Smooth Ride

So I got the bug home and made a start on the front suspension, end of July I went away for a couple of weeks before I made any real effort and now its mid September and things are progressing but a bit slower than I wanted to, but its been mostly due to me making the most of the summer weather.

New Steering and Brakes

New Brakes and Spax shocks

So I've got the front beam off and that was truly rotten. While I was waiting for a couple of parts I had time to paint the interior floor pan and fully seal it. The fun started with fitting the new ball joints.
I went to my friends Brian's house who showed me what to do and we used his 20ton press to change the top two ball joints. We couldn't as hard as we tried get the lower ones out, I took them to work and discovered that they had a 60 ton press which pushed them out with a BANG! after which I changed my pants. That weekend I rebuilt the front suspension and fit the new brake system and new steering components. One of the mods was cutting down the Pittman arm to clear the narrowed beam.

Pressing Ball Joints

Modified Pittman Arm

A looked good until I turned the hubs and the torsion arms wobbled, indicating the inner bushes had not been installed in the new beam. So ordered the bushes and once arrived I managed to get them in after an hour or so and that's where I'm at.

Wrapped Steering Column Cover

Gave a few parts to the powder coater guy and should get those back next week and been vinyl wrapping some plastic parts with carbon effect vinyl courtesy of Mark. I'm feeling positive about the weekend and should get most of the electrical components and wiring in and finish a few other odd jobs before the trimmers come to fit the head liner.

Framehead(ache)

So the bug went in for the last bit of welding to have new frame head bottom plate and napoleon hat fitted. The way it went was that the body was lifted off slightly to made things easier. This was the only bit of major welding I didn't do myself as I have no electrics in the current lock up. I was sat at work and received an message saying there was more rot in the frame head, I thought the worse and started to look for new chassis as the frame head is a ball ache of job to replace. Any way I went down to the work shop and it was just the beam saddle on the frame head and was repairable. and looking at the job as a whole, he has done a great job.

Rotten Beam

We had a minor trauma on the way home when towing her back to the lock up when the door opened narrowly avoiding a Tesco van coming the other way!

I was away for two weeks and had ago at removing the beam on my own but it was clear I needed a long bar and a fat man to remove the bolts. So holiday done and a fat man turned up this evening with a big bar and we managed to strip the beam down. 

axle off

It was a fairly productive evening as I also managed to paint the inside floor with some red oxide. The next job is Hammerite the interior floor and frame head and get the torsion arms to work to be cleaned up ready for the new ball joints to be pressed in.

Bad of arms

Restart

So its been a while since I've done any work but the cold winter months have put me off. The plan is not to get the last bit of welding done at the end of this month (March 2013) and then I can crack on with the suspension and brakes. Here are few photos from the end of summer when it came out our the paint shop.

Patch Primed ready for stopper

Final Prime

Base Coat

Finished wings

Other bits

Finished Bonnet

Close up of the finished roof in the sun

Finished shell back at home