Tuesday 13 October 2009

One thing leads to another.

At the moment it seems like every little job has a series of other jobs that have to be done first.  It was the same when I refitted our narrowboat and it has always been the the same on property renovations I have done.  Still, all the prep work needs to be done in order for the fun part of re-creation starts, which is after all the point of the project.

I thought I'd better pay some attention to the various knocks and dings the ambulance has had.  Initially they looked quite superficial.  I took the whole ambulance to a friend that 'does' GRP to have a look at.  After the normal umm and ahhs etc. he decided the job was actually a lot more than it looked on the surface.  The biggest problem being that it was impossible to get behind the holes to form a base for a good repair, additionally as the damage had been left so long water had got in and does what water generally does to GRP and there was a fair bit of de lamination probably due to frost.



The damage in the photos give the impression that it is just superficial.

The best solution I could see was to remove the quarters so a proper repair can be made. After much deliberation I decided I could use the natural lines in the bodywork for the cuts and they would give me a "hide" to refix it all back. So this it what it looks like now.


These are the part going off for repair.



Whilst under the ambulance I looked for suitable mountings for a towbar.  Looks very much like this will be fairly straight forward, which of course it won't be once I start.

Finally (no surprise) there was the now obligatory wiring to cull.  This time it was behind the O/S light cluster but was soon dealt with.