DHC repairs #0

There have been a number of significant developments for the DHC’s repairs over the past few weeks. To start with an agreement with the damage assessor over the total amount of the actual damage. And the insurance company accepted the report. They even paid rather promptly. Nice to see that sometimes things just turn out as they were promised!

With the administrative and financial part of the damage sorted, I can now start on the actual repairs. Well ... first sourcing the necessary body parts for the repairs. And the start has been pretty good so far!

A NOS nose panel;

A pair of also NOS front wings;

A pretty good second hand double bulge bonnet;

And a pretty good condition second hand US spec bumper bar;

Another decision that I need to make soon is the plan of attack for the repairs. Currently there still are two options;

• Dismantling the car and repairing the current body shell;
• Use the car’s original shell that has been lingering in a corner of the shed for many years;

Both options have their pro’s and con’s, but I currently lean towards the second one. Most important reasons being that this shell has absolutely no accident damage. Though it is pretty rough around the edges. So the amount of work for both shells will probably be the same from a welding point of view. Also using the original (and almost completely dismantled) shell means I don’t need much extra storage space. This is because I can leave the car in one piece till the body work has been completed. And most of the necessary space is currently taken up by the parts for the ’76 car! So a plan is slowly taking shape to finish that car while the body repairs for the DHC are being carried out. And once the ’76 car and the DHC’s body work are finished I can start transferring the DHC’s parts to the repaired shell. To be continued …