Well with a now fully functioning heater that has never run or looked better the man cave was a nice place to be today, got the body back on the GTA and tested the rear lighting, all good except it looks like my indicator stalk is goosed so of to ebay in a minute to find a replacement.
Putting the body back on the GTA was in fact part of today's master plan to make room for the Navigator chassis, after a quick clean up and tool sort it was unloaded from the trailer where it has sat waiting since it was painted a while ago, noticed a couple of small marks where it was rubbing whilst in transit but a quick touch up with some paint saw that all sorted, then it was on to cleaning out any holes filled with galv and tapping those that headed it. The tapping went fine, paying out for a good quality full set of 3 3/8unf taps was a good move. Biggest problem was finding the tapped blocks that the front suspension towers bolt to as during the last workshop cleanup all Navigator parts had been "filed" in a potato storage box, I say box but its a wooden crate about 6 foot long buy about 4 foot wide and 4 foot high, much digging about later and I had all 4 required, phew!
I ordered a load of bits from Canleys on Thursday expecting them to arrive yesterday but they didn't arrive which was a bugger as e order included a load of new bolts, nuts etc, quick trip to my local fastener chap on the way in this morning though saw me leave with about 100 mixed UNF bolts and sets crews in different lengths and thread configurations along with a good handful of stainless washers and spring washers, a fiver thank you for cash, result:-)
Once all the required holes were drilled out, threaded etc we started to try and fit the front suspension mounting tower blocks, one each side went in ok with a gentle tap, the other two were going nowhere as the channel they slip into was full of globs of galv, about an hour of chisel drill and swearing action saw them clear enough to get the blocks in and lined up though.
The near side tower went on in about 30 minutes, mostly due to trying to align the threaded blocks properly whilst holding the tower in place and fitting the bolts at the some time, good job Dave was present as I don't think 2 hands would have been enough.
Remembered that to fit the shiny new spax shocks I would need the shock top mounts off the old shocks, 10 minutes rummaging through the potatoe box and a trip next door to borrow some spring compressors saw them off and the old shocks and springs relegated to the growing scrap pile that whilst sorting through the box had 2 manky old spitfire rads added to it. Another 5 minutes a piece with the rotary wire brush in the grinder saw them cleaned up nicely and a cot of etch primer and them 2 coats of chassis black with a couple of minutes in front of the heater saw them ready to be pressed into service.
One problem encountered when assembling the spax was that the two top nuts are the same size and thinner that a standard spanner so locking them off against each other was impossible so a hunt around the floor found the nuts that had come of the old shocks, one thick and one thin, the thick ones were cleaned up and pressed back into service successfully. Just had time to fit the near side shock and then ran out of time but the end result is:
Not as much as I hoped for today but an hour on Monday should see the offside finished as well and then hopefully another hour will see the rack and the front updated ARB fitted, if time allows then the next step is to fit the new wheel bearings discs calipers, pads and brake flexis which for the purposes of getting a roller going should be the front end pretty much done......in theory!
One issue I have come up against is that buying my donor in bits means that I can't seem to find the shims that go between the bottom wishbone mounts and the chassis, anyone know how many should be there? Anyone got any going spare?
Till Monday evening then
Tata