The Dark Wob

I can't see an anvil being much use for car restoration ? A swage block would be far more useful,surely , but i haven't got a spare one of those .

Something to bash metal on with hammers. Bend and shape.

Tinsmiths stake or a bick iron would do if you have a decent vice to hold it. I'll have a rummage ,there's some old tools in my garden shed..they'll be rusty though ! Flap discs in Lidls 4 for 3.99 yesterday ....

That anvil look like a total and utter bargain for that money, still has a good sharp edge down the side, they can fetch very good money now. It was a tinsmiths stake that I used mounted at waist height in a stand I made from from some scrap metal.

The badge on the back of mine has gone a bit tatty. Chrome edge chipped and the yellow Sprint background has faded. As mine is an early one, the text is of a different style and harder to get hold of.

One has just come up on eBay:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164684049591

I think it'll have to stay corroded...

I'd be worried about someone nicking a nice one off the back of my car too!

Jaysus! that's a bit much for a badge.

Someone has bidded too, so they're prepared to spend at least that for it.

Mental.

You'd need a totally perfect restoration for it not to look out of place anyway.

If you're paying tens of thousands for a restoration then this is a no brainer to me. I don't know how much restoring a Sprint would cost but imagine it'd be easy to rack up 20k+ in bodywork and paint at one of the specialists.
In my opinion it's one of the key distinguishing features of a Sprint and when could you expect another to be for sale?

Time for a long overdue update.

Finished that B pillar off shortly after last posting.



Then started on the back of the cill.



Cut this bit off.



Which revealed this mess.


Even worse, whoever did the cill last didn't fix up and weld the inner membrane. So frustrating.


I did make this repair piece to repair the end of the cill. Idea being that I could reuse most of the existing.


Ultimately though I knew the whole sill needed to come off.


Good news is that a lot of it is not in terrible shape. Also the original membrane too.


So I started making up replacement bits to weld in.


As I was making sparks everywhere, I decided to drain the tank.



This lovely fuel is currently going through my lawnmowers. Once the water was drained out, they seem quite happy on it.




At this point my mojo had dropped to nearly zero. I knew I'd need buy a whole lot of panels too if I was going to make a decent job on this.

Sold my 1100 and got this instead.


Did a Cambelt change amongst other things and an MOT. Realised I did not like it and wasn't for me. Too comfy, refined and big for my tastes as a toy. Good car otherwise but I don't have a sophisticated enough taste for such a machine.


Then went hunting for a classic Mini. Idea was to get one that was road ready and wasn't yet another project. Realised that they were all rusty, no matter the budget and all projects of some degree - some immediate, some in a year or two. Varied from either really rusty, haven't looked hard enough or hidden under paint and filler. Also damn expensive for what you got. Frustrated I abandoned that idea for now!

Instead I decided to splunk some of my new found wealth from selling two cars on some panels. So took the day off and collected a bunch of panels from the club last week.


Last night I got on with welding the piece in I clamped up 3 month ago. Also took the time to line up the outer cill with the arch repair panel to see how well everything went together.


Then realised I must have had the wrong side cill on. Glad I lined this all up to check!


That end should be this end. I need to cut off the bottom piece in here and weld this all up at the back end. It's currently a right mess.


With the panels in hand now, I just need to crack on getting these cills and arches done. Another project is going to be the boot floor. It's still there but very patchy. Thankfully Purplebarken gave me this boot floor piece a while back. The fuel tank side (left) is going to be especially useful.


In other news, a previous owner of this car from about 15years ago found my YouTube video! Told me a few useful nuggets about it. It had been owned by a local college for a bit and used as something for the students to restore. Hence why it went through quite a few owners for a bit.

Also the seats are actually rare heated seats from a Swiss model car. That'll explain the wires coming out the bottom of the seat! Never wired up though. Maybe I might. Seats do need a lot of attention though as the foam is kaput and vinyl sections ripped.

Most interesting is that it had a "new" engine, gearbox and diff around 100k. Explains why it ran so well when I did drive it that one time to bring it home. Admittedly not sure if new new, or existing and rebuilt. But better than 125k which it would have been on if original.