hello boys and girls finally im back, sadly i have not done any work to the car since the last blog as life has taken over and the weather has gone south so its been hard to get out there and get bits done, but i have been working the brain and stock piling things up to go in the car, now i was going to try and keep it as classic as i could with a twist but now im just going to use the twist as my brain has had allot of ideas that i really wont to add to this build,

rebuild of dash panel nice smooth curves and lines instead of the flat dash that was in it as stranded,
re build the rear seats to a twin fiberglass bass box with once again smooth lines and curves,
new l.e.d rear lights (not shore on style as of yet),

projecter front lights (again not shore on style as of yet).

i have had a b-day since the last blog, witch means i got some prezzies, some are from my girls and some from my self but here thay are

 here we have 2 12" 1200w vibe slicks, 1 7" touch screen monitor and a dual core 1.6 carputer running 4gigs of ddr3 ram and a full copy of center-fuse audio system

 
some ppl think im made and others think im crazy but there is an elite fuw out there that think this build is going to be one of the best builds seen in a very long time, hope as you read this blog you see your one of the elite

its been 21 days since i last posted and for everyone that keeps checking back here im sorry its been so long, right now for some catching up on what has been done in the last 21 days, lets start from the sanded roof and how the car is taking shape,

you may notice that the roof has shrunk where Ive taken 9 inch out of the roof size, leaving a 5 inch gap across the back, most people when doing a roof chop will add that 5 inches in to the top of the centre of the roof to get it all to line up at the back and to sort out the miss placement on the door shuts, but in mot most people and if in honest i like the fact that the roof has shorted and moved forward, making the rear of the car longer, not only that but i don't really want to be buying another roof just to use the centre of it, I've still got to rebuild the front struts and bottom window support but the wood is the in the right place and is where I'm going to have it sitting by the time i am done with her.


time is getting on and the weather is starting to cool down a bit so i didet get to finish pre fitting the roof and have had to start getting on with striping her down so i can get the punt reinforced and fitted with the new chassis, now this part has been the most daunting part for me as I'm a bike man and this has a full body and has been sitting a very long time and i didn't no what i was going to find when looking for bolts and body mount fittings, i started with what i could see so had to grind every bolt down on the inside as there was no way thy would undo, there was so much rust you couldn't even work out what size the nutts where when thy where fitted, gave it a pull and no movement it was then i decided that it was not going to be as easy as i was expecting,

 the bottom already looks like it has been a toy used for target Practice buy 13teen years old with a 9mm pistol, theres holes everywhere, the old chassis was so rotten that it soaked the fiberglass all around the bolts that where it bolted on so all the nutts just come out when lifting the old left over parts from the inside of the car leaving 9mm holes where thy once was, also it wasn't an till i turned the car on its side that i really noticed how much of the front of the punt was missing so looks like a lot of rebuilding of fibreglass will be in order.

as you can see the bottom nutts are not much better than the ones on the inside so out come the grinder once again, 3 hours later the rear was free from the punt and ready to lift off,

i must say the rear of this car is the strongest part of it, everything Else is flimsy and missing some real structural integrity indeed, but this rear is rock solid, least if i don't get the car finished ill have a lovely new seat for the back garden, all joking aside for every ten minits Ive spent on this car i get the feeling is going to be 4 more hours putting it back together, here's a list of things Ive got to do before re fitting the engine and drive,

sand the punt
repair the punt
reinforce the punt (5 layers of Fiberglas matting)
add metal to all the mounting lips on the side of the punt (fibreglass on)
drill holes to remount the body on to the punt
sand and repair the front end and doors
fit metal struts to the inside of doors and body (hinge mounts)
fit metal struts to bonnet and front of body (hinge mounts)
finish front window and roof struts
reinforce roof (fibreglass matting)
take the punt to have chassis fitted
collect punt
make a mold of other t60 front end and cut and refit to mine
sand down hi spots on everything and level out best i can
refit body to punt
refit roof to body
skim hole car and sand to smooth finish and primer

so not to much to get on with, I'm shore I've missed something, oo yea get new firewall and inner Arch's made, I'm also going to blank off the rear window and shape to the same couture as the roof so it becomes a 2 door 3 window coupe, think it will look very smooth and smart, so an till the next update i bid you farewell.

WHAT A DAY,

Well it started last night relay, i pulled the roof in from out side to see if i can work out where i should be cutting the rear to drop it to the same size as i had cut the front, well it sat there for about 2 hours and i couldn't work out where the best place to cut it was so i sleeped on it, i come down in the morning and fitted 2 bits of wood to the size the front mounts will be then took the roof back out side and dropped it back on the car, looked at it again for a couple of minits then got the cutter out and just cut it in the center long ways and dropped the top half in to the bottom half and just like magic it was the size i needed, all i had to do now is mark it all up so that the window lines met up and then it was just a mater of small cuts here and there to get things to re line up where i needed them.

