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Friday, December 31, 2010

Mess, Continued

So today started off with me draining the coolant back out from yesterday - it still came out a bit, so I think a good flush will be in order once I can get the car outside again. I decided to remove the radiator to backflush that, as it is quite easy to remove. As I was removing the other hoses which connect the heater and the bypass pipe, it became clear that there was a sting in the tail, as the connections on the bypass pipe and inlet manifold are rusted away.
     
Next step, I figured I would remove the heater matrix so that I can flush that too, as it's only six screws to get it out... except the three at the back aren't going to budge, so I resolved to split the heater box in situ, which allowed me to get the matrix out (it can be seen next to the radiator the previous photo).
Due to the corroded inlet manifold and bypass pipe connections, I will need to remove them to get that sorted (the pipe is cheap to replace, the manifold, isn't). So I spent some time stripping the inlet off, playing the fiddly game of getting to the lower bolts on the carbs.
        
Posted by DH2 at 6:00 PM
Categories: Fettling

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Making More Mess

The weather continued to be somewhat cold in the lead up to christmas, so much so that when I thought it might be a good idea to run the engine, I found it a bit frozen - I guess some anti-freeze might be a good idea.
So, a bit of time off work after christmas, and hopefully a chance to make a little more progress with the car. I decided that, since the weather has warmed up a bit, it would be best to get the coolant out of it. However, I also realised that I need to do the oil too, as I want to run some engine flush through it.
So, today I made a load of mess, by firstly draining the murky coolant that has been in the car for some time, and refilling it with some fresh water. This allowed me to run the engine up, which is needed for using the engine flush. When I removed the oil filter, the oil cooler sandwich plate came undone, so I decided to spend a bit of time removing the cooler to drain that too.
I left it all to drain overnight, and will return to things tomorrow.
        
Posted by DH2 at 7:00 PM
Categories: Fettling

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

A Bit More Prep

After some more hours yesterday and today, I think I have finally finished all the prep for the front suspension clean-up. I did the last bit of de-greasing which left me with a pile of various bolts and brackets, and the front anti-roll bar. Getting the droplinks off the ARB ended up being destructive, so I need to add a pair of those to the growing parts shopping list.
After that, I managed to resist the temptation to start taking the rear suspension apart, and instead spent some time focussing on cleaning up the front suspension mounts. These were a bit muckier than I first realised, but are now all cleaned and prepared for some painting - plus I need to get a small crack repaired in one of the offside wishbone pan mounts (plan is, to drill out the end of the crack, then weld it back together again).
        
Posted by DH2 at 9:00 PM
Categories: Fettling

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Cool Progress

The weather has been a bit silly recently, which hasn't been at all conducive to getting out in the garage and making car progress. So despite having some time off work, and having plenty of interruptions, I managed to get a couple of hours in the garage this afternoon. I got all the bits of front suspension that I have cleaned, scrubbed and rubbed down, to get another step closer to getting them painted. There's a few more bits to de-grease, which I'll have to wait for it to be less freezing to do, then I can get on with some painting.
Posted by DH2 at 7:00 PM
Categories: Fettling