Fast forward a couple of weeks and the bodywork is completed, a small rust patch on the firewall is repaired and now the bodylines are smooth and true. Now it was time to source some new lights, indicators, lenses, body badges, body line fixings and name badges. This led Lyndsay and Barrie to Small Ford Spares in the UK. They placed their orders and 6 days later they had arrived, 11,555 miles across the globe to their doorstep.
Soon the car is off to paint, in the meantime, Barrie organised a room in a small shed on Thames Street to keep the car in while it is being painted. Fortunately, it was being painted across the road at Tony Fergusson’s shop, making transport easy.
The doors, body panels, bumpers and a few other bits were then fitted, and the car was loaded onto the trailer once again to be taken to Napier Auto Upholstery. It is there that Malcolm Wilkie could start to refresh the Anglia’s interior. A new headlining and interior door panels are fitted and styled as close to the original design as possible.
While the vehicle’s aesthetics were being finalised, the engine to be used was being stripped down and rebuilt. The engine itself had an interesting history, Craig had told Barrie that it originally came out of a farm hack that was used in the onion fields in Pukekohe, so a new life in the Anglia was to be something of special meaning.
Initially, the engine was set to just be checked over, cleaned and reassembled. However, Tony at Bay Auto Rebores 2000 was set to ensure the engine would be done properly. After all, if it was worth doing, it was worth doing well. New pistons and various other components were ordered from Small Ford Spares UK and after a little work, the engine was ready to be fitted into the car.
Before the engine is fitted, the Anglia had its new gearbox fitted and the driveshaft is worked on. Upon test-fitting the driveshaft on the car, Barrie discovered that it was 75mm too short. Adding to his growing list of hiccups, Barrie had the petrol tank sandblasted only to discover it was full of holes and finding a spare tank for sale was going to be a challenge, to say the least.
On a return trip from Craig’s, Lyndsay and Barrie noticed an Anglia parked up in a paddock a short distance from TePohue. As they still needed a fuel tank, they contacted the owner to ask if they were interested in selling just the tank – unfortunately, the owner was only interested in selling the entire car. Naturally, they pulled the plug and before long they were in possession of a second Anglia to be used as a donor vehicle and valuable reference source.
The donor Anglia’s fuel tank was removed and a repair to a small hole at the top of it was made before it was fitted into the restoration project. The donor vehicle had to be gone within a month, so it was stripped of all other valuable parts before Craig bought it off them – he says he has a use for it. Finally, some cash back to Lyndsay and Barrie!