Once that was done i go the resin and fiberglass out and rejoined the rear back together, a lot of repositioning and stress later it was finally set so time to put it back on and see how it sat, and here it is.

 Here is a reminder of how the roof sat when it arrived 2 weeks ago

 I did wonder why no one had done this to the berkeley 50 years ago as the roof chop was a big thing in the 60's and it was being done to all sorts of cars, van's, trucks and so forth but not the berkeley, WHY ill tell you why, lets take it back a bit 1st, i had just cut the roof for the 1st time and decided that i was so happy with it that i would show the boss and see what she thinks, so i call her out and she looks at it and comments about how nice it looks, then a small snigger come my way, whats funny i ask, she reply's "have you even tried getting in it yet?", no i haven't ill put a seat in it and check its OK now, so a pull the seat from the cuberd and drop it in, i try getting in as you normally would any other car then notice the top of the roof is just above eye level so that's not going to work, after a couple of minits i work out the right way of getting in to a car like this, you have to duck down and sit sideways on the seat, then drop your head down and limbo under the roof and last but not least lift your legs one by one in to the foot well, so im guessing that people dident want to be having to do all this just to get in the car and the fact that the roof is only about 1cm from the top of my head wouldn't have gone down to well with the hair styles they had back then, but i don't have hair and i don't care how hard it is to get in to, the idea of this is to make this car my own and this is something ive wanted to do since i can remember and now Ive done it and it looks the nuts, just the shape of this car with the way the roof has been cut is a stunning thing in my mind.

Now i would like you to take a look at the last photo in the group and notice that the car is still on stands o and a plant pot, after looking at it for about an hour i start to realize this my self and i notice how low it is even tho its sitting 1 to 2 foot in the air, im yet to drop in back on its wheels, luckily for me i have another one right behind this one that is on the ground, time to get the ruler out im thinking, 6 inch from the floor to the bottom of the body, 30 inches from the bottom of the body to the top of the roof that's 36 inches from floor to roof, couldn't get any lower could i? ooo yes i could, once airbags are fitted it will be 2 inches from floor to bottom of the body that's 32 inch's, the bags have a 9 inch lift so can go from 32 to 41 inches at full psi.

There is just one other thing that i am very thankful for the last couple of weeks and that is the love of my better half who has looked after my girls all the time Ive been out the front working on the car, her and the girls have been amazing and in tern it has meant i could get allot more done so thank you girls love you loads

its been about a week since i last posted on here, I'm sorry about that but have got loads to blog about so lets get started.

OK so i started to get the wheels off and stripping down her running gear and i was surprised even tho she has been sitting since the 80's at least, she still had plenty of old grease and grim protecting all the moving parts behind the wheels, even to the point of still having dot4  in all the hoses and the rubber hose had stood up well to the time sitting about so striping her down really wasn't that hard and i didn't come across many hard parts.

i also poped the clocks that i striped apart up to my dads for an over haul and they have come back looking very nice indeed, i will post the photos of this in a bit for you to take a look at, also Ive started to strip the old paint off, now this is where loads of my UN-usefal in site comes in to the mix, as i was taking the paint of i found that the car has been many many different shades of happy, Ive found light blue, darker blue, dark red, orange and the yellow that's on it at the moment ooo and i found that the dash was a lovely shade of pink at some point in its life, as i was sitting there for all the hours i spent sanding i began to think of how many and what type of ppl might have owned this car before the 80's, i mean it was  still 20 years old by the time kats mum got it so there must have been some history to it that no one will ever really know about, it went thru one of the most iconic eras this planet has ever known, with flower power, lsd, acid, hippys, road trips, mods, rockers and im shore im missing a hole lot more but that's just some.

man this car must have seen some really good times in its 1st 20 years of  life and it made it thru them all, had its coat changed to suit some each person who owned it and and it has made it to 55 years after it was born, allot of people would and do think im a bit crazy for not just scraping this car, i mean the 1st time i hooked eyes on it, it was looking very sorry for its self,  sagging in the middle, no windows no engine, front missing, holes and cracks every ware, chassis was just rust dust, front window supports snapped, and weeds growing all around it, and to top it off some one had randomly dumped fibreglass from a loft all over the front, but i see it different to 99% of others and i think i would have been crazy to let her be scraped, this car has come a very long way in the last 55 years and I'm not about to just let her and her 1000s of memory's die with her, its not about the time she will take to be back on her feet that is the dominating fact in this build its the amount of time that i am willing to give bring her back to life that is, and i have got allot to give.

with every inch sanded on the body new history was being discovered, stress crack, brakes, bodge job repairs and endless filler and at the same time new history and memory's where being made for me and my little family, my girls wont forget the little car daddy spent years rebuilding and they wont for get the hours they spent helping and watching, this little car is not only fixing the life it had but its making unforgettable moments for others.

