Life? Don't talk to me about life...

It gets in the way of car repairs :P

The heat is(n't) on!

Many ages ago I found that there was a solid pipe coming up from the offside heater channel, where the flexi hose type stuff should have been.
I attached a hose to said pipe and then attached that hose to the plastic vent malarkey (technical term) hoping to get some windscreen demisting action going on... it didn't work!
Today I found out why!

This is the solid pipe...

Somewhere a vacuum cleaner is missing an attachment

And this is the weirdly melted and not very well attached to the heater channel hose that the solid pipe was totally failing to be attached to!

That poor vacuum cleaner! How was it supposed to do under the sofa?!

Oh yes, nearly forgot, this is the front of the offside heater channel that the melted hose was badly attached to and the solid pipe wasn't channelling heat towards the windscreen from!

It just came off in my hand (that's what she said!)

The Incredible Bulk(head)

Decided to tackle the bulkhead cross piece, so I can get the front of the body to the actual height it's supposed to be and not where Bodge decided it should go!

The fact that the centre of it had collapsed was a sure indication that something was a tad wrong...

Ignore the brake fluid, that's just seasoning

And the badly welded bit in the middle inspired confidence... confidence in what I'm not quite sure but it certainly wasn't in the structural integrity of the car :P

There was something nicely satisfying about ripping the cruddy piece of rot encrusted metal out :)

That's a nice repair in the middle of something that helps hold the front end up!

And I finally got rid of the zip tie that had been put there to stop the clutch cable coming too far forward, rather than just make a stop plate...

I took the cable off the pedal and actually made the aforementioned stop plate, but never got round to cutting the zip tie off :P

Then I tried to trial fit the new cross piece... it wouldn't fit as the front is STILL not high enough!!!
(I forgot to take a pic but just imagine a piece that's meant to fit somewhere not fitting where it's supposed to)

I had some excitement too, when a cutting disc decided that it would rather be a piece of abstract art!

You know the drill...

Drilled about 50 holes in the edge of the floorpan, twice! Once with a thin drill bit, then again with a larger one... made my wrist ache like an achey thing!

Then I had to get the remaining bits of the old floor off... breaking spot welds is a thoroughly exciting job :P

Did a trial fit of the floor...

And then squeezed the heater channel in!

Had a horrible thought... when I've finally finished this side I still have another side to do! ;)

Waterloo!

I took the brand new Napoleon's Hat (or as a friend called it "Nelson's Helmet" :P)...

...and hacked an end off as it's the only bit that needs replacing!

Not the prettiest of welding but it's solid, and will probably look better after a clean up... which has to be later as it started raining just after I'd finished this bit!

Welders/grinders and rain don't play well together ;)

A Beetle Beetle...

Found this little fellow on one of the tyres :)

Arch enemy...

Put the rear quarter/wheelarch repair panels on to see what they look like...

...very nice :)

Unfortunately I had to move the rear shock to fit the arch panel in, and the high tensile top bolt snapped!

That's just effing marvellous!