the transformation begins

As you may be aware Matt decided to leave me at JLH Morris Minor for Jonathan to start working on my suspension and some other mechanical work but I've had time to talk Jonathan round to ignoring what Matt wants and to go with my idea which is a total transformation rather than doing bits and pieces.  Fortunately Jonathan after looking around my bottom parts agreed that it would not be sensible to do only the mechanicals and suspension as doing the suspension would actually compromise my already fragile wooden bits and as a result if I hit a big bump I'd probably fall apart.

In fact I did start falling to apart when Jonathan started playing around with my suspension and some of my wooden bits dropped off.  He also discovered that the front cross member was welded, rather than bolted, on and so there was some unexpected additional work to be done to make the suspension good to go.

Front suspension removed

It soon became obvious that simply taking everything off and starting the full transformation now would actually be cheaper in the long run than doing my body work at a later date, assuming I survived the journey to Mongolia and back in one piece.  As Matt was away I made the decision for him and as it's not my money it was a reasonably easy decision to make.

So, decision made Jonathan's boys took me apart and have started to make good my main body shell.  This work has involved doing some patching, sand blasting and doing some etching ready for an initial paint job once the little bits and pieces that came to light are sorted.

The next stage will be to get my bodywork completely sorted and painted and then add back the important bits like the engine, gearbox, suspension and everything needed to make me a whole car once again.

Jonathan estimates I'm going to be indisposed for some months now but that'll give Matt time to work out what he wants doing to make sure we can complete our challenge successfully.

It's going to be really great watching Matt's face when he finds out what's been going on while he has been away. Will keep everyone up to date with my transformation over the coming months.