A while back I mentioned leaving traces of the damage from my V's time as a target. I finally remembered to take a picture of this bit. It is in the right rear wheel well, where a cannon round went through the hull. All traces inside were ground down smooth and are no longer visible, but the outside is not quite smooth and will remain as it is. Part of it's history.
Clean, it is not as obvious as it is in the picture with all that dust in the nooks and crannies, won't really detract from its appearance when finished.
Known serious damage- cannon rounds through right rear wheel well, left side of nose, and to the upper left side of the rear door frame. .50cal hole in engine bay frame. All but the bits previously noted is repaired and now invisible.
In the process of getting the new engine bay side panels fitted. The original material these were made of is apparently no longer available, so the new ones are high grade plywood and will have heat shields on the engine side.
Believe it or not, I have a NOS front panel (the part with the ventilation door in it) still in its plastic wrapper!
Most of the panel retainers were bad or missing, so a bunch of new ones are now riveted in. They are the silver ones in the picture.
Some spiders must have had a wild party in there, there are little balls and strands of web all over the interior at the moment! Combined with the dust, it is starting to look pretty grotty inside..
The hydraulic reservoir started leaking, took it out and found a pin hole in the bottom. That is repaired and back in.
All this, of course, required that the radiator come back out, and was started before the shifter was repaired and back in, so I have yet to drive the thing!
I am now 15 months into my 3 month rebuild project. What was I thinking??
Actually, I guess was thinking that things were a lot more "done" when I started out since I have never tackled anything like this before, didn't really know what to expect. Maybe in three more months....
Cheers
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