Had a reasonably productive weekend. Had to do boring house stuff for a couple of days
Compact osf calliper cleaned up, piston and seals replaced, bled and all working nicely. Gave the engine bay a quick rinse while I was there
Finally swapped the front winter tyres off the merc and gave the brakes a quick look as a warning had pinged up. Will need disks and pads at the front soon but not an emergency, just a very early warning.
The sud got the majority of the attention.
It’s always been very scruffy under the bumper line with smears of various under seals and muck on the textured stonechip valances. It’s always kind of bugged me, but it will never be a show car so not that much.
Anyway, I’ve always wanted to put a stainless exhaust on it as it’s all quite visible hanging below the back end and even past the wheel when viewed from the side. I don’t think anyone makes one, certainly not for sensible money, so made my own.
It was actually really simple, I’ve bought bits to do the whole system, but really it was the back box which was most desperate so I concentrated on getting that done and moved on to some more ‘while you’re there’ work.
I’d noticed a lot of the old wax underseal had finally started drying up and flaking off. Glad I was cautious about using it over winter. The rear beam suffering the worst. Only very very light surface rust and just wire brushed and painted for now. I’d like to drop the whole lot off and do it properly later in the year as several of the bushes are looking a bit ancient.
I added some seam sealer to replace the old cracked stuff between quarters and rear panel, cleaned up the black gunk off the lower lip, cleaned up what I could and gave it a fresh lick of paint.
Looks a million times better, makes the whole car look so much cleaner and brighter. I’m just annoyed I hadn’t done it sooner
I did black out the spare wheel well again afterwards, but terrible at taking work in progress pics
Unfortunately while it was up on ramps I got the angle of the dangle wrong, and the tailpipe has got a bit of a droop, so I’ll probably cut, twist and reweld it at some point. I purposely shortened the S so it doesn’t sit so far behind the rear wheel, and left the tailpipe piece a little longer.
Then tightened up the osr wheel bearing I’d noticed some play in. Rather worryingly it was because the nut hadn’t been staked against the axel and was only finger tight! Gave the pistons on the rear calliper a good working in and out while I was there with the wheel off.
The next day I moved onto the front.
Similar story to the rear, just a bit grubby and sad looking. There were a couple of dents I managed to get out, and a couple of others I managed to improve slightly but access to the inside is pretty restricted with the engine in. A job for another time.
Actually looks like it’s dropped off a jack or stand at some point as there’s a sharp upwards dent dead centre just under the numberplate plinth. The whole panel is bowed up very slightly and pushed against the crossmember. I straightened it out as best I could given time, access and equipment restrictions.
Painted it and cleaned and stone chipped the subframe and arb which are fairly visible from the front.
Going to tape the plate directly to the plinth to tuck it up nice and tight instead of using the crusty bracket
so that I can have a dedicated Win 7 machine for running this old software and also so I don't mind chucking it about with other tools & stuff unlike my day-to-day "indoors" laptop.
