The other side of the camera
Having been photographed working on the editor's various project cars more times than I care to remember, he has finally persuaded me to step round to the other side of the camera and contribute the occasional Driver Diary of my own. In part that is because I have taken on the former Classics project MGB GT, and he was keen to complete that car's story in the magazine.
This was not a project that I had been involved in at all until now, but he knew that I like the BGT as a model and that I had been thinking about getting another for a while. I'd even been to look at a couple, but decided they were not what I was looking for. What piqued my interest in the magazine's car was the rare colour, being Black Tulip. That was only available for one year in 1973 before they changed to Aconite. Another plus point is that it is a chrome bumper car which I wanted too.
Simon brought it down to the workshop for me to have a good look over before finally committing, and I was surprised at just how solid it was underneath. The driver's side was all good as had been explained in the features, with all the problem areas being confined to the passenger side so there were no surprises there. It has had a lot of work done in places underneath with a lot of small plates welded together rather than having one single large repair section made up. Although that means there is a lot of it, where the welding looks good I don't want to disturb it because there just doesn't seem to be any point.
It is worse where the inner sill goes up to join the floor at the back on the nearside, though. The metal was heavily plated here, but although somebody had attempted to
weld it all in, the only bits of weld that actually joined the plates to the car were along the bottom. The rest was just welded onto thin air rather than attaching to the inner metal. The bottom of the rear wing had been cut away to gain access to this area, more or less level with the bottom of the door, but they'd put it back and simply run filler over the top, not even bothering to rub it down. I suppose they thought that it was down low and out of sight so nobody would see it. That was then painted with black underseal. None of that looks too difficult to rectify though, so I coughed up some cash and got the V5C just two days after buying it – the DVLA are really quick if you do the change online, but
much slower if you send the paperwork in. I was thinking about taxing it right away, but decided to put it on SORN while I tackled the repairs.
My other project is a 1968 Triumph Vitesse 2- Litre Mk2. I've had that for eight years now, and you will have seen it sitting in the background of a great many workshop photographs. I've been working on that every now and then when I had the time and inclination. It is undergoing a full body restoration, all done properly with the body off the chassis. So far the chassis is finished and the body is sitting back on it temporarily. The welding to the body is complete too, I just need to tidy up the repairs, then the body is coming back off. I shall then roll the body onto its side so I can completely eradicate any rust underneath and protect it. That will give me a chance to give everything a final check over on the running gear (the bushes might need replacing again after all these years!) before finally reuniting the body and chassis for good.
The Vitesse was Wedgwood Blue originally, though it was converted to red later in its life. There is still some red paint on it, but I will be putting it back to the original colour. It had been totally stripped when I got it and there is some trim and chrome missing, so if any readers have over-riders, aluminium bumpers or stuff like that, I'd like to hear from
them. When it is done, I'm not sure what I will do with the Vitesse. The previous owner has said he'd be interested in buying it back, but I don't know yet whether I will want to drive it myself. I might be about 90 by the time it is finished though, and not want it any more!
There is another car in the workshop, an Austin 1300GT that I am restoring for somebody else. That came to me without its engine, and I have stripped the bodyshell down. It does look to be in remarkably good shape overall, particularly for one of these models, the worst area being where somebody has butchered the heel board where the rear subframe mounts. I've never seen one done this badly, with large chunks of the box section cut away to access the subframe mounting points. On one side they did try to box in the missing section, but on the other they just left the cut metal folded out of the way.
There is also a repair panel joining the floor to the sill that has been pop-riveted to the floor. People used to do that back in the day so I've seen something similar often enough. That will have to come off and be done properly. And digging around does show that the inner sills have a bit of rust in them where they meet the floor. It is all repairable, but no doubt there will be more rot to emerge as I dig away.
At the front, the bulkhead looks good. There is a little bit of rust here and there, but nothing terrible. The front valance is a little frilly at the ends, too. But to get an idea of the way the car was butchered, have a look at the hole that was cut in the boot floor just to access the fuel sender unit. They didn't exactly make much of an attempt afterwards to tidy up the mess they'd made, but I guess at one point it would have been just an old banger, not a desirable classic worth saving and fixing properly.