Sunday 30 October 2011

Damage assessment

The DHC is ready to be moved to the paint shop, which is scheduled somewhere in this week. Last bits that needed removal for the paint repairs were the mud flaps, central bumper pivot, sill trim and nose badge. And of course I had to remove a fair bit of (seam) sealant (between nose panel and front wings and underneath the ends of the sill trim). At least I know now that my choice of sealant has been a good one, very adhesive stuff and a bugger to remove.



And I used the opportunity to have a better look at the damage to the front spoiler. Actual damage is worse than a first glance might tell. But it is still much easier to repair than to prepare a new one.



Also been busy sourcing the parts for the gear box. As I have a healthy amount of distrust in British Leyland’s numbering systems I decided not to go by the (parts) book, but dismantle everything first and measure all serial number related parts. The typical LT77 parts were sourced through S&S preparations ...




Whereas the bearings were carefully measured and, using SKF’s main catalogue, numbered. After which it was pretty easy to order them through a friend’s work shop ...



For one bearing I opted for a slightly different approach. The rear end bearing (the only ball and metric bearing in the ‘box) will be replaced by a fully sealed (for life) version. This has two advantages. First it is sealed from any debris wandering about inside the gearbox. But most important, as it sits against the rear oil seal it will act as an extra seal itself.



I also spent some time cleaning up the garage. Main reason for that was that I wanted to find a little tool I had made a few years ago when I rebuilt the current gearbox in ‘t Kreng. Indeed a dummy for the main shaft bearing, to enable measuring first gear’s end float.



And last but not least, I received a notice from my insurer last week that they agree with the damage valuation. They even managed to transfer the money to my bank account.

Edit: a serious setback for the damage repairs. Just got a phone call from the guy who is going to do the paint preparations etc. He has a serious arm injury, as a result of which he will be out for at least 6 weeks ...

Sunday 16 October 2011

Here we go again

Got a message from the damage valuator last week, and we agreed on the cost for the damage repairs. He also agreed with the fact that I want to do the repairs myself or under my own supervision. So in preparation for the body repairs I started dismantling the DHC again. Brought back memories from almost three years ago ...


As all bolts and screws were liberally coated with anti seize paste when I assembled them, everything came of pretty easily. Only the first part that I had to remove, the front bumper, put up a bit of a fight. Which was to be expected, as the central pivot point is a pretty tight fit. But after 15 minutes of careful wriggling it came off.


Also the rubber headlamp surrounds decided it was again time to shed some of the steel washers that are vulcanised to the back of the surround. This was caused by the kit I used to glue the steel washers to the surrounds. It looks like the kit became soft (due to high temperatures???) over the past year or so, and after that it set again and glued itself to the steel frame inside the head lamp pods. Hopefully they can be glued back in place with a few blobs of kit. With the surrounds of, the rest of the headlamp pods was rather straightforward. Only the connector blocks for the headlamp bulbs needed removing as they wouldn’t slip through the holes of the headlamp bowl and the bottom of the pod.


Luckily I had a few very fine/slim screw drivers with me to help with removing the three connectors from the block. With the connector blocks out of the way removing the headlamp bowls and pods was straightforward.



Finished work for this weekend with removing the screen washers and disconnecting the bonnet stay in preparation for the removal of the bonnet. But the actual removal won't be done until she's in the repair shop.


So almost ready to transport her to the body repair shop, which is scheduled within the next two weeks. Only items that I have to remove, before she is off for paint repairs, are the sill strips, the front mud flaps and the nose badge. But for the sill strips I need a few special tools to prevent (too much) damage to the sills, see where I can borrow these.