Ive also had some luck in finding a very nice guy from the owners club who had all-ready done a full chassis rebuild on his t60 who had all the plans that he kindly sent me ver email, (thanks buddy if your reading this), so here is the photos of the clocks i promised to post for you at the top of this blog.

the outer basal of the clocks are in the to be chromed box but once its all finished and rebuilt it will look as good as new im shore,

Where to start today? i think ill start by saying getting your steering wheel refurbished is an expensive thing to do when you have a car that not many people have restored, i was quoted £225 pounds as the mold would have to be made 1st but if he had a mold it would be £150 pounds so i have decided that im not going to use the steering wheel that it was sent of the production line with, im now going to get my self a removable momo wheel, witch will also help with security of the car when im not in it, the thing is that the t60 was never the most UN-stealable car in the world, i mean there's no outer handles so there was a gap left out of the window so you could reach in and undo the door once in there was no steering locks or gear lever locks, you could just reach under the dash and get access to the barrel, not that you would need it, im guessing that a screwdriver and a sharp fast nudge would turn it on and your away, so in this day and age i think the momo would be a safer one to use.

Right here we have 1 box containing 1 1958 t60 chassis ready to be sent to the local scrap yard, there is sssoooo much water logged rust in this thing its pretty heavy really, i promised to put a photo up so here it is in all is brown glory.

I was going to use a company to refurbish my clocks but after finding out how much the steering wheel was going to be i decided to take a look and see if i can do it my self, as i started to get the clocks out the glass front and the surround just fell off in my hand reveling a pretty good looking clock face, but there was ample amounts of rust all around it and the hole of the housing was covered in rust so i was not feeling very hopeful, i got it in doors and got my tools out, looking at all the nuts and screws i was expecting to have a very hard time stripping it, but to my suprize  they all cam off as if they where new, as i eased the clock out of the housing rust dust went everywhere but the mec inside was as clean as a whistle, i gave the rear wheel a spin and all was well so its not going to be a hard job getting it back to a nice state, just wire brush and repaint the housing remake one bracket clean the glass and send the surround off to the chromer with all the other little bits and then rebuild it, well chuffed.

Did not have a chance to upload this lot last night as it got to dark to take photos but i get out there today and updated my photo album and here they are, starting with the top one, we got the roof off the 1st day it arrived, the plan was to do a roof chop and lose about 5-6inchs off the center but the person that owned this before many many years ago had fiber glassed the roof on and smoothed all the edges, i would like to say know that i don't no why he done this but im afraid i do know, its gave it a sleek smooth look and left everything with nice round edges, but him doing this did mean that we couldn't really save the roof, it already had allot of cracks and brakes due to its being moved around and the sagging of the punt and the years of weather torment so it has to go but all is well as i found some one that makes all the fiberglass body parts (CASCU) roof is only £120 pounds so its not a bank braker and it means we are going to have a nice new roof to play with so as soon as the rest of the body is made sound i will be investing in a new one.

Photos 2-3-4 are all of the top of the punt and the inside as a hole, well what to say about this, doors are pretty sound and the rear seats are as hard as nails, and the punt/base has no signs of cracking/braking be leave it or not it seems it fared up very well thru the move and i think the water logging might have helped with this as if the punt was bone dry i think we would have seen big bends and cracks running right thru the center, i have plans for the inside witch include door cards with a custom Berkeley logo embroidered in the corners or one on the center of the rear seat board not 100% shore on where but it will be done to a very hi-grade as a very good friend of my has been doing seat upholstery for 30 years now and has already doe some amazing work with motorbike seats, camper vans, boats well he has covered more seats than even he can remember, and im lucky to have him as a friend, we will be doing the hole inside so watch out on here for that on, (his details will all be at the bottom of this blog if you did what to check out what he can do)

custom logo as stated above, now i dident like the berkeley logo and seeing as its only realy going to be 50% berkeley and 50% somthing sweet i dident feel right using it so i spent a bit of time on photo shop and re designed the logo to suit the car but dident want to lose the 60s look and feel so i based it on the known logo, i just wanted to add my twist on it the same as i will be adding to the car its self, i dont think ive done a bad job with this one tbh.

