Today is the day that things start for real - I go to collect a chassis. Friends have turned up from Bolton for my son's party later today, but Darren has agreed to come with me to Brighton to collect the chassis. So we go off to collect the van, go back home 'cos we don't have two froms of ID and go back to collect the van, again. Now we're off. My father-in-law, John, has also turned up for the party but, as much as he'd like to see some of these kit-cars (it was he who got me started on the whole idea) he has agreed to stay at home and start taking the Sierra to pieces. That should save me some time.
Kathy (the wife) and I took a trip to Pilgrim a few days before to go and look around the factory and to check on the other items that I would be needing in order to start getting the rolling chassis together. Those extra parts worked out at almost £1300 extra, but not every part is required in order to get the thing "rolling" as such (a petrol tank for example). So I bought some of the items to get started on and money will see when the next most important things (suspension shocks & springs) can be bought.
They also had some finished cars we could see and as it turned out they were running Rover V8's too. They do sound nice!
The journey to Brighton was a noisy one. The van sounded like it was falling apart - we couldn't even hear the Radio! At least the traffic was pretty quiet so that made the journey a little quicker. We pulled in to Pilgrim at around 11.45am and everything was laid out ready for us. Tony loaded the chassis into the back on the van with a forklift, saved us lifting it, and it nearly fitted into it. It overhung about 2 inches, but we managed to close the doors over and tied them closed from the inside. Picked up the various chassis pieces, paid the money and then we were on our way back home.
We got home to find the house empty aside from John fast asleep in a chair and the rear suspension, brakes and diff lying on the floor of the garage. We moved all those out of the way and manouvered the chassis into the garage.
Now it was a case of return the van and get ready for Aaron's 3rd birthday party.
Evryone got drunk, espeially Kathy (pain in the arse she can be).
It rained and rained and rained. How am I supposed to remove the front of the Sierra when it is raining. So I went back in and waited until it stopped. The rain continued on and off for the rest of the day, but in the off bits I managed to get outside and got the remaining pieces off the Sierra. The complete list of parts removed included:
Now it just remains to clean up the parts from the Sierra, put all the tools back in to their proper places and we should be able to get started.
Monday, Wednesday and Friday has been time spent cleaning up all the old Sierra parts - what a job and a half that has turned out to be.
On Monday I cleaned up the radius arms and the steering rack. That seemed quite straightforward so I had a go at the rear brake drum covers too. They looked rusty to start with and they still looked rusty when I'd finished, but at least it was smooth, rusty look.
On Wednesday I spent all night just cleaning up the diff from the old Sierra. Something interesting I learned is that if you turn the diff onto it's side so it is easier to clean, all the gear oil falls out. So I've now read the Haynes manual to find out how to refill it! At the end of the night I was so fed up scrubbing and rubbing that I decided to have a break and paint the rear brake drums with some red oxide and then some red hammerite. That cheered me up as they look a whole lot better than they did when I took them off. Now that just left the drive shafts, front calipers and hubs.
Friday came and the remaining parts looked simple enough. I hadn't planned on stripping the calipers down as when I drove the Sierra they seemed to work fine, neither side seemed to be sticking. A quick inspection on the inside of the caliper showed that everything was clean and tidy so I decided not to bother stripping them down, just to clean them up and paint them. Job done.
Saturday and Sunday were spent painting the Sierra parts. Ran out of paint on Saturday, so a quick trip to Halfords on Sunday sorted that out. Sunday I continued to paint, and at the end of the weekend I had all these new shiny parts to show - the diff looked quite good, the brakes were OK, the radius arms had their topcoat and the drive shafts were much cleaner too.
Now I need to paint up the new parts from Pilgrim and look to start bolting some pieces together. I started off by putting some primer on all the new parts, and as I time was on my side, continued to put the topcoat on.
I spent most of Monday night trying to squeeze the bushes into the various wishbones & diff carrier, starting with the diff carrier. Not ever having tried this before it was proving to be quite awkward. With one big hammer, a couple of bricks and a thick piece of wood, I tried to persuade the bushes into the diff carrier. After around an hour I had completely destroyed the bricks and snapped the piece of wood in two. This wasn't working. So I decided to give in there before I damage something, and posted a question onto the newsgroup for some advice.
Someone called Anthony sugggested I use a big vice with a bar on the lever to help turn it in. I can do better than that. We'd arranged to travel to Bolton so Kathy could meet up with Heidi and some old school friends. I met up with Darren, Heidi's wife. He works for the local BMW garage and has easy access to their workshop. So along with all the clothes, wishbones & bushes were also loaded in the car and off we went to BMW.
We used the very large press that they have and I was amazed to see how easy they went in. It goes to show - you must have the right tools for the job. The top wishbones & diff carrier went in quickly, around 15 minutes and we were done. The lower wishbones proved awkward as the brace across the rear of them meant that we couldn't get the things under the press. Some clever thinking allowed us to take the press apart and we slid the wishbones on. Twenty minutes later we were done. The wishbones now have the bushes in place, which means that come Monday I should be able to start bolting some things together - that is, after I've adjusted the clutch cable on the GSX-R.
More pictures tomorrow.
I managed to fix the first part to the car today. Progress at last. As small as it is, it still made me feel happy. I 've also added some pictures of the wishbones with the bushes fitted here and here.
Heard a funny story today. My mother-in-law managed to completely hose the computer I gave her this weekend, so I spent most of Sunday rebuilding it. So Monday she went out to buy a book "Computers for Dummies" to help her out. I got a phone call today at work, my wife telling me that her mum couldn't understand a word of what was being said in the book(s). "It's not even English" were the cries. Turned out she went and bought C++ for Dummies and C++ Advanced for Dummies. Dummies is obviously the right word for her!! (I know its completely unrelated, but I thought it was funny)
Tomorrow I shall go around the car cleaning out all the holes where the galvanising has coated the inside. That should make way so I can fit numerous more parts without hassle. Gary across the road has loaned me a neat tool for doing this. Should do the job nicely.
