At some point in the past somebody had hacked the rear panel about, I suspect so they could mount exhausts coming out the middle of the car, something that would look rather cool. Sadly they had cut out all the strength and it was what race engineers refer to as flopping about all over the place. I got it back in to shape by bending some 6mm round mild steel rod and welding it to the edge of the sheet metal, I clamped it up so it was in about the right place before starting. I started in the middle and worked my way out, it worked out rather well. There were quite a few dents where somebody had massaged it with a hammer so some filler had to be applied, the bumper covers most of it but I wanted it to be right, I don't want to be embarrassed when I tell people I built it.

I am still seriously miffed at Evri for mis delivering my door mirrors, I now have another ebay seller sent my exhaust end trims with Evri so no doubt that will go shit shaped too. things didn't get any better when I went to measure the db level of the exhaust.

Building a car can have enormous frustrations, the worst of which is having to go back and redo something you though you had already dealt with. In my case it's a badly smoking engine - the smoke is blue so I know it's burning oil. I thought it was an excess of oil pressure but I have changed the pressure relief spring and the bloody thing is still doing it there is no way it will pass the IVA test with it as it is so something needs to be done.

I have put an alarming number of hours in to the car this last couple of months, many jobs are obvious, just as many are not and it's sometimes hard to see where all the time went.

A few days back I did a job list, I got three or four things done and decided I should do another one, given that every time I look at the bloody thing I spot something else that needs attention. It's good to have a plan so I started at the front and worked my way backwards,by the time I had finished I had identified about 30 jobs that needed doing. Today I finished off the wiring at the front, fitted the side repeaters for the indicators, made up proper steel cables to stop the bonnet opening too far, rounded off the door hinges to IVA spec ie 2.5mm radius and fixed the handbrake light, which had stopped working. Turned out I had knocked off a wire when I was messing about connecting up the aerial the other week, 10 minute job to sort that. Another 10 minute job not on the list was to put cable ties on the track rod gaiters, something I only spotted today but would have been a failure point.