It was my father's habit to call the first cup of tea of the day, 'gunfire'. I'd never really thought about it - this and one or two less savoury bits of military slang were part of the family vocabulary - until I happened past this:

.... suggesting that you wouldn't have to wait too long before Bloggs sprang forth with a cup of rosy. Wizard!

To make the job of taking the brackets off the rear axle casings a bit easier and to lighten the load, I unbolted the diff. A cursory examination showed it to be in good order - a bit lumpy when turned but all the crown wheel teeth were good so I think the bearings are just gummed up. I'll dump the lot in a bucket of diesel for a couple of weeks - that should free it up before I take it apart - or not.

Cutting the brackets off was quite simple as they'd been welded only around their edges. The more difficult and lengthier task was to grind off the surplus and polish the axle casing down to fit the axle clamps.

I took about a half a millimetre from the circumference and then polished for the final fit to smooth everything off. Where I'd marked the casings with the cutting disc, I'd initially filled with weld but in the end this wasn't really necessary as the marks I hadn't filled (or overlooked) disappeared with the polishing and grinding in any case.

There's a little bit of work to do to finish but the bulk of it's done. Next thing will be to sort out the radius arms and I've spotted a convenient bushing on the chassis about 12" from the axle.

It's just an idea at the moment; I'll have to work out the angles and make sure that the arms are fixed to the axle in the right places as the axle, when deflected, should describe a small arc. If the radius arms were attached to the chassis with some sort of rubber bushing - a bit like the bushes for the friction dampers on the Hillman, they'd allow for any compression or tension as the axle deflects. The correct positioning of the radius arms should minimise the effect.

Anyway, a good days work and I'm glad to have got back into it again.

As, I note, has The Great Collector. Another Flat Nose Morris has appeared out of the blue. It was sitting on a four-post ramp, so he bought that as well. There's no stopping him.....

... unlike these poor souls. My work took me to Kent the other day and on my way down, everyone was encouraged to avoid the M20 as it was now a lorry park stretching from Maidstone to Dover. The announcements on the electronic boards over the M25 told us that junctions 8-9 on the M20 were closed. Fine; that's very kind of the traffic people to let us know but, where are junctions 8 and 9 - this end.. that end... in the middle? I know at least that the M25 junctions start on the south side of the Dartford crossing; that the M4 junction is number 15 and there's 31 junctions in total but, to tell me that there's a 3 mile tailback between junctions 22 and 25 gives me only half the picture. Better to announce that there's a queue between the A1 and the A10; I know where that is and can plan accordingly.

I've often thought that I should put a map of the M25's junction numbers in the glove box. That'd be a start.