Well, I managed to get down to the local garage this morning to get both the alignment on the front and my general nut tightening abilities checked out Good news was that my nuts are fine However, it seems my ability to adjust the steering rack/rods by eye is rather lacklustre I had “about an inch of toe out” when they first checked it … now set to three millimetres of…
First up, I’ve been talking to Steve Law at Speedshack and apparently I need sleeve nuts, rather than longer studs and new nuts, so we’re just sorting out the right size So that it didn’t become one of those jobs I kept meaning to do, I’ve jacked the back up to remove the spring pads – given that nobody had a good word to say about them (not even “ooh, nice colour”) For completeness,…
Rather annoyingly, I’ve just realised I never measured the drop from the top of the wheelarch to the floor before I started all this, so I can only really say “a bit lower”. The front springs are quoted as two inches lower than standard, whilst the single leaf rears had almost three inches less unsprung curvature and have currently got one and a half inch blocks on too. Against the tired old…
After a couple of weeks away from everything, I managed to get some time over the last couple of days out in the garage I managed to resist the urge to drop the back axle off and spend some time tidying it up – mainly because I’m sick of the car being off the road on the odd occasion I get a couple of hours to go somewhere No point having it…
Spent an enjoyable afternoon out in the garage – football on the radio, Liverpool winning , rain drumming down on the (now mostly leak free) roof and taking apart the rear suspension. For some reason, the driver’s side is rusted up more than the passenger’s I might have thought it’d be the other way round, using the logic that most puddles are on the passenger side … but then so is the…
OK, to recap – when you shear off the high-tensile bolts in the ARB brackets, I found you have to take the brackets off to get the remains out. Not having a suitable drill at home, I used one of the ones at college The thing is seven foot high and has a chunk of torque in the low gears, so eventually the remains of the bolt were out. Cleaned…
OK, first up – those pesky ARB chassis brackets. Each had one broken bolt stuck in them that had sheared off when removing the ARB and which was rusted in solid. No amount of Plusgas was freeing them up, but to be fair, it wouldn’t have done much good as there wasn’t really anything left to get hold of. In to college then and time for a play in the Mech.…
Isn’t it amazing how doing nothing for years can sometimes be good, and sometimes be bad? Trees, for example – do nothing with ’em for a few million years and you get petrol Steel nuts and bolts, however, you can’t even leave for twenty seven years … This weekend has been spent stripping down the front suspension eager to put some shiny new bits on, but in total I’ve managed to…
Well, after a battle of Tolkeinesque proportions, the bushes and their sleeves are finally out of the rear springs Taking onboard everyone’s advice, I started by attacking the bushes themselves with a blowlamp. Whilst it was fun, the novelty wore off real quickly once it got smelly … and then the muesli-eating kids from a few doors down started taunting me about my environmental footprint Getting the sleeves out should have been nice…
Not a lot going on at the moment as I’ve been rather busy with work, but set to this morning to clean up a set of single leaf springs I picked up months back. Lots of surface rust removed with a flap disc in the grinder meant that the air in the garage was a little thick by the time I’d finished Glad I remembered to put the dustmask on first They’re obviously…