... is an uninterrupted weekend doing stuff on the car. I'm going to lock myself in the shed and make some progress. The past couple of weeks have been hopeless as far as the project is concerned - little bits here and there, not amounting to much. My deadline for the rolling and hopefully, running, chassis is the 28th December - a year to the day that I collected the wreck from Banbury. Things are looking a bit tight.

Now the Myford is up and running...

... I've been able to get on with the gear lever linkage which has required some turning that the Portass wasn't up to. It's like being on a different planet being able to take a cut of more than 2 thou and, with the power feed, make a tidy job of it. This is the selector side of the box - the more difficult side. I'm doing this one first because... well, because the box was this way round on the bench.

I've also cleaned up the centre casings of the back axle. On closer examination I can see that they've been apart before. I don't know much about diffs and backlash, tolerances and so on and I must be mindful that I'll be putting a few more horses through the gears - so they'll need careful reassembly. I'm sure the general idea will be in the books somewhere.

We were very good at castings in The Olden Days - I know pressed steel is a lot cheaper but a good quality and complex casting is a work of art.

I was delighted to see that the preeminent vintage car website www.prewarcar.com has, for its daily article, chosen to publish one of my pictures that I submitted for next year's calendar. Of course, there's no saying that this picture will be included but I've been lucky enough to have pictures in the calendar 3 years in a row...

2010

2011

2012

Luckily, I swapped the Bayliss Thomas for the Hillman so that I had a 'new' car to do next year's submissions but I'm going to struggle in 2013 for the 2014 portfolio. The Great Collector has a particularly pretty Rover 10 with a Doctor's Coupe body - I did a bit of work on it earlier in the year; I might have to steal that. Anyway, the thing is to have a back up. Actually, with a bigger engine in it, the Rover would be a really nice car... I wonder?

I think I've got enough on my plate just now... still, no harm in dreaming.