Restoration Diary

28th October to 6th November 2001    

With the rear strip down now pretty much complete, the front was next to go, and once the grease caps on the front hubs were removed (with a lot of damage unfortunately!) the rest of the front quarters came apart fairly easily. Brake calipers seem in relatively good condition, and hopefully will not need renewing, although they are likely to be reconditioned at some stage, or possible even replaced by a four-pot system. The discs themselves had very little wear, but were well rusted. Once the disc was off, the near side quarter proved to be a real problem, in that one of the four bolts securing the axle stub assembly has rounded itself - a job for the impact driver when taken off the car completely, or possibly a new tool spotted in a recent Frosts catalogue, for removing broken and rounded bolts. At over £13 each, these are expensive, but may save us a lot of hassle. Chris had more luck with the o/s quarter, taking it off the the car, wishbones and all, in about an hour. 

We were lucky on Friday night to have some extra resource in the shape of Georgie, Chris' girlfriend, who willingly donned overalls and mucked in - top marks for enthusiasm, until later that evening the question arose "so, which is the front end....??"!!! She did, however, do a great job in removing the fuel line to the rear of the car, and the brake pipes from the rear quarters, leaving us with just the four way connector at the front of the engine and the rubber pipes to the four quarters. I had a quick bash at removing the brass fittings holding the pipes on to the connector, but the nut size doesn't seem to resemble anything I had spanner wise - is this a special tool job? As the pipes will be remade and replaced, Cutting the pipes as close to the connector block as possible was the only way forward, and although they haven't been removed yet, the pipes will be taken off and stored so we can copy the shape and placement when it come to the rebuild.

Next off was the steering mechanism - once again, classic placement of nuts which were a really problem to access, but once undone, the clamps seem ok, although we'll look at an alloy rack on rebuilding, recommended for its superior handling properties. The last problem we had was the steering arms, from the track rod ends to the two front quarters - the threaded section just doesn't want to shift at all, even with 'gentle' mallet application! I can't seem to see a bush of any kind inside, so there must be a special technique for this - as always, suggestions welcome!!

So, front end mainly complete, apart from the smaller assemblies. I'm picking up some second hand bits at the weekend; a spare gearbox, two front springs, stone guards, a carb and a set of stainless wheel nuts for the Wolfrace alloys. Not far away from putting it all back together again now!