At the beginning of the week, everything was going fine until the ends of my thumb and forefinger interrupted the full force of the cutting stroke of my hacksaw.

That made even tying my shoelaces difficult. Anyway, a good rinse with water, some kitchen towel and Sellotape sorted things out. I couldn't use super-glue to close the wound because hacksaw blades make for a ragged cut. And naturally, as soon as I'd done this, the phone started to ring - can you do this, we need 5 of these, are you busy? we've got an urgent job....

The most urgent job was for another 2 ROV sensor frames. I fabricate all the parts and whizz off to George who does the welding - my TIG outfit is too small for some of the tubes which are ¼" thick. I took this photo because I was so pleased with the DRO on the mill. The drawings call for 3 decimal places in accuracy - I wouldn't have a cat's chance on the pillar drill.

One of the things which has always been a nuisance on the Morris 6 engine is the block drain. The tap is tiny, and I always end up taking a radiator hose off when I need to drain the system. I'd rather lose a portion of the antifreeze than wait around for a couple of days.

I'm going to make up a new outlet and install a tap worthy of the name. I had a couple of 90° bends in stainless steel over from another job that have been sitting in the come-in-handy box for this very moment.

As I couldn't do much else without spilling blood everywhere, I started to assemble bits and pieces in an effort to make some space on the bench. The engine mounts - though the rubbers have seen better days - are ready for action.

I've relined the front brake shoes and, in being over-cautious, hit my thumb and forefinger several times in the process. So rather than continue with the rear brakes, I turned my attention to the front suspension and the installation of the torsion bar mechanism in particular.

The aft end of the bars locate in splined brackets bolted to a chassis crossmember. The original bracket bolts were completely chewed up and I replaced them with some aircraft quality items that I had in store. A coat of 'bear grease' will be applied to all the nuts and bolts after final tightening.

The torsion bar sits inside the splined tube shown here. This tube is supported in the subframe by two very thick rubber bushes, between which is another tube acting as a spacer.

This last tube is located by two bolts at the back of the subframe tube. A bit of a squeeze? It is. I thought it would be a relatively easy job pulling it all into the subframe by reversing the procedure I used to get all of it out but didn't reckon on the powerful grip of the rubber. Hmm, not even many hands will make this light work.