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Well I decided to gop for broke - literally! Mine is in the welders on Weds and will finally get her long-overdue replacement A pillars. I'm fortunate in that London Range Rover kindly removed most of the rest of the car with the pillars and so there's plenty to work from!!! (I had them cut them down to below the top door hinge and left the rest of the front wings behind as they wouldn't fit in the boot).

The headlining is coming out at the same time and I'm going to attempt a re-glue. Not the easiest of tasks but nothing ventured... my Bedouin tent is becoming a little tedious for the rear passengers. I reckon that with a lot of care and the correct glue (which is en-route) I can repair this by removing the lot and starting again. If I'm wrong then I still need a new head lining so nothing much lost, but if I'm right then I'll post the blow-by-blow account here in due course.

Fingers crossed. Meanwhile No 72 is flying once more and I have that smile back on my face. I like my Suzuki jeep (the stand-in while the CSK was dead) but it's not a luxury cruiser and never was intended to be!

Next weekend I get to shift an old Porsche from Yorks back to me (again the CSK will tow this on a trailer and I'll forget it's there if I'm not careful) and then the fleet will be back in action.

One day maybe I'll get a "real" car, but until then I shall enjoy the delights of keeping several more "venerable" motors on the drive in the forlorn belief that at least one of them will be a runner at any given time...

Happy motoring!

keep the dream going John! sounds like your getting quite a collection of motors!
Had a call from the garage yesterday with an update of mine (57), after a proffesional poke and prod he found a few little problems i wasn't aware of!
Rear bearings were on the way out (EEK)
bit more rust on the pillars(drivers needs doing to)
the air flow meter is dead so might explain the over fueling
front bearings needed a tighten.
The best one is that when they tried to drive it onto the ramps it wouldn't move! a large puddle on the floor gave a big hint. the pipe to the auto box oil cooler had split so i'm very lucky to get it there as there is a 100yd trail through the village from when it went as i took it there the night before! ::o

i think it's sulking!
this is the source of much ribbing and mick taking at work as they all think i'm mad to spend so much time and money on an old car.(they might be right!) The last laugh will be mine from the pleasure of driving it off/on road with and without a large trailer!

My saga continues...

I took the headlining out and dismantled ready for the welding of the replacement A pillars only to receive a call from the garage where the boss had decided they weren't going to take the job on after all. Wimps!

A stroke of luck lead to a decent headlining just up the road though and so that's gone back in while I get to work on my bedouin tent. Now, in case anyone wants to repair their headlining, here's the scoop. They come out easily enough. There is a difference (in size of aperture) between the glass and metal sunroof versions, and the 4 door headlinings are marginally different over the rear doors (or rear windows in our case). But you'd have to be picky. You also need to acquire an extra grab handle or mask the holes N/S/F as the 4 door version will have holes where the CSK does not. But in general, it doesn't look bad.

I'm now going to try and reglue the original headlining. My fabric is OK, it's just detached from the shell. This will be an interesting task and I'm currently researching adhesives. Any advice would be very welcome!

Meanwhile I've found another welder and am taking the car there tomorrow. Since I have two very presentable pillars (attached to large chunks of roof and front wing) I'm determined to get mine out and these in. Let's see if this chap has more bottle...

But meanwhile the CSK went to Yorkshire and back over the weekend to recover an old Porsche and I was reminded what fine tow-trucks these cars make. A proper trailer and a relatively heavy car on it meant that you knew it was there, but it just pulled etc. etc. Joy.

my toy has returned!
the guys in the garage have done a fantastic job. all holes welded/patched and fully road worthy again. the bill didn't break the bank either.
i can't even see the repairs on the windscreen pillars, real quality work.
feels great to have it back so on the way home i just had to have a little play off road and through a little river ford (:D
this means the scouts can go camping again as the rangie is about the only vehicle we have to tow the scouts trailer!
time to enjoy driving again.

Still no new pillars, this is turning into a shaggy dog story, but I do have a splendid new front spoiler, and straightened the front bumper (bolted on squiffy by a garage who changed my oil cooler and botched it) and tightened the Hellas while I was at it. CSK 72 now looks like a real one again. Hurrah, though I still feel rather sorry for that Roebuck that did all the damage. It lost.