An update! That means something has actually happened!?
After a long hiatus of putting things off, followed by lots of hours at work (Yay! More money means more to spend on the car, right?? WRONG! Month long holiday booked!
), things are on the move again.
A few months back I came to an agreement with the guys running the workshop. They had a second two post hoist that has never been used since they bought it a few years ago as the first time it went in the air, all the oil fell out the bottom. No one knew what condition it was in, so I endeavored to find out, with the understanding that once it was fixed, I was free to leave the Minor on it as long as it needed to be.
As that means it's up in the air, another car can be parked underneath, thus freeing up space. Win win!
So, a month or so of slow progress, and the hoist is tipped over, the ram pulled out and curse word seals discovered. Along with a pretty pitted ram. curse word.
Well, seals are cheap, so let's try that first! New seals in, some fresh oil and eventually we get the hoist back up in the air with the aid of a forklift that barely reached the top of the hoist and struggles to make it up the ramp in to the workshop. Bolt everything back on and hey presto! Doesn't seem to leak any more! (fingers crossed, a new ram would set us back about $1000)
So fast forward a few months and we're up to last week and I'm keen to get going again now that work is slowing up again. Have to wait while a car is painted. Fair enough, it's not like I'm paying to be there.
Rock up this morning to get started and I can't find my car!
Recently the workshop has gone from 3 units down to 2, so some cars have been sold, and everything else is packed in nice and tight.
Cougar, Nova, F truck, Falcon ute..
Mini, old Holden estate, Holden 6 wheeler variety bash ute... Oh! There is it! Not even in the same unit any more!
At this point (or just before, technically), I found that someone had closed the bonnet, which meant I spent roughly an hour getting the latch open (but now I know how I can do it in a minute -_- ) as the release cable does not work. Must fix this. The battery was flat, otherwise I would have just started it up and rolled over the hoist. So leave the battery on charge over lunch, take a look at some of the decorations around the shed...
Not quite as impressive as
grizz 's collection, I'll grant you.
...and then spend 20min shifting more cars around to get the Minor on the hoist.
I must admit, it was good to lay eyes on her out in the open again without the hood up. I think she'll be in the family a while.
Also pretty tempted to leave her ratty for a while as I find it appealing, although I know it'll mean I get hassled by the cops.
Now for a while now I've been worrying about how to get her up in the air in a way that I can work on her. There are very, very few jacking points on this car and the ones that are there, I need to do repairs on. The front usually gets lifted where the sill meets the firewall meets the back of the front arch as it's pretty sturdy there, but both sides are rotten as shown previously and are getting caved in whenever she goes in the air. As I don't have anything to copy, I wanted to keep them intact as much as possible.
Meanwhile, on the rear, the front hangers for the leaf springs is a good option normally except I need to pull them off and make them out of something other than shelving if I want it to pass a roadworthy!
This causes all sorts of issues as there's not much strength in any other part of the back of the car, and it's pretty prone to falling off the hoist already due to how close the hoist arms have to be together.
So a solution! I ran a beam of cyprus along the back just behind the rear spring hanger along the edge of the boot as it's got a pretty good amount of support there, and left the arms almost straight out, which lets me have the car further back over the hoist (this is a plus!). We ratchet strapped the car to the cyprus and also the arms of the hoist so that when I took the rear axle off it wouldn't flip off the front.
As for the front, I decided to run another beam of cyprus just in front of the gearbox crossmember and lift it via the chassis rails. There is a 90mm gap between the crossmember and the pan on the gearbox so jusssst enough space to run the cyprus.
However there was another issue. The exhaust was in the way!
Not any more!
Keen to start her up and see how noisy she is now, haha.
Anyway, ready to go up! Run the hoist up and hear some ominous creaking as the weight goes on to the timber. Wheels off the ground and more bad noises.
Hmm. That doesn't seem very straight any more...
Ahh...
Hmm. Maybe something a little more solid then..
I wanted to use timber as it was less likely to slip than steel on steel, but with the back tied down, it appears to be safe enough.
Before it went up in the air I pulled out the back seat, found a rats nest, cleaned all the flammable things out of the interior, etc.
Finally! On to some actual work! Hoist up, time to walk underneath! First step spray a bunch of Inox on this lot, plus a few more.
Surprisingly, I had very little trouble with any of the nuts. Guess spraying them on three separate occasions has it's benefits, eh?
Those keened eyed and used to appalling potatocams may notice that I'd been playing with me shaft.
Now at this point I worked out exactly how much of a pain in the ass this setup is to disassemble. The rear hangers were not too bad, bracket with one bolt slots in to opposite bracket with one bolt.
Pry out with crowbar to detach rear of spring from car. Undo shocks from top mounts so they fall out the giant holes in the boot when the car goes up a bit higher. Sorted.
The front hanger however... One bracket was welded to the car so I had to pull the spring off sideways and leave the bolts attached to the car still. Not much of an issue, until you find out the bracket on the other side is also facing outwards, meaning you can just jiggle the whole axle over sideways and take them both off at once. Instead I had to loosen the u-bolts on one spring until I could shift the spring across enough to get it off, and then the otherside was free to pop off.
That setup will be changing for sure. However!
Success! Marvel at my fuzzy rear end!
This is basically how far I had expected to get today, what with shifting cars around and not really knowing how to get her in the air, so as it was getting on dusk, I figured it was time to call it a day.
Rolled the axle in to the corner and then parked a ute under the Minor and it was time to head home!
I will be refurbing the axle and diff and all that lot before it goes back on. I shall probably leave it to the time that I'm spending waiting for welds to cool.
So next up is sorting out the spring mounts and the holes that I can see. I shall also clear off all the underseal and see what other hidden treasures I need to sort.
That's about it for now. Hooray for progress!
Cheers,
Matt