This was the NAUGHTY CORNER

On the flip side though the rollbar seems an easyish fix, the body doesn't visibly rust they are cheap and sound gorgeous.
I thinkimayneedtodevelop some fibreglass skills though

For me it was between a mgb gt or the scim.
the mg rots everywhere, the scim is more limited

Henspeed, yes it us apparently easy to fix the roll bar from what I've been reading. I find I'm averse to any fixes that require me to cut/chop into surfaces though as I know from experience I never manage to finish the job without it looking like a pile of cottage cheese. So I'd rather have a rotten roll bar that I can't see than a fixed one that reminds me daily how curse word I am at fixing things and leaving no trace of my handy work.

I have no doubt I ought to look at fixing mine though.

It was with great sadness that I un-bookmarked the Humber, but I'm sure this will make a more than adequate, and very different, replacement in my heart.

Bookmarked!

Aye, very true. I will get around to it eventually, but for now it remains above my skill grade.

The car isn't being used for anything other than local trundling to get the parts/materials/tools needed to work on it at the moment. Obviously the wheels can go skyward on even a short journey, but I drive with my door open and one foot on the ground ready to take evasive action should anything bad happen.

Tim your posts are hilarious.
Pile of cottage cheese....priceless!!
Hope all goes well with the car.

Thanks, and thanks.

I have VERY little to offer in the way of experience, advice or skill in terms of car stuff. I'm generally scrabbling around in the dark and taking advantage of the expertise of anyone kind enough to offer me guidance... so I try to compensate for any solid contributions by at least making my piffle vaguely entertaining to read where possible. If I make a massive mistake when fettling cars it tends to have a funny side once the pain and the rage has subsided...so I don't mind being the punchline.

In the early 90's I did design work for Paul Smith... brochures and ad campaigns for fashion magazines and whatnot. Every Christmas he would do a Christmas gift brochure and to make it different to the uber-stylish seasonal stuff, he'd do something novel or silly. One year he asked for ideas and I knew a bloke who owned two Austin Maxis, so I suggested we produce a fake car brochure. He liked the idea, gave me the items he wanted to feature and a budget, and told me to get on with it. So I designed the brochure and art directed a photoshoot with models and the Maxis to be a deliberately bad pastiche of 1970's British car marketing - it was deliberately awful.The very best bit, by a very long measure, was the copywriting. I had free reign to write whatever amused me and I wrote about 30 pages of fake 70's copy, full of ridiculous bufoonery.

That was in about 1994. Being Paul Smith, that brochure got sent out to a lot of people in media and TV and it got a lot of coverage. I really hoped like hell that somebody in media land would pick up on it and get in touch and invite me to write for a car magazine. It never happened sadly, but not long after that, Top Gear took a wild turn away from it's sincere motoring style and became something of a self parody and somewhat ridiculous in it's approach to motoring journalism. So although it's highly unlikely, I do like to entertain the notion that maybe my car brochure sowed a small seed in someone's mind to not take motoring journalism quite as seriously as it was in the 80's.

I do realise how ridiculous that sounds, and I know it's a big stretch to imagine I might have been any kind of influence at all, but it keeps me warm at night on those occasions when my air filters are on fire, my carbs are full of sand and there are slinky springs at the bottom of my gear box.

(I worked for Top Gear for a few years in the noughties, as a freelance illustrator and image retoucher, and did my very best to persuade them to let me write a column, but they weren't having any of it. Some dreams remain dreams I guess)

Smiler, sounds like hell! Thanks for the reference shots. Will be useful to have to hand... Although to be honest I'm going to attempt something of a workaround as I just don't fancy my chances doing it the right way.

Basically going to drill in the the metalwork/bar on the inner edge of the hinge hole, and then pack the big gap on the outer side of the hinge hole with something that will no move... Fitted with a short bar that I can wedge into the drilled hole on the other side, and add an additional plate to stop it falling out.

I haven't even got as far as properly scoping that out yet. The hatch remains locked and out of action until I do as I suspect the other hinge will also break if I keep wobbling that up and down.

Meant to say as well... nice pair of Scims you've got there.

*A bit jealous*

Are you describing your car there, or mine?



My car has crazing. It's been painted by a gun not rattle cans, but it's not far off rattle can quality. Looks good in pics, but it's not good up close at all. It's a satin black and it's got pimples, dead spiders and greenfly trapped beneath it, plus big craters where the old paint flake holes weren't filled and smoothed out before re-painting.

It's got loads missing from it. No rear bumper, no rear wiper, the rear lights are hanging on by the grace of the car gods, can't use the rear hatch yet, no interior to speak of, lots of worrying surface rust underneath, four rear wheels, the bonnet lock/catch is entirely absent and has to be locked with a padlock and chain, it has no choke, no dashboard lights, no carpets or headlining, the seats are Sports deckchairs from somewhere like Argos, it has race harnesses that simply do not work with the seats at all, the sunroof leaks, the electric windows took ages to get working and then I fitted weather strips to the outside (temporary to keep the rain out) and they stopped the windows going up and down again. I live in fear that my gear selectors are about to go but this might just be a haunting fear from my Humber experiences (same Type5 gearbox), it rattles like crazy when on the move (I've cured about 90% of the rattles but some I just can't locate), there's something amiss with the suspension which simultaneously feels as hard as nails - amplifying the texture of the road into a feeling like sitting on top of a road drill, and yet at the same time it wallows up and down like a cadillac and makes me feel sick (i've addressed this now, I hope), it also had some vital radiator cowling missing from the front end (top piece) so I've been making a new one the last two days. It has a sh*tload of trim missing, and some clown had fastened the alloy interior door window strips to the outside (why? WHY?)

I'm slowly putting things straight, and enjoying myself with it far more than I enjoyed owning my last car. When I take it out for a run, it feels good and strong (aside from the weird suspension effects) so I cautiously feel it's a goodun and it just needs some dedicated tinkering to make it feel more complete.

The thing is, despite all the faults, and despite the fact I told myself I'd take it on as a cheap clunker and sell it as a better car come spring and then get a better Scimitar... I think it's safe to say I'm loving the experience and might end up seeing this as a my long term car.