Love this thread, hope you sail through the MoT, but will be gutted if it does and this thread stops!
oops, I forgot to update this thread! My welding skilz have been validated. It passed the MOT. The eBay ad has written itself on the advisory: underbody corrosion. Meantime, I'm a little more happy to share some of the err, techniques I had to use to get it ready in time. The headlight adjusters are made of plastic and fell apart when I took out the lights, leaving just a stub. So I need to get a thread in there which locks onto the hole while allowing some play for adjustment. Didn't have any plastic on hand but I have machined mahogany before with good results so... Needed to shave it to within a few 1/10ths of a mm to get it to go in but still grip. Then relieve it to allow it to flex. Wrong size spring and body too long. Bigger spring and cut down body, job done! I have ordered the right fittings, in fact one of them turned up today (I forgot to change the qty) but couldn't keep putting off the big day. I HAS A VAN!!! woohoo S.
Got some nylon bar stock now, off eBay, ready for next time. But yes, cookery shops appear to be a good source for machinable plastic. I used an HDPE chopping board for some lathe jaws.
One of these days I'm going to do the back end... But thanks for the comments. If you liked that, you might like this epic: https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/ye-olde-forge.77451/ I really ought to have got all that stuff onto a YouTube channel but, you know, any day now...