Week 9 has seen some rapid and dramatic changes to the car. In only about 1.5 days work I was able to finish removing the bodywork and most of the front suspension.
Firstly, I finished removing the passenger door and the boot flap followed by the internal 'A' post supports and approx. 10 bolts holding the body tub to the chassis.
You have to disconnect the handbrake from the cables which was dead simple as this plate just unbolted from the top without having to crawl under the car.
Handbrake mounting by
marlinpeter, on Flickr
Next, my two sons and I lifted the whole body tub and have stored it above the rolling chassis.
Out of body experience by
marlinpeter, on Flickr
Body off! by
marlinpeter, on Flickr
My original plan was to rebuild the trolley I used when I built my Sportster and mount the chassis on the trolley so that I can move the chassis in and out of the garage. Luckily the wheels are still in the back of the garden shed. But then it occurred to me that I could work on the front suspension, remove it all, refurbish it at home and then re-fit it to move the chassis around and then do the back end, simples!! So that's the plan and I saved a day or two building another trolley. I'll clean, de-rust and repaint the chassis in two sections.
So I set to work with the spanners and removed the front suspension.
Front brakes, hubs, etc by
marlinpeter, on Flickr
Front wishbones by
marlinpeter, on Flickr
Front suspension gone! by
marlinpeter, on Flickr
About three hours later it was all in pieces in the back of my Rover estate.
I've now got a backlog of parts to be cleaned up, de-rusted, refurbished and re-painted.
...peter
P.S. the only reason for that old Ford gearbox and the gash BMW engine still being in the chassis is that I've run out of space and if I remove them, I have nowhere to put them. So they're staying there out of harms way for now
