said that it would take 1-2 hours to remove a wing. Well the driver side took me almost all of the working day due to my ineptitude and some information that did not get mentioned on any of the videos I watched. 

1. To get the top bolt out under the wing is a pain as most people say, but actually ignoring the advice of long bars on a socket ratchet and using a flexible ratchet spanner made it a lot easier

2. Having a long handled 13mm / 1/2 inch ring spanner was very useful for a couple of nuts

3. And this is the big one. The inner and outer wings have a gasket that glued them together so even when all the bolts were out they wouldn't separate until I prised them apart with a nailbar

Anyway success...

With the wings off I can see that the rot is not as bad as feared, but it needs doing

Another interesting features is the two tone airborne.. fabulous noise as you can hear on the video celebrating the NHS but here they are to see as well

Brushed Aluminium

As I am sure UK readers are aware it's Alumin-i-um... and people like it brushed on vehicles..

Katy's wings were covered with some old aluminium checker plate which was corroded and going to look really tatty compared to loads of nice new paint.

so I brushed it ..

Here's a before and after to see what about 30 minutes with a wire brush and steel wool will give you

And just to prove I wasn't going half hearted at this here is the finished job

 

Rivet Counter

Anyone who is in to Land Rovers will know the phrase"Rivet Counter". These are knowledgeable and generally helpful people who know everything that needs to be known and is happy to help check that the right thing has been used and of course the right number of rivets have been used (especially on a Series one).

I'm not one, I'm not enough of an expert especially on series Land Rovers. 

However today I have been counting them carefully and have got to the number 45 ... and what is even better is the rear step does not wobble and closes easier

My favourite corner shop is open again

It's been an interesting time this lockdown

I've been keeping busy which you can see on the posts that have already happened and I'm certain I will be doing more

Today I removed the bonnet to work on that. Four of the six bolts snapped off and those were the easy ones! 

The other two resisted the damaged screwhead tools that I have and had to be drilled out so new nuts and bolts would be needed. I decided to make use of the click and collect service at Bearmach and they were excellent as usual.

Glad to be supporting a local business

Stoned at the back

first coat of the new light stone colour on the body work

The cupboard is going to be done as well, but needed some repairs first

Primer backend

After an immense amount of sanding the body of the ambulance/camper area has made it into a corat of primer. 

I made a decision to not remove the gas cabinet and trim because I did not want to break the seal on areas that are not leaking 

The rear step has been taken away for some welding.. and the ladder has been removed I will see if I can find a smaller one whilst we have this opportunity

It's a bit of a pity that there are so many vent holes from old fridges, but they are there and they will stay because I don't want to risk any leaks taking them off