So, on my way back from Leeds my rear bumper fell off. Yep, I know, ca sets on fire. but rear bumper decides to jump ship. FFS. It was only the plastic bit, but still very annoying. Luckily not an MOT failure as the old bolts were completely seized and I could not get them off!
Anyway, night before the MOT, the car would not start.
GAHHHHHHHHH
In desperation called the RAC who came out and were about as helpful as someone taking a dump in your milkshake.
Anyway! It was knackered HT leads. My MOT was due for 8:30 on the Saturday morning. The only motor factor in all of Leeds with some HT leads in stock was GSF. So booked a taxi for the morning, arrived at GSF as soon as they opened, ran in, got some leads, taxi home, fitted the leads and pegged it to the MOT station. Was only an hour late... not bad. And then came the bad news. Here is the list of fails:
- Nearside rear wheel bearing play
- offside rear wheel bearing play
- Nearside front wheel bearing play
- Offside front strut play
- Nearside from D bush on antiroll bar bad, resulting on play
- Battery insecure (this was my bad)
- Offside fog light (rear) out
- Offside front indicator incorrect colour
- Side repeater wrong colour
- offside rear (corner) body or chassis has excessive corrosion within 30cm of the body molding.
Advise:
- the other D-bush
- Offside rear indicator slightly discoloured
- Nearside rear indicator slightly discoloured
- Oil leak
- rear washer not working
- Front grille loose
- timing cover fouling pully belt
rear bumper missing
After hearing the quote for the welding, and had a serious low moment, as the amount they wanted was sounding a lot like the deposit on a nice shiney car.
But I soon snapped out of it. Drove it back to Newcastle and hijacked my parents garage once again! As I work in Leeds, having the car in Newcastle is far from ideal. But I dont have a garage in Leeds. So needs must.
First things first. Sort those pesky bulbs. Easy. Done.
Then it was welding time! I should mention that I have never picked up a welder in my life. But my Uncle has fully restored a very crusty Spitfire, and kindly lent me his welder and gave me a crash course. The result of crash course...
“Dear god don’t let me loose on a car”
Had a bit of practice and felt I was ready. So dropped the tank. And guess what?! I found more bolts that would no shift! So I will take this opportunity to introduce a tool which EVERY Mk2 owner should have. These are call “Bolt Grips” made by Irwin. They are about 20 quid and will pay for themselves over and over again in time and skinned knuckles. Basically they grip the bolt like no socket can. So hammer um on, and then you can use a breaker bar or rattle gun withou fear of rounding. They also work on already rounded bolts!
Anyway, syphoned off the fuel (Thanks Dad for taking the hit on that one
)
Dropped the tank (to avoid fire btw) and got the grinder going. Here are some pics of the rust I am dealing with
And after a bit of poking...
Also figured I would do the filler cap while the tank was out. When I started poking, this happened...
And After a bit of welding...
This one is post hammerite/underseal
And here are a few of the filler cap
All that grinding has resulted in a lot of metal dust. DAMN MAGNETIC TOOLS!
Time for the other jobs. Rear wheel bearings were fine. Hammered out the old races, ground one of them down and used it as a drift for the new races. No issues.
Dont ask me why, its a silly story, but I ended up cutting one of my rubber brake lines. So then needed replacing. Bought some of these
However the connections were very messed up. So ended up needing the copper too
Some of the connections required a huge amount of Dremmeling to finally get them off. Here is one I mangled earlier:
Regardless, I manged to replace the sections I needed to and my brakes are all back on now. And that pretty much brings us to this weekend (28/11/14). Jobs still to do before the MOT are:
- Paint new weld areas
Replace the struct top mounts
Replace the d-bushes (any tips on this?!)
Replace the starter motor (forgot to say, has died due to corroded terminals)
and do the front bearing!
Hopefully thats a 3 day weekend for some of the jobs, and another for the painting. Expect an update after this weekend!