Dissappointment tonight to find that all the brake pipe parts that I got at the weekend do not fit!
The T-piece I got for the split at the back of the car is the wrong thread for the pipe ends (metric vs. imperial by the look of things) so that needs to be changed. The flexi's are fine at the front, apart from the elongated chassis fixings. They need changing over. The rear flexis have female connectors at both ends which is fine for attaching to the chassis, but not so great when trying to attach them to the female ends of the pipes that attach to the rear swing arms.
I'll phone Stuart tomorrow and tell him the news. He should be able to sort things out for me. I may be able to get Kathy to take them in for me during the week so that I can try to make some progress. Otherwise it will need to wait until the weekend and I can go along and see him.
Damn!
Well joy today. The ends on the pipes were changed over. The T-piece was also replaced, and now everything fits together as it should do.
I managed to get the rest of the brake pipes fitted around the rear of the car - over the diff and onto the rear swing arms. All pipes are now in place. Now I can basically put the back end of the car together (except for suspension just yet) putting the drive shafts, wheel drums and handbrake in place. Going by the amount of free time I have at the moment I'm not sure when I'll be able to get that done, so there may not be any progress for a while.
There's not been too much happening over the past couple of weeks due to a lack of funds, but I have now managed to assemble the rear end of the car with regard to the drive shafts and brakes. Here's a picture, but it's a little congested.
The other thing I have finally managed to get round to doing is to make up a bracket to fix to the front of the chassis so that the front flexi brake lines can be fixed securely. I painted it blue (as with the rest of the parts) and fixed it, using my new rivet gun for the first time!!!!!
My Dad has been kind enough to offer me some funds so that I may purchase the parts I need to get on with. This has given me enough to complete the rolling chassis and fit the engine. I'm planning another trip to Pilgrim at the end of the month to go and collect the bits and pieces I need. A trip down to Brighton will probably work out cheaper than postage. We'll see first.
Next entry will be in a couple of weeks now, when I have received the new parts.
Today will see the start of a few busy weeks and months as I have paid another trip to Pilgrim to collect some parts, and order the parts that were not in stock. This will give me just about enough, aside from some small fastners, bolts, etc, so that I can complete the rolling chassis stage. I also hope to fit the engine, wire it up, and start the car for the first time.
Probably the most important thing for me at this stage is the shock absorbers and springs. This will allow me to put the car on wheels and work in the open air, rather than couped up in my garage. Having said that though, it will mainly be weekends that I'll actually find time to push the thing outside and work on it. Weekdays seem to be blightened by work!
Like all new boys with new toys I couldn't wait to start using the new bits and put them onto the car. So I set about putting the springs onto the shocks (after thinking about it for a while - I'd never seen Spax shocks before so didn't know how they go together). Then had a go at fitting one to the car. The manual and video shows this as a very simple procedure. With the springs at full drop the whole assembly should just fall into place. Not for me.
I seemed to have some difficulty with the top radius arm fitting to the top of the hub. No matter how much I turned it, or moved out the adjustable ball joint, the thing just would not go together. Not easily anyway. So to make things easier for me I unfastened the pinch bolt that hold the mushroom in place on the wheel hub and secured it to the top ball joint. Then I moved the wheel hub, and used the trolley jack to push it up a little - just a little mind - and things then seemed to fall in place. I'll ask some others that I know if they had the same sort of problems.
I must say though that the end result has inspired me a little more, so having fitted a shock in place I then fitted the lower steering column so that I could check that the steering worked OK. No problems found. The steering column needs to come off so that it can be painted, so that will be a job for another day.
I hope that I can have the car on wheels by the end of this week for sure. This will allow me to then start looking at the engine. I know I have a couple of jobs to do straight away on this. The clutch needs replacing, and the mechanism needs converting from hydraulic operation to cable operation.
I've also realised that it's time I put a shed at the bottom of my garden so that I can take all the kids toys out of the garage and put them somewhere. It will also allow me to move things such as the lawn mower, strimmer, et al out of the way so that I have more room for the car. You may see some pictures of me over the next few days mixing a concrete base to sit the shed on. Enough for now - need to go and get ready for Match Of The Day to see how Liverpool got on.
Well tonight this happened, which meant that this happened and eventually led to this!
Now I'm tired so I'm going to bed. More in a couple of days.
