DaveP - Cheers, hopefully the "C" plate will be a good disguise when the car is finally painted.
If I hadn't spent so long building the car, I might have been tempted to paint it
before the MOT.
Although I am sure you could build a Kobra in a fraction of the time it has taken me to build this.
Just make sure you build it on level ground (see below).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Worse Things Happen At Sea...
Today started well enough as I fired the car up before I started to work on it.
The back end of the car slipped down the driveway a bit when I jacked it up to remove the wheels.
But I didn't thing this was a problem, as I have worked with the car being at an angle before.
Unbolted the ends of the rear spring.
Removed the boot lid to get access to my
Frankenlid.
With that removed, I could get to the studs.
And the second nut trick helped me remove them.
At this point there was a slight technical hitch…
As there wasn't enough room to pull the spring out with the lowering block fitted.
Not a great photo, but there was just about enough room to lift the spring up and remove the block from underneath it.
I was just about to pull the whole spring out, when I realised I didn't need to.
As with the lowering block removed, I just had to put the old studs back in.
( Thankfully, I'd put these in my "might come in handy one day pile". )
Unfortunately, this was a lot easier said than done.
After an hour of fiddling around, I still hadn't managed to get a single stud fitted, which was quire frustrating.
Little did I know it was all about to go horribly wrong…
In an effort to line everything up, I'd tried bolting the passenger end of the spring in place to see if that would help.
Then I was on the driver's side pulling at the spring when I felt the car starting to topple off the axle stands.
Note: When my uncle came over from American, I had tidied all my planks of wood away at the bottom of the garden.
So today, I had just grabbed a couple of axle stands to support the car instead.
The key point (with hindsight) is that the car is now a lot heavier than it was the last time I used axle stands.
Thankfully, I was able to put my shoulder against the car to keep it balanced while I reached for the car jack.
I managed to get the hydraulic jack in position and pump it up until it was taking the full weight of the car.
Phew!
I think I was so relieved that I had averted a disaster, that I wasn't really thinking straight.
As, by now, the back end of the car had slipped still further down the driveway.
So I decided to shove the car back up the slope using the wheels on the jack.
Again, I've done this before, but (with hindsight) usually there were four wheels fitted to the car at the time.
The car was on its way back up the drive when the jack got caught in a driveway paver and stopped, but my shoving didn't.
Then, in sickening slow motion, the car slipped of the jack and came crashing to the ground.
I could see the jack crushing one of the twin silencers and my heart sank.
I had to use a scissor jack to get the car up high enough to remove the hydraulic jack.
But it then went from bad to worse as I stupidly tried to straighten the car again.
I made a point of being really careful this time and had roped in my wife to help.
Watching the car fall off the jack for a second time was almost too much to take.
This time the jack clipped the other silencer and attempted to hold the car up using the boot floor, which obviously buckled with a sickening sounding crack under the strain.
So once again, I had to scissor jack the car up and re-group one more time.
I couldn't put the wheels back on, as the rear spring was still loose and that might cause even more damage.
So this time I used a big length of wood under the jack as I tried to more the car for a 3rd time.
By now, I'd also got the planks of wood from the back of the garden.
Finally the car was straight and resting completely stable on the wood.
( Photo taken after I started packing up. )
This is one of my, now squashed, axle stands.
To be honest, I couldn't bring myself to take any photo of the damage, as it was just too upsetting.
Ironically, I was removing the lowering block to stop scraping the new silencers and now they both have dents in them.
But the boot is much worse, as it has been caved in slightly, which in turn pull away the joins to the body shell.
I spotted damage to a small area on the inside edge of the driver's wheel arches.
Although I really need to come back with a clear head another day to check the whole area carefully to get a full damage report.
However, for today, I just packed everything away and put the cover's back on, as I really couldn't face it.
Now I know everything can be repaired, and as my wife said, it could have been a lot worse if I'd been under the car!
If I can bring myself to face it, I might try to finish off the rear suspension work tomorrow, just so I can refit the wheels.
But as I type this report up I realise I have a lot of aches and pains, so I have clearly strained a lot of muscles trying to save the mess I made.
So until then, take care, Paul.
