Sunday 25 January 2009

DHC report nr. 7; Suspension removed

Nearing the end of the first stage of the restoration, the dismantling. Spent a few more hours in the workshop yesterday afternoon. Started with the front suspension;



As this was renewed in the spring of 2007, al the bolts came off without a problem. Only the anti-roll-bar put up a bit of a struggle but that was solved by removing one of the track control arms. Having access to some proper tools certainly makes life much easier!
Also loosened all the nuts and bolts from the sub-frame in preparation for the last job;




As you can see there is some light (surface?) rust at the top of the front suspension turrets. As the affected area is double skinned this needs to be treated properly otherwise the rust will return sooner or later.

With the front suspension removed it was time to switch my attention to the back of the car. As there is a pallet lift in the workshop I thought it a good idea to use it, makes life so much easier;



With the back axle firmly supported on the lift, it was only a matter of undoing the four bolts which hold the links to the body and pull the back axle out from underneath the car, easy really!



By removing the back axle I could (at last) access the fuel tank. Only part that put up a fight were some jubilee clips from the fuel line. Easily sorted with a pair of pincers and some brute force. And after I found a deep 17 mm socket to go over the rather long mounting studs, removal of the tank itself was a piece of cake. And by the looks of it, it’s a fairly new tank. Which could well be as, judging by the body protection, the tank clearly has been of the car somewhere in past;



Will drop the engine from the body somewhere next week(end);



Body will go to a local firm to have the paint removed in a chemical bath, after next week. They will also lightly shot blast bad/rusted sections. After that the body work will be done. And when that's ready the whole body will be shot blasted and coated with an epoxy primer. But that is still somewhere in the future!


No comments: