1st August 2010
Having spent an unhappy hour trying to get the rear spring hanger to separate
with the remained of the chassis leg I cut off last weekend, I moved back to working on the Land Rover, which is
due an MOT in late September. I have also been asked to provide some assistance with a poorly Hillman Super Minx,
so my free time to work on Betsy is presently shorter than I would like.
Notwithstanding this, I'm still hoping to have the chassis back on its wheels in the next month or two, but it seems that this may be out of my hands to a degree, depending upon what additional work my other, more pressing duties present.
Anyway, whilst I'm sat thinking dark thoughts about the compression of my free time, I also think it may be time to overhaul the website too and make it a bit smaller and easier to navigate. Any constructive thoughts that you may have on this would be gratefully received.
8th August 2010
I was worried that I wouldn't get chance to play with Betsy this weekend,
as I spent 4 hours on Saturday 7th August working on a Hillman Super Minx in Northampton for an acquaintance. However,
I need not have feared!
I have had a fine day manufacturing a new end piece for the offside chassis rail and fitting it in place. I started out with the template I had made previously, laying this out on the sheet steel and cutting out a copy of the pattern with my angle grinder. I then let in two cuts in to the back of the steel and bent the flat piece of steel in to a channel using a couple of pieces of angle iron and my vice. A long process, but cheaper and easier than getting a press shop to make me one up.
When I had pressed up and welded the channel in place, I decided to take the chassis out
of the garage and do a few quick measurements to make sure that everything was where it was meant to be. Hmmm,
I found that the new piece had pulled the rear or the chassis in by 8mm in width and added 5mm in 
length; not good at all. I resolved
to cut the welds and re-set the chassis rails whilst out on the drive. 5 minutes later and the whole thing seemed
much happier. I did a few quick dimensional checks around the chassis and the nearside and offside seem to match,
without twist in the chassis too.
Flushed with my success, I made a small repair piece for the tail end of the nearside chassis rail and let that in too. Five minutes with the grinder and a flap wheel gave a reasonably aesthetically acceptable, if not flush, weld.
Well, that's the end of the chassis welding, I think. I just hope that the penetration I have achieved is ok and that I won't be revisiting this topic later. The chassis seems quite resilient to hammer blows and takes my weight bouncing (gingerly) on it, so it's finger crossed and stride on with the work.
One thing I will mention here is my Land Rover, Ollie. I am going to have to make carry out some serious welding work on Ollie's chassis soon, as there are a number of issues that need addressing and the MOT test is due at the end of September. This is bound to take me away from working on Betsy, but I hope it won't be for too long.
14th August 2010
Imagine a forty year old man, working in his garage restoring his old car.
He is whistling happily as though, "Hey, I could do this for a job!" Fast forward four hours and this
same chap is now throwing things and muttering darkly under his breath.....
Ok, so now you know how my day started and finished; let me tell you how and why.
I started out by tidying up the edges of the channel I welded in to the rear of the chassis last weekend. It had slightly wider flanges than the rest of the chassis, so I decided to trim them back and make the repair look as much like the old rails as possible. Satisfied by my work with the angle grinder I rolled the whole plot out of the garage for a quick video update.
Next up were the front wing supports. They have been somewhat truncated during their life, probably as a result of having fallen prey to rust. These are held to the front damper units by two long bolts that each pass through the support and an anti-crush tube. They are then held to the chassis frame by a further three bolts, two through a support bracket and one large on directly to the chassis itself. Although there were copious amounts of WD40 and a little persuasion from the blowtorch required, they all succumbed quite easily. Having said that, most of the nuts and bolts are that corroded that they will require replacement and one small bolt sheared. I also noted that the rubber bushes to the offside suspension damper had let go and will need replacement; I will look for replacement bushes for both sides to keep the geometry of the car steering symmetrical.
With the old wing stays off the car, I took some photographs of the removed parts against the replacements that I am to fit. The extent of missing metal is quite remarkable and it is quite surprising that the front wings look as good as they do, if the state of the supports is anything to go by!
Anyway, so far so good. Our mechanic is still relaxed and happy; indeed he is
enjoying his afternoon in the solitude of his garage. The storm clouds were about to gather.
At this juncture, I decided that I may as well remove the front leaf springs and axle to allow replacement of the suspension bushes. The two rear shackle pins were no problem and were loosened in a trice; however, the front shackle pins pass directly through the foremost leaf spring bushes. The nuts for these fixings came loose easily, but the bushes refused to let their 'death grip' go on the shackle pins themselves. I have tried using a tool to push the pins through, I have tried heat to get some differential expansion, I have tried WD40 and I have tried brute force and ignorance. All that I managed was to ruin both shackle pins, make a lot of noise and loose my cool. As I type this, I can hear the shackle pins mocking me from the garage!
As usual, any suggestions of how I might progress from this point will be gratefully received.