Well, another productive day at the lockup is over and done with. Thanks particularly to
Malfunction, his brother Colin,
marti155,
lewisp and not forgetting
Ryanfaescotland who brought along the best gift of the day. HOT WATER
We met up off site and, in small groups, headed to the workshop to pick up where we last stopped. The rear brakes!
With the new brake parts all here, at last, we set about stripping the brakes to replace the handbrake levers, cylinders and shoes. This started off fine, until Lewis began having difficulty with reassembly. Colin stepped in for a look and quickly discovered that the backing plate was a bit out of shape. Further, the bolts weren't moving freely. The application of a gentle heat wasn't enough, so we had to make a pitstop to B&Q...
So, Lewis and I returned with some shiney shiney tools and a couple of bottles we could spray water with....just in case.
Discussion with Colin and Mal soon turned to the underside of our car. But more about that in a second. With the proper tools, or in this case fire, the o/s brake was stripped, the backing plate bashed back into shape, and the drum rebuilt.
Success. Just as we began celebrating our good fortune appeared to continue.
marti155 had arrived, brigning along some exhaust parts, lowering springs and - best of all - new front calipers. Yay.
Colin had some engines to swap over and work to do, so he and Mal called it a day and began preparing for the short drive back into town. Before they left though, some serious discussion about the issue of rust took place. As some of you will know, we'd though about booking Cammachmore next Saturday. I'd thought that around five hours would be enough time to get the floor patched up. Turns out, I was wrong. Big style.
I don't have any pics, but suffice to say there is a lot more welding required than we initially thought. The entire boot has been sealed with expanding foam and the inner arches are caked in that shite too. We've made a start on removing the worst of it, but there is a long way to go and thats before we can even introduce a grinder or welder to the car. Today has made it abudantly clear that this is a much bigger project than we initially thought. The inner arches will need welded, a good chunk of the floor will need plated up, the inner boot really needs welded shut rather than just being caked in foam. Colin, a qualified mechanic, is reckoning 5 hours of welding
might do the job - as long as the prep is already done. Yikes.
With the rear brakes finally complete (yay) and the handbrake now working (YAY!) we decided that the rear lights and bumper should come off of the car for the time being. The plan is to let
Stuarty have a look at the current state of play, before deciding what to do next. We might put the idea of a big fix it meet next weekend on hold, particularly if we DONT end up welding. We may continue stripping the car and preparing metal for an eventual meet off site, but I'm not sure that'll be next weekend.
Since picking up FiaSco, I'd often wondered how the rear lights were held in place. I'd even looked a few times, but had that usual fear and had decided I was better off not knowing. Today, sadly, that had to change. Turns out that the ****tard who owned the car previously used that oh-so-fire retarding expanding foam to effectively glue them in place. What a knob.
Actually, as I upload that image of
marti155 weilding a hammer, I realise my last statement isn't quite accurate. The offside light was held on with a long threaded bar AND some expanding foam. The near side light was
entirely held in place with expanding foam. Sadly, we had no choice but to smash the NS light in order to remove it. The next issue was the clearance between the now closed boot lid and the top bumper mounts. A bit of melting and the bumper was also (forcefully) removed. Bastard.
Knowing that a lot of welding will be required just to keep this thing from turning to dust, I decided to start stripping out the interior. The bucket seats were an easy few minutes, the carpet took even less time. Sadly it looks like there's been some standing water in the footwell, which is obviously not good and something we'l need to address. If you look closely, just by the door pillar, you can see the effect that's already had on the floor plan.
Last week we had issues rebuilding the front brakes BUT, thanks to Martin's spare calipers, we now have a fully bled and fully functional braking system.
So, today, we managed to:
Rebuild the rear brakes
Get a working handbrake
Rebuild front brakes
Bleed Braking system
Remove rear lights and bumper (eventually)
Remove seats and interior carpet
Damn near set fire to the whole bloody car....
Just as we were beginning to feel quite proud of ourselves the cars shoddily wired moo horn decided to short out and start smouldering.
So yeh, a productive yet still frustrating day. We're beginning to see progress but it now feels like we owe it to ourselves - and this car - to do the work properly. We're not quite sure what to do next - preperation for welding is obviously a big priority, so hopefully with Stuarty aiming to look over the car in the next few days we can make preperations for next weekend.
