Today, I hired a medium-sized van because it needed to have at least 3m (10 feet) of internal loading area so that the front wings would fit in!

First-born & I drove round to Steve’s place and collected all the parts that were not fitted to the car. Well I say “all”, what I mean is: as many as were obviously associated with the car.  There are some parts that must be in the garage ‘somewhere’ but they will be uncovered over time. Alongside the wings, we collected all 4 doors, which were surprisingly heavy. Even though the door bottoms were rusty, we needed to be careful with them because the chrome trim, door glass, and the original door handles were still fitted to each of the doors. Also collected were the front passenger seat (more on that in a minute), the rear seat back, the 2 rear wings, the spare wheel storage tray, the VERY heavy front bumper, oh, and a number of very tired looking leather seat covers that are beyond use, apart from being a reference for the new leather trimming.

The spare wheel tray had been rebuilt by Steve, but sadly was one of the victims of his old storage garage having a hole in the roof brought about by a fallen tree. Trouble is, Steve didn’t visit that garage very often so the new hole let in rain over an extended period, which unfortunately landed on the seats and the spare wheel tray and did what rain does best to unprotected metal.

The subject of this blog entry is really that corroded front seat. It looks horrible: there are holes in the main steel loop, the supporting framework, the seat frame and the very basic runners. The seat was originally adjustable for height and position using a rather lovely handle, but for a minute all the moving parts are seized. There is nothing that can’t be repaired or rebuilt with sufficient patience and time, although bending a new hoop will be an interesting challenge.  I am wondering if the adjusting screw will ever move again – anything that should move is soaked in ‘PlusGas’ which has reliably freed up joints before, so it’s worth a try.

I know it’s a bit weird to start the restoration with a seat – but I don’t have any metal yet to start repairing body panels and of course the car is still in Steve’s garage, so I will play with what I have.

Below are a few pictures of us bringing the parts home and the corroded seat