Phiz
Member
Hello all,
So finally after buying the car in March to allow a year to fix it up and drive it to iron out any faults before our planned road trip I have now spent a day actually working on the car!
A few bits and pieces parts wise have started to arrive, I've got new shocks all round on the way, new tyres, new rear brake cylinders, hand brake cable, brake shoes, rear springs and I' ve spoken with Big Mick regards getting some rear trailing arms sorted, just need to see what else I'll need from him so I can save on postage (same price for anything up to 20kg and I know I'll need some more bits as I head forward).
Apologies if the photos don't work out initially, this is the first time I've uploaded photos on to any forum let alone this one so if it has worked first time then that would be quite a suprise.
Starting with one of the known faults, having removed the rear axle this is how the spring cups appeared...
Other repairs required include new shocks & springs, I think to test a damper you press down, it should offer up resistance and then return to it's original length... well the image below is the shock about half an hour after compressing it and leaving it on the bench!
Also the brake pipes are corroded, so I intend to swap them out for copper/nikel pipes, any tips on this would be greatly appreciated as I've never done car brake lines before. I take it the flares are DIN and it looks as if the thread on the unions is pretty tight so I think they are M10x1.25?
So on to the task for the day, fabricate and fit new spring cups. I had a good look through the forum to see what others had done and got a load of useful info. Looking at what was left of the original spring cups the 'top hat' parts themselves had rusted through, the actual main pressed steel part on the axle was only lightly rusted so I recon they have gone where water has become trapped between the spring mounting rubber and the top hats. Thinking about the best way to avoid this in the future all I could work out was thicker steel and as good a paint job as possible (more on the latter later). I didn't really want to drill the top hat parts themselves as one hole would probably achieve very little, as once the weight of the car is on the spring I doubt water trapped could work it's way around the brim of the hat and many holes would clearly weaken it. I initially planned to fabriacate a cone at the correct angle, then I realised this would be fiddly and seriously limit the thickness of steel I could use. Instead I decided for the bottom part I would just forge a piece of 25x5mm flat bar into a ring the correct diameter (so as to be snug in the rubber spring mount) then fabriacate a little cone on top of that. When I measured the height of the original 'top hat' (or what was left of it) I realised that the cone section would be pretty pointless, so instead just forged another ring slightly smaller to fit on top. Stupidly I forgot my measurements and forged this one out of 20x3mm flat bar so the overall height was 10mm shorter than the original. Unsure as to how critical I angrily forged yet another ring 10x3mm and welded that on too... it soon started to look a bit like a wedding cake rather than a top hat . Still eventually I was happy the dimensions were correct, welded convex tops on them (with 8mm hole drilled in the centre as per the originals) and plasma cut the polo shaped bases out of 3mm mild steel (again thicker the better for rust I recon).
I was originally going to keep all the bits I'd taken off the car until it was finished as a record of how much has been replaced but I think these bits can probably go straight into the bin, loads more of it all over the workshop floor!
Now clearly at this point I've got masses of work to do but any pointers from the Panda Pro's on here would be great. Two things coming up which I really could do with some help on are:
a) Brake lines, any Panda specific info on what I need to buy in and any tips on getting the flares right etc.
b) Rust removal and paints. The axle has quite a bit of mostly surface rust on it. While it's off the car (and before I put the new brake components on) I'd like to get the rust off/treated and some new paint on. There are a few bits (around the spring cups for example) where I won't be able to get the flap disc on the grinder, what's the best way for getting the rust/muck out of there ready for painting? Do people recommend using Kurust or a rust nutralising primer? Should I finish this in hammerite or is there something tougher?
Thanks in advance for any advice/tips, hopefully I'll get some more work done soon (brake pipes and axle painting hopefully) and can post some updates.
Cheers
Phiz
So finally after buying the car in March to allow a year to fix it up and drive it to iron out any faults before our planned road trip I have now spent a day actually working on the car!
A few bits and pieces parts wise have started to arrive, I've got new shocks all round on the way, new tyres, new rear brake cylinders, hand brake cable, brake shoes, rear springs and I' ve spoken with Big Mick regards getting some rear trailing arms sorted, just need to see what else I'll need from him so I can save on postage (same price for anything up to 20kg and I know I'll need some more bits as I head forward).
Apologies if the photos don't work out initially, this is the first time I've uploaded photos on to any forum let alone this one so if it has worked first time then that would be quite a suprise.
Starting with one of the known faults, having removed the rear axle this is how the spring cups appeared...
Other repairs required include new shocks & springs, I think to test a damper you press down, it should offer up resistance and then return to it's original length... well the image below is the shock about half an hour after compressing it and leaving it on the bench!
Also the brake pipes are corroded, so I intend to swap them out for copper/nikel pipes, any tips on this would be greatly appreciated as I've never done car brake lines before. I take it the flares are DIN and it looks as if the thread on the unions is pretty tight so I think they are M10x1.25?
So on to the task for the day, fabricate and fit new spring cups. I had a good look through the forum to see what others had done and got a load of useful info. Looking at what was left of the original spring cups the 'top hat' parts themselves had rusted through, the actual main pressed steel part on the axle was only lightly rusted so I recon they have gone where water has become trapped between the spring mounting rubber and the top hats. Thinking about the best way to avoid this in the future all I could work out was thicker steel and as good a paint job as possible (more on the latter later). I didn't really want to drill the top hat parts themselves as one hole would probably achieve very little, as once the weight of the car is on the spring I doubt water trapped could work it's way around the brim of the hat and many holes would clearly weaken it. I initially planned to fabriacate a cone at the correct angle, then I realised this would be fiddly and seriously limit the thickness of steel I could use. Instead I decided for the bottom part I would just forge a piece of 25x5mm flat bar into a ring the correct diameter (so as to be snug in the rubber spring mount) then fabriacate a little cone on top of that. When I measured the height of the original 'top hat' (or what was left of it) I realised that the cone section would be pretty pointless, so instead just forged another ring slightly smaller to fit on top. Stupidly I forgot my measurements and forged this one out of 20x3mm flat bar so the overall height was 10mm shorter than the original. Unsure as to how critical I angrily forged yet another ring 10x3mm and welded that on too... it soon started to look a bit like a wedding cake rather than a top hat . Still eventually I was happy the dimensions were correct, welded convex tops on them (with 8mm hole drilled in the centre as per the originals) and plasma cut the polo shaped bases out of 3mm mild steel (again thicker the better for rust I recon).
I was originally going to keep all the bits I'd taken off the car until it was finished as a record of how much has been replaced but I think these bits can probably go straight into the bin, loads more of it all over the workshop floor!
Now clearly at this point I've got masses of work to do but any pointers from the Panda Pro's on here would be great. Two things coming up which I really could do with some help on are:
a) Brake lines, any Panda specific info on what I need to buy in and any tips on getting the flares right etc.
b) Rust removal and paints. The axle has quite a bit of mostly surface rust on it. While it's off the car (and before I put the new brake components on) I'd like to get the rust off/treated and some new paint on. There are a few bits (around the spring cups for example) where I won't be able to get the flap disc on the grinder, what's the best way for getting the rust/muck out of there ready for painting? Do people recommend using Kurust or a rust nutralising primer? Should I finish this in hammerite or is there something tougher?
Thanks in advance for any advice/tips, hopefully I'll get some more work done soon (brake pipes and axle painting hopefully) and can post some updates.
Cheers
Phiz
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