Resto: Stage 2 Starts - The body

Today, Sunday was a quiet day with the lawns being mowed, some gardening completed and also a few other odd jobs around the house were knocked on the head, the kids were coming and going with the swimming pool getting a good workout and then there was some time spent in the shed cleaning up a few things and also admiring a couple of items that I brought for a song mind you up at the Bendigo Swap Meet in central Victoria yesterday, Ray and myself made the 700km return trip with a 2.30am start on Saturday morning to be there by 6.00am when the gates opened and I could not believe the crowd that was there at this hour of the morning as the sun was coming up, bargain hunters everywhere as we ran to the "$10 Big Breakfast" tent for bacon and eggs and that much needed coffee, 2.30am start, what were we thinking!!

So today after lunch I removed all the temporary timbers that we had installed to hold up the vacuum tank, steering wheel and foot control for a test drives that we had done over the past months and I removed all the "hot wiring" as well so that I can start to install the new timber rails that Peter from NSW made, the same fella that made the timber steering wheel, brilliant work from a very talented craftsman, thanks Peter once again.

I also have the cowl back now from panel shop and you can see in the photos I had new replacement "lower panels" welded into place on each side as the original sections were completely rust away, the panel beater also cut out rust and old bog, strengthened and then fixed both mounting point locations for the windscreen frame where it attaches with 3 bolts on each side of the upper cowl.
I have only just sat the timber rails and cowl onto the chassis for photos purposes as when it is installed properly the cowl sits and locks in under the timber rails but rests on top of the chassis.

So now the fun begins as the timber work was always going to be the big test.... We'll wait and see I guess!