Some years ago, I realised that when someone walks into the workshop, sees you doing something and advises you to do it another way, it's at that moment you have to recall that it's always best to make your own mistakes. Your would-be adviser's comments may well be sound, and it may save you a lot of time and grief to adopt their method, but if your gut feeling is otherwise, stick to your plan and if it goes wrong you have only yourself to blame. If you follow someone else's plan and it goes awry, frankly, there's nothing worse.

Another week has gone by with very little progress on the Special. A chum called by complaining of a leak from a rocker box gasket on his XK - get some new ones was my advice; they'd not been changed for 40 years. His visit also involved me doing a few 'little' jobs for which in exchange I happily acquired two seats.

I have an idea that they might be Triumph Herald. One of the pair was in a bad enough state to warrant stripping and having a look at the frame construction.

The other I shall use to get the seat position once the floor is fabricated, and I can alter the frames afterwards. The back is a bit too square at the top and both will need some sort of hinge added so they can be tilted forward to accommodate Miss X's en route requirements.

Down the back of one of them were two sixpences and a Snap-on spanner. I'll pop that in the de-rusting tank. The worst job of the week turned out to be cutting the hole in the roof of the 4x4 to turn it into a vehicle for lamping. Cutting the hole was fine, but making the lid was a palaver. I was supplied with a sheet of 1.5mm steel which I cut to size and folded the edges to give it a lip. It was clearly too heavy, so I cut the panel from aluminium, notched the corners and folded in the lip. I then decided to give the panel a bit of shape on the wheeling machine. My errors in so doing were silly mistakes. Firstly, I didn't have the right anvil on the wheel and secondly, putting shape into a panel with the edges already in effect closed off, leads to disastrous oil-canning.

For light relief, a trip to The Great Collectors to investigate an ominous pool of water in his 1919 2-seat Humber's sump. A crack in the block was suspected but following an inspection with the head off, signs of serious corrosion in the aluminium timing casting were discovered.

With the cover off it was clear that the repairs done in the past had passed their sell-by date and after cleaning up....

... it was clear from where the water was escaping.

The bottom radiator hose connection wasn't too bright either, so I started with an aluminium sleeve....

... and Milliput. At which point I had a visitor.