Pre-scrutineering fixes continue...

Scottie arrived fairly early on Sunday morning, and he'd brought with him a couple of important items... firstly, his welder, which would be put to good use during the course of the day, and secondly, the front tow-hitch assembly that he'd welded up during the week.

Damian explained to Scottie how he thought the jerry can storage area inside the front portion of Booger's head should be configured, and Scottie got to work!!

Damian grabbed the front tow-hitch assembly and painted it black!! It's the Booger Mobile way!

Scottie located a suitable piece of steel to make the bracing for the storage area, and carefully bent it to shape!!

Fits beautifully!!

A few more discussions, and the final layout was decided!

Scottie welded it together, and if you click to get the big version of the picture below, you will see that he set it on fire also!!

This nut that has been welded on looks like it's suffered some kind of explosion!!

Was Scottie trying his hand at rhinoplasty? No! He needed to access the nut to weld it on, and up Booger's nose was the best way!!

The front portion was completed, and tested out on the roof!!

Damian was under the back of Booger Mobile working on some under-body protection for the fuel tank - some strong rubber mud-flap type material used to protect the front face of the fuel tank. Scottie thought it was funny that Damian had his legs crossed, so snapped a pic for the blog... nice one Scottie!!

After further discussions about how to hold it all together, Scottie moved onto the rear portion of Booger's head!

Here's (part of) the completed protection strip for the fuel tank!

Here's the completed frame with tags and lock-ins to hold it all in place, with the jerry can sitting in it's holder... looks good!!

And looking up Booger's nose...

Next it was time to custom make and weld on a holder for the amber rotating light that goes on the top of Booger's head...

A bit more angle grinding was needed!!

And with the light... it's starting to actually take shape now!!

Once Scottie had finished welding up Booger's head ready for Damian to cover it in the coming days, it was time to move Booger Mobile out of the shed (so that Damian had more room to climb underneath it).

Scottie commenced removing the front bumper bar so that he could get to the space behind to install the front tow-hitch.

While Damian was busy making more underbody protection - this time a set of small mud-flaps for in front of the rear wheels, but underneath the car. This will (hopefully) help deflect rocks etc that may have had ideas about smacking into the rear axles, the rear shockies, or even the fuel tank!!

With the front bumper removed, Scottie came to a sudden and sad realisation... the front shroud was in the way - the drill wouldn't reach!!

Scottie unpacked Damian's new trolley jack and put it to use...

Meanwhile, Damian had completed the installation of the driver's side underbody protection mud-flap type devices...

After first attempting to undo the bolts and remove the shroud, it turned out that the only way to get to the front face of the cross member was to carefully cutdown either side of the space and carefully bend it down...

Purists had better skip the photo below!!

Damian's lovely wife Tricia came up to give Damian a hand - the bolts he was using to hold in the underbody protection mud-flaps needed to be held from inside the car while being done up from underneath. While he was getting the second set ready, she took the opportunity to have a snooze in the warmth inside Booger Mobile!

Damian makes a ghostly special guest appearance in the photo below...

While Damian's dog Tonka continued to supervise...

Holes drilled, it was time to fit the bolts to hold the front tow-hitch assembly on!!

The small gap at the back has a small piece of crush-tube inside it to prevent the bolt from crushing the assembly, and hold it firm!!

Once this was done, it was time to move on to some of the remaining items from the pre-scrutineering list. First up was to make an extra bit of bracing to stop the engine from moving forward under and emergency braking situation.

The suggested solution was to chain the engine back (via the transmission), however Scottie had another great idea... Angle grinding!!

While the angle grinding was going on, Damian took the opportunity to check out the reattached front bumper and tow-hitch assembly...

Here's the angle-ground bracket... By attaching this to the transmission crossmember, the rubber mounted transmission can't move forward... which in turn means the engine (which is attached to the tranmission) can't move forward either... Ingenious!!

Scottie had to do a little more welding under Booger Mobile to add an additional bracket to the exhaust - another pre-scrutineering item.

And voila!! One custom made rubber mounted exhaust bracket!!

And here's Booger Mobile's front tow-hitch, with towball inserted!!

The only reason Booger Mobile would have this attached during the esCarpade is if it was being hard-towed behind the recovery tow truck... let's hope this is the only picture you see with it attached to Booger Mobile!!

Before Scottie headed home, it was time to make a list of things that remained outstanding...

After taking the photo, Damian realised that they had missed one very important item on the list - the underbody protection plates!!! The list was updated, but no new photo taken.

Instead, it was time for Scottie to head home, and Damian put Booger Mobile back in the shed.

The last few photos are a gratuitous set of underbody and ground clearance photos... you can skip them if you like!!

As you can see, the lowest point underneath Booger Mobile is still the diff, and even though the new front tow-hitch appears to significantly lower the ground clearance, the photo below shows this just isn't the case!!

This shot shows the new exhaust bracket, and the clearance from a different angle...

And last but not least, a shot looking back past the passenger side underbody mud-flaps and you can just see the bottom of the protection flap on the fuel tank.

With the esCarpade rapidly approaching, the boys are finally starting to feel that they are going to have Booger Mobile ready in time...

Thanks to everyone for their support and well wishes - stay tuned for a heap more updates over the coming weeks!!