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Wednesday 7th November 2007
Holy MGB Batman!.....Part Two
(Or "Why Has Nothing Been Done To The Car For So Long"?)
The more eagle eyed of you out there will have noticed a distinct lack of updates since June this year. And there's a good reason for that, there is, no, really, there is, there really is, would I lie to you? Of course I wouldn't....
Having got as far as taking the wings off, and looking at that bloody great hole that used to be the windscreen surround I was then somewhat stumped by what we, here in sunny old England, laughingly call a summer. From June onwards all it seemed to do was rain, then rain some more, then, just for the hell of it, rain a bit more. I think we had the wettest summer on record, if not for a very long time, or even perhaps longer than that, either way it was wet with a capital double u. Definitely not good if you want to work on your beloved MG, not good at all, not even slightly. As the summer wore on, and with no end to the rain in sight, I began to question my own sanity for taking the thing to bits in the first place. What was I thinking? And now we're into November, Autumn is here, the clocks have gone back, it's dark at 4:30pm and the car is still in bits. Depressed? Me? No. Well, yes, OK, I am depressed, very depressed, imagine Marvin from "Hitch Hikers Guide" only worse, but at least I'm not made of metal, with wires, and diodes and stuff...
By last week I'd just about had enough and I started looking for a lock-up to work on the car in. Nothing really suitable has come along so far, they're all a bit too small and without power or water. OK to store the car in but definitely no good to work on it in. So, what to do next? I'll get a few quotes to get the work done I thought, it can't be that bad surely? How could I be more wrong? The cheapest was about £2500 up to £4250, yes, OK, I'll get back to you on that one. I want it repaired, not take out a second mortgage. So now what? Good question you may ask, a very good question. Not sure if I know that answer either.
The only other thing I can do, that is unless I want to wait until next spring, or until we move to a house with a garage, is to build a structure around the car where it is. I figure I have about 5 metres by 4 metres to play with. It will be right in front of the lounge bay window and at about half the windows height but with it getting dark by 4:30 it shouldn't cause too much of a problem in terms of light getting into the lounge, it's only temporary anyway. Not quite sure what the neighbours, or the local council, will make of it but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Still, might be a good idea to check with the council first before I shell out on the materials for the structure.
I've already started drawing up plans for the structure, it will have to be strong enough to withstand the weather but it doesn't have to be strong enough to last, well, only for about six months anyway. So, it's get that built, learn to weld, buy two new front wings (not going to bother with the old ones now) and get on with it.
One other avenue I did explore was to buy another MGB (roadster this time) and put the GT into storage until we move to a house with a garage but "she who must be obeyed" shot that one down in flames, refusing to even talk about the idea. A shame because one of the guys in the MGOC is selling a nice, usable, tax exempt, '71 roadster at a reasonable price, but that's marriage for you.
So, that's the, tentative, plan so far, lets see how it goes.
Thursday 8th November 2007
It seems "she who must be obeyed" has had a bit of a change of heart, either that or I just wore her down which is the more likely scenario, because she now agrees it may be better to put CCH into storage until such time as we get the space to work on it. Although she didn't like the Blaze Red '71 Roadster one of the MGOC members was selling (she doesn't like orange, I don't mind the colour myself) she does quite fancy a Midnight Blue '73 Roadster we've found for sale. Not tax exempt (it missed it by 3 months) but it does have wires and it is around our price bracket. We're going to have a look at it on Saturday afternoon. In the meantime, in case we don't like the one we're looking at, I shall keep scanning the ads. Of course an idea has just occurred to me, if I'm not going to work on CCH until I have a garage to do so, and I'll have another MG to run around in until then, when I do get to work on CCH I'll have time and space. I wonder if she'll let me get away with putting a V8 into CCH.............
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