Colour choice, Return to France, Customs etc etc

[rfs1957]

Having made various intrusions into the Forum about paint colour,

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18854&p=156314#p156314

choosing between LHD-RHD,

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18743&p=151878#p151878

and including such gems as



finding two migrants hiding under the tarp just before boarding the ferry at Ouistreham, I'm pleased to report back.

The car is now Opalescent Silver Grey, tho' of the Angus Moss variety, which appears to my eye to be halfway between the generally-accepted Opalescent Silver Grey and the Opalescent Gunmetal Grey, and it has a slight green tinge .............. so if the waters have been muddied, blame Angus.







Anyone requiring advice and paperwork regarding border-clearance on old cars could do worse than contact Maks Stabwara at MSE International Freight, I found his advice to be very pragmatic and evidence-based - as in, what actually happens in practice.

maks@mseinternationalfreight.com

I'm now struggling with a fading memory and the daunting task of the re-assembly, which is pathetic given that the car was essentially sorted and restored (aside from the shell) before I took it to bits in 2017-2018.

So please brace yourselves for some daft questions.

The bodywork was done by the gifted guys at Hutsons in Bradford

https://www.hutsonmoco.co.uk/

under the expert eye of Andy Rayner, to whom I shall be eternally indebted, and the paint by Trevor and Todd at Concours Restoration in Nuneaton

Todd 07583 982704

who were exceptionally slow, but exceptionally pleasant to deal with, and have done an exceptionally fine job.

[Simon P]

Looks fab! Now looking forward to seeing the fully finished product!

[mgcjag]

Great job Rory...I'm sure it was worth the wait

[Gfhug]

Rory, so pleased you’ve got her home and like the others have said I can’t wait to see photos of the car on the road. Even better to see the car in the flesh. Good luck with the rest of the work and you’ve made more than enough helpful and technical contributions to the forum to ask for a little help in return.

ATB

Geoff

[christopher storey]

Very glad ( but unsurprised ) you got a first class job from Hutsons . Good luck with the assembly - mapping out the order of doing things before you start is time well spent

[rfs1957]

Thanks for the various kind messages.

I'm starting on the rewarding, if frustrating and repetitive, task of adjusting the rear chromes, just to remind me what a 9/16 AF spanner feels like after all these years.



I thought they were pretty good when I took the car to bits, but now that I've got a Hollywood paint-job I'm condemned to reproducing all the rest to match





Anyone looking for really useful shims (designed for sliding over fixings in the building trade, for window-and-door-mounting adjustment) could do worse to find a source of these, mine are trade-name Goettgens - I must have used them on dozens of mechanical projects over the decades.

They're also useful to set standards - my ISO9001 norm for bumper-to-body gap is now the 5.5mm shim





For anyone who is faced with this kind of adjustment for the first time, a curved-section flap-wheel (as opposed to the common flat-type) works really well, with regular wet-rag application to cool the steel, when removing metal from the edges.

These new cordless DeWalt grinders are a major improvement over my previous corded ones - lighter, stop quicker, would never have thought these attributes would make such a difference.

What chance have I got of being able to re-create these Hutson shut-lines once the engine is installed ?!

[265bhp]

Car is looking lovely Rory….
Enjoy the build….we spent hours shaping the bumpers to fit…but 100% worth it in the end…..

All the best
Jonathan

[DWW]

Bodywork looks magnificent....enjoy the rest of the build, will be nice to hear/see more as you progress on the build.