Manky's Pop.

[Manky Monkey]

Yeah, already on my to-do list
Header tank finally bolted in place with a freshly powder-coated retaining strap. The previous strap was stainless but not very tidy, so I made matching ones for this & the washer bottle.

[Manky Monkey]

Started brush painting the chassis with red oxide. Tomorrow I need to crawl underneath as far as I can to paint the underside.

[poprodder]

great job with the redoxide, a very fiddly frustrating job!!!!

[stinkey]

It's looking great Andy,just one job a day makes for good progress ..

[Manky Monkey]

Not much to report, but I'm plodding on.
Quickly sanding the brush marks out of the red oxide turned into adding a smear of sandable seam sealant to all the welds -partly to seal any holes there may be, to keep water out of the chassis, & partly just to tidy up some very lumpy welds. A lot of the cross members & brackets were welded in situ, as we decided we needed them, so were done in a confined space, laying under the truck, outside, quite often in the rain. They're good & solid, but not pretty.
Yes, I know it's pointless cos no-one will see it & yes, I know you shouldn't have to pretty up welds & the MOT guy wouldn't approve, but I'm not hiding rust holes, just smoothing out the joints a little before I paint it all because it annoys me.
However, I've hurt my back while bending over the chassis all day today, so am now dosed up with pain killers & cursing my OCD

[Baychimp]

Is tomorrow morning still happening. Or is your back to bad?

[Manky Monkey]

Yup, still happening, please
About 9 ish.

[Baychimp]

Just text when you pick up the van.

[Manky Monkey]

Thank you Mr Baychimp for your help this morning.
I recently sold my hydraulic bike bench to a mate in Spalding, Lincs, but he had no way of collecting it. No problem -you pay the 50 quid to rent a Transit van for a day & I'll deliver it.
So Mr Chimp gave me a hand to load it & while I had the van I also took my big heavy wooden workbench across town from the bike garage to Number Two Pop garage.
This is in the same block as the main Pop garage, but faces the back of a row of shops. It's directly opposite a charity shop & there are scavengers who come around at night, going through their bins, looking for anything they can sell. So I don't keep anything of great value in here & wouldn't want to work in here with the door wide open for the whole world to peer in if I can help it.
It's where various parts for the Pop are stored though & if any went missing they'd be a bugger to replace.
The blue boxes on the floor on the left are moisture traps. They cost about a quid & contain crystals that draw the moisture out of the air. They work well -they'll full of water after a couple of weeks.

[Baychimp]

Did you have a good trip? And did you get the van back in time?

[Manky Monkey]

With the bike bench & the work bench out of the way, that just leaves a few boxes of spares & the bike itself in the bike garage. So I should be able to stop renting it once Tom collects the bike.
This is the pick-up bed for the Pop. I had it shotblasted & etch primed, but once all the filler was blasted off, it ain't pretty. I modified it while it was still on the Pop, outside, in the rain. Some truly, truly horrible welding & panel distortion. I've already paid Loony to do the remedial work on it & am just waiting for him to have a spare slot in his work schedule. In the meantime I'm working towards running without it, at least to start with.
The wooden flatbed I made is also in here. I may use that for a while, but will still need the weight tube as well, to compensate for the massively heavy steel bed.

[Manky Monkey]

Yes, 3 hours each way. I haven't been up that way for years & had forgotten how flat & open the countryside is. The area I went to is called South Holland as it's land reclaimed from the sea, originally created by Dutch engineers. Quite surreal -just an odd little house here & there then nothing for miles all around it. Long straight roads across an utterly flat landscape. Quite odd. It'd be great on the chop or in the Pop. I rode to Boston with a couple of mates when I was about 20, to attend a friend's wedding at the cathedral, (the "Boston Stump" cos it's missing it's spire). I was on my Bonneville. My mates had a BSA & a Norton -we sounded like a Lancaster bomber as we rumbled through the flatlands, with our 3 piece suits rolled up in bin bags, strapped to our bikes
I got the van back to the rental ace at 5.15 -they close at 5.30 so it was back before it turned into a pumpkin.

[Manky Monkey]

A selection of upholstered panels waiting to go back in the Pop, along with the repainted Mini Clubman steering wheel I'll be using & the replacement, bigger air filter. I've got 2 tops for the filter. One's chrome, the other's black powder coat. Can't decide which would look best.

[Manky Monkey]

A parcel arrived in the Post while I was out today. 2 new polished stainless radiator caps. One for the rad & one for the header tank. 9 quid each on eBay.

[Baychimp]

Yep very low land there,wouldn't take much for the sea to reclaim it.