2 months since the last update, I've no idea where the time went! As usual I've been chipping away at the project, but maybe not making the leaps and bounds forward that I'd like to, haha.
The enthusiasm to push on with the bodywork drained away fairly quickly as the weather started to drawn in and I realised just how many hours of paint prep were ahead of me. I've made some progress on that front though, and the left hand side of the car is mostly roughed out. Still a fair way to go on this though.
In the mean time I've retreated inside the shed and started with some of the mechanicals. Starting at the front made sense, so I rounded up all the front bits to have a look at what I had to work with.
Mmmm yeah, its all a bit rough! I worked my way through dismantling it, while making a shopping list. Corrosion seems to be a bigger issue than wear, for example the ball joints for the track rods were fine, they just needed new boots to replace the perished originals, but the threaded section to allow you to adjust the length was just rusted solid, to the point that I bent one of the arms trying to free it off.
Oh well, at least the parts are available and not overly expensive! Good job it's not too pricey as there was a rather large list of things to buy, including a new RHD steering idler as mine was seized solid and then the main casting proceeded to snap when I attempted to press the old bushes out.
Quite the haul of parts there, including all new dampers, full brake system inc drums, wheel bearings, all suspension bushes, new rear suspension arms and the list goes on...
So where to start... the from uprights and kingpins made sense as I know these can be a bit tricky.
I could feel very little play in mine by hand, but I know when they are packed with old grease it can be misleading just trying to move them by hand. A full strip down and potentially rebuild was the only thing that made sense.
I have a cheapo table top blasting cabinet and so the front uprights, steering arms, brake backing plates and various other small components all got treated to some compressed air and iron grit. The budget nature of the tools shows, but it got the job done eventually and got underseal and rust out from corners I'd have never managed with a wire wheel.
I treated all the bare parts to some anti-corrosion primer and then a splash of paint to brighten things up. I went for a light gold / champagne kind of colour, as I thought this would contrast nicely with the dark blue body without being too stand out. Hopefully no-one but me really gets to see the underside on a regular basis anyway, but I'll know its there and feel better about it rather than it all just being a bit rusty / flat black!
The first king pin assembly went back together nicely, and with a new pin and a carefully fitted spacer there was no play. The second one was more of a fighter! The pin that came out of it was heavily corroded (on the right of the picture obviously!)
And the new pin would not go in, so I think someone had either fitted new bronze bushes and reamed them to fit the old worn pin, or possibly not reamed them at all. The bushes themselves were badly scored and the top one was loose and half slid out when I removed the pin.
I was able to draw a new bush in using some threaded bar, nuts and various washers .
And eBay supplied me with the longest 19/32" hand reamer I could find, as reccomended in the helpful king pin pinned-thread. It still wasn't quite long enough, as the reamer doesn't get to its full size till about 1/2 the way down it's length. I went as far as I could from the one direction before swapping over and coming at it from the other.
This was obviously close enough as the new pin is now a good fit and I was able to assemble this side also. Both uprights got new bushes at the top also, where the upper suspension arm mounts.
The front spring also got stripped down, cleaned, painted and reassembled, and you can see a few other bits that have been blasted and painted in the mean time also.
I'm just waiting on some bolts and washers in there post but then hopefully the front brakes and hubs should all go together fairly quick, especially as most of it is new!