LEE THE SEAT DETAILS
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The Begining

Ill start this blog with a little about me as a person as i would like you to understand the build inside and out and that will include whats going on in my brain so lets begin.

I'm 33 years old and all ways been a bike guy, Ive loved the hot rod world from a fare as i would never have guessed i would ever own a car that would or could fall in to that category, Ive made allot of friends in the last 33 years from all different parts of the custom world, i had a very close friend who was a very talented airbrush artist, he is no longer with us to see what i am about to do but i know he would have been one of the 1st people wanting to add his little part to the car, so i do have loads of hands to help in in different parts of this build, but as i have never built anything like this before its going to be a hell of a job for me trying to intermix what i do no with what i want to do, now to the Berkeley.


                                                              19?? Berkeley t60 coupe

                                                    This is how it looked a long time ago


The photo above looks really nice and a mint little car that at the time was 100% Berkeley as fare as i know, i don't no much about it or when this photo was taken as back then they did not have time stamps but it must have been taken before 1979 when the DVLA changed over all there records to the new computer systems instead of paper and pen as this i not on it, so im having to go thru the process to get it back to a known reg so i can keep the year rather than having to re reg as a kit car/q-plate, don't think its going to be to hard but you never really no an till you start to do it.

The following photos are where this story really starts, every old car has its own story to go along with its age and this is just one of this cars bits of past, this is a story about a guy and a girl who is deeply in love they did most everything together including hobbies, there was baby's, fun times and funny times involved in this love story but we wont get to fare involved in the hole thing we can start where it really matters, the lady and man that owned the t60s had 2 little girls and not long after the mum was taken from them, there father keeped there mums spirit alive for many years after and promised to keep the cars an till the girls where at an age to decide what they wanted to do with them.

This one was kindly given to me by one of the girls and she has keeped one for her self witch has been garaged for the last 28-30 years but not having a lot of space to store them and being that his eye sight is not what it once was the coupe made its home on the frount drive, it was stored for some of the years and work to put a new engine in it had been started but the garage got broken in to and the 350cc engine that it was made with was taken so that left this little car without a hart and it all come to a stand still there after, the photos below are of the 1st time i went up to see her and must say it was love at 1st sight.

Now once again i would like to say Ive never taken on something this big and i really wanted the chassis to be in a half decent state but when its been sitting for that long you have to expect it to be in a bad way, the doors did not line up any longer and the body had sagged allot in the center, in turn the roof front mounts had snapped and the angle of the roof had dropped, and in one way this was a good thing as it gave it the funder race stance to the roof and got my brain thinking about the look i wanted, the engine bay was missing a bit iconic part of the cars history and the rust had set in, i could rock the car from the back and have little or no movement from the front, i reached in to the car to check the chassis state, reached down and grabbed a hand fall of rust and at that moment i was ready to run the other way down the road never to return, but i looked in my had for the second time and it hit me that i was sitting in something that was once some ones pride and joy, what i had im my hands was 55 years of this cars life and the lives and story's of man woman and child, how many people get a change to hold a bit of British history in the parm of there and and have the choice to bring it back to life? so was sold on the fact that i could do something with what i had there, i must say it was not allot but it was something.

Finely found some one to collect her and as she did not move very well it was a matter of lifting her on to the back of the truck, no easy feet when the inside is full of water logged rust and bits of steal, did not help that i suffer from back problems and cant lift to much otherwise my back gives way, but we still manged to get the back on and by this time my back had broke just as much as her's had, as we slid her up the back of the truck a bolt on the underside of the engine bay got stuck and there was a crack, the center of the car was now touching the floor and the doors also where sitting on the bed of the truck, she looked very sorry for her self at this point and i was not shore if we where even going to get her off in one piece, but she seem to come back off a little easier than she went on and i manged to hold her back up on the way off.

Had her home now for 2 days and in the 2 days Ive got a lot done even tho my back was killing me, Ive now got a box that's 2 foot by 2 foot that contains 90% of the chassis, the inside has been cleared of all rust particles and un wanted/needed metal, manged to salvage some bits that i will be using in the new build, gear lever,, hand brake, speedo, rear mirror bracket and will be getting the steering wheel re-coned as i love it, got an old door and slid it under her back and got her jacked up and straitened out with doors closed, gave her a bath as i be leave that things never look as bad when they are clean, took off the roof so little cripple me could get in side and get it cleaned out easier, but will be needing to fine some one that makes after market chassis for the T60 its ether that or my good mate stave will have to build a frame of some sorts for me, so if your reading this and you no some one, please get in contact with me as the info and help will be fantastic