Saturday October 5th. The estate gets a Rat look!

For some weeks now the bonnet on my Mk2 estate has needed attention. I haven't been able to open or close it without it catching on the front panel and causing damage to the paint. After several previous attempts at adjusting it, all to no avail, I had come to be convinced that the bonnet was rusting from the inside of where the bonnet hinge plates are welded on.

So as a precaution I had bought another second hand bonnet just in case my one was completely beyond repair. With my bonnet removed and after further inspection, it was decided that it was indeed beyond repair and so the replacement was fitted. The good news is that the new bonnet works a treat and the bonnet now opens and closes without catching at all. The bad news is that this bonnet is Sienna Brown, with a splash of white and some yellow road paint thrown over it along with some dried leaves, bird turd, fur that looks like it's from a Badger and three spiders. (Two of them dead.) (Well what do you expect? it did come from Colin Wake. i.e Scrapman.)

Part of the cars long term plans are to have all the bodywork taken care of and a complete respray, so for the time being I might just have to spray the bonnet matt black with rattle cans. (It'll still be better than in its present state!)

Or.....if I'm going to paint the bonnet black shall I go the whole hog and create what I had before? A Mk2 estate in the guise of a British Leyland Rally Support vehicle. I always loved the look of that car and regretted selling it. (Although it was rotten!) This is the car on the 2009 HCR. It was my first Club Triumph event. We managed to earn joint fourth place and our results have got progressively worse on this event ever since!

Another issue I had always had with this car was its reluctance to wear a strut brace. For some reason with a strut brace fitted you could never close the bonnet. I think its had either accident damage or restoration repairs at some point in the past and the front panels were never lined up properly. Seeing as Gavin was present and is a dab hand on the gas welding kit, he cut into the strengthening framework under the bonnet and altered and re-welded them so that they could compensate the strut brace. So for the first time since I've owned the car (Five years this New Year) it now has a strut brace.