Piped up, wheels painted and strutting

Project Polo update - only a half day to spare today, but rear brakes are now complete, plumbed in and just awaiting bleeding, which can't be done until the callipers are completed for the front. Thanks to Mark at MRD Garages Brough for flaring the brake pipes for me after my flaring tool failure. The Germans who are posting me those calliper seals, normally well known for their efficiency, promised they would be delivered today or tomorrow, but looking at the order tracking they only left their German depot at 2pm today, so I don't expect them until Friday as the soonest.
Meanwhile the gas strut for the back hatch has been fitted and how nice it is to be able to open the boot without having to support it with my head. Fitting the strut proved a bit of a conundrum - the old one simply pulled off the ball and socket at the top end, and slid off the pin at the bottom end once the retaining clip was removed. Getting the new one on proved much more difficult, with the ball and socket much tighter. After a couple of false starts the obvious answer was to remove the bracket and clamp both that and the strut into the vice and tighten slowly - until a satisfying snap sound told me the ball was well and truly set into the socket. Bolting it back in place was then a simple two minute job, and the boot now holds itself open.
While the boot was open it was time to clean the grime off the back shelf supports - those short little bits that link the shelf to the windows, and they came up nice and clean under 12 years of dust.
Final job of the day was to spray the two wheels that Thomas had prepped. Thomas wants to fit some period alloys eventually whilst I want to keep the original steelies, because they look retro cool. Anyway, short term and sticking to the budget it's the steel wheels, sprayed a nice fresh silver as the original spec. They still need new tyres of course, but what a difference they make to the car. It's starting to look like progress has been made.