Short update

After the DHC sailed through its biennial MOT inspection a few weeks ago we could at last attend to the last stage, polishing the paint, sealing all visible seams and applying the nose and boot badges. We finished the polishing last Saturday but due to the still rather Dutch summer weather (wet), there was some moisture in the seams. As I won’t take any chances here I’ll wait till the weather improves a bit so I can put the car outside to dry out completely. And the badges will be applied after that. But it looks like that will have to wait till I return from a short walking holiday that’s coming up.

So in the meantime I switched my attention to ‘t Kreng, Although there were no big problems with her during last month’s international AutoEcosse I thought it a good idea to check a few things before the  inspection. I had some mixed feelings about the steering rod ends, especially the inner ones. Sometimes under cornering there is a audible knock and there seems to be a tiny amount of play. But I can’t feel it whilst driving, so I put here in for her last annual inspection. And she failed! Not because there was too much play in the front suspension components (that was all well within the limits) but because one of the dust covers was torn.

I missed this because the damaged side was facing the disc! Sadly they couldn’t find the ball-joint separator to remove the joints from the steering arms. The other option was to whack it with a hammer, which usually works very well. But in this case it would almost certainly damage the powder-coating of the steering arms. So I decided to return home to do the job there, using the proper tools for the job. Only to find out they came out pretty easily.  After which fitting the new dust covers was the proverbial piece of cake. For good measure I also checked the inner ball joint only to find out that it had become a little loose. This was caused by the fact that the locking tab had some play on the steering rack. Sorted that with a few well aimed blows with a hammer and drift.

After that I returned to the workshop to pick up my new MOT ticket. The good thing is that with the car now officially 30 years old it won’t need renewal before august 2014.