Back at it again

Time flies and my wife and I already returned from the UK Tuesday night. It was a great trip – as we started on Sunday at 3:30am to get to the Eurotunnel – we had no traffic at all and the total driving time for 630km was just under 6 hours plus the 90 minutes for the tunnel travel and waiting time. It was great seeing my son and his friends. We had a fabulous time at the pub with them. I guess he was also relieved to get rid of a few packages that came in over the course of the last couple of weeks 🙂

Something that we found extremely contradicting is the fact that travelers need to fill out a passenger locator form, book a Day2 (and Day 8 if needed) Covid-19 test – but when you take the Underground to London – not even half of the people wear a mask (gets slightly better the closer you get to the city center) or keep distance. Places like Convent Garden, The British Musuem or Camden Street Market are cramped with people on a Sunday just like before the Pandemic. We still had our masks on most of the time, used hand-sanitizer often and tried to keep distance – fingers-crossed that the Covid-10 tests tomorrow and on Saturday will also be negative.

On the way back I decided to stop by at Moss-Motors. Feltham is close to Uxbridge and “almost” on the way back to Folkestone. The 20% discount for the Winter Sale applied to most of the panels for the MGB. I now have both outer and inner-sills, the castle rail, strengthener and sill caps and a new left floor from BMH. For the front and rear wings I got repair panels and a few other bits. A new front valance among other things is still missing. Panels combined with the cost for the replacement shell – I hope to end up well within the budget I set myself of body work.

After getting back I used small breaks during my working day to unpack, check and sort the new parts. These split up in five main categories: Hif4 Carb, heater, front quarter-lights, rear axle and panels. The plan is to overhaul the first three categories at home. The rear axle and leaf springs will need to wait for a sunny day once I get the Mini 40 edition completed and out of my garage.

Talking of the Mini 40 – tonight I removed the engine form the Mini to lower the front subframe. While I like to think that I did not waste any time – it still took me 2,5 hours to disconnect and remove all remaining auxiliaries – mainly the brake servo, exhaust, inlet manifold – and lift out the engine. Doing this in the dark after 5pm with 4°C outside is not as enjoyable as it could – but the main garage is completely stuffed with MGB parts right now.