Who needs gears, anyway?

I planned a weekend trip to Cornwall to see family - I get in the car and I can't seem to select reverse? Then I prod the gear lever and it bounces up and down - that doesn't look good.

Panels off and, yes, the damn GBS quickshift has snapped AGAIN!!

UNBELIEVABLE!!

I guess I'm lucky I was at home in my garage, unlike the last time this happened.

I've had some discussions with Tony on how best to fix it (he fortunately happens to be an aircraft engineer) and Matt from the SKCC club has agreed to do the welding for me.

On holiday next week, so I'll get on it then...

Stand back - master craftsman at work

OK,  'master' may be pushing it but I have made (drum roll please) - A BRACKET! From a flat piece of metal,  I have fashioned a piece of art (almost).

Can you tell I'm proud?

OK,  so I needed a bracket for the speed sensor.  GBS do one for £13 but,  hey,  why buy one when...? So,  from my sheet of ally I bought before,  magic!

         

                        

Lurverly....

I've riveted it to the drivers side tunnel and roughly fitted the speed sensor after putting a single bolt into the propshaft for reference:

                    


 I had a bit of a panic with the propshaft -  I was told the end with 8 holes connected to the diff but that has a larger flange than the other end and it is too big to fit through the chassis rails:

I've turned it round and I'll just have to confirm with GBS that it's OK.  There's no way it's going in the other way unless I can trim a few mm of the flange which is probably not a great thing.

Also trimmed and fitted the gearbox mount:

I've also managed to borrow an engine crane from Jon on the RHOCAR forum - many thanks Jon and to the 3 others who so kindly offered their cranes. Didn't realise the darn thing was so big:

Finally,  I cut the original air inlet manifold to free up the bit I need to keep and re-use. I was planning on smoothing it down myself but I think GBS can do it for £20 or so and they'll do a much better job,  so I might send it off to them.

Badly need to get the engine in - almost nothing else I can do until then. Now that I've got the crane,  I can make a start on the sump. The only problem is finding the space to get the engine on the crane - my driveway is gravel so the crane won't roll on it.

Suited and booted

Putting the new boots on took longer than I expected,  mainly because of the weird clamps used to hold them on. They're a bit like Jubilee clips but tricky to get tight as they rely on using a pliers to crimp them. But finally finished and look pretty good:

... and then fitted in to the diff:

While I was on a roll,  I whacked the rear hubs on as well:

Not torqued up yet because I'm a bit worried I didn't do enough thinking/checking before putting them on.

But in one foul swoop,  I have a much better car-shaped thing in my garage now.

Lines of thought

I was getting a bit panicky about how many jobs there were that I'd  started but couldn't finish - handbrake,  pedals,  master cylinder etc. 

But after some thought,  this is the plan of attack:

1. Fit driveshafts (now painted but need new boots fitting). 

2. Fit rear hubs. 

3. Rear brake discs and calipers. 

4. Fit handbrake cable to caliper. 

4. Brake lines from 4-way unit above diff to calipers (copper to braided). 

5. Brake line from master cylinder to 4-way unit. 

Started by fitting a rivnut for the 4-way unit:

More difficult than it sounds - the hole is too big really and I destroyed 4 rivnuts before cunning use of a soldering iron got the job done. 

As I plan to start on brake line routing,  I thought I'd better check where the steering column goes:

Raised a few concerns about proximity of brake pedal to column and if I've done the 'grommet from Hell' properly. 

Mix 'n match

I've been keeping my eye open for a brake fluid reservoir as they're supposed to be hard to find and that was proving to be true.  None on eBay (yes,  it's possible) and no luck on those various sites supposedly linked to breakers yards round the country.  There's one listed on the GBS website but whenever I've looked before,  it's always said 'out of stock'. But suddenly,  while aimlessly looking at other stuff,  it came up as 'in stock'! I've never rushed through a payment process so quick! Arrived yesterday:

UPDATE: I thought this was the standard Sierra reservoir that fits on top of the master cylinder but no,  it's the reservoir that goes with the remote kit that GBS sell - doh! The Sierra ones are almost impossible to get now -  Ford have stopped making them.

Bits and pieces tonight - got the old boots off the driveshaft,  cleaned them up with a wire brush and brake cleaner and put a coat of Hammerite on the main shift. I'll also do the ends another day.

Got the correct bolts for the master brake cylinder and loosely installed them. Loosely because I seem to have a habit of needing to unscrew everything.

Attached the handbrake and cables (loosely ☺) :

Finally tonight,  some practice with brake pipe flaring. First attempts a bit iffy (on the left) but sorted by the 3rd attempt (on the right) :

Update: OK,  major problem here. The flares I did here are single flares and they are NOT right for brake lines. They need to be double flares. 

Bouncing on

Well,  turned out I'd left a penny washer out of the lower wishbone to hub carrier bolt,  which is why it was sinking in to the bush. No harm done apart from the time needed to take it out and re-do it.

A good piece of advice from GBS when tightening this all up is to disconnect the shock from the upper wishbone.  Before tightening,  the hub/upper and lower wishbone combination should move freely -  in fact,  it will drop down under gravity alone.  Then tighten one bolt at a time,  checking that you can move the combination by hand. The suspension may stay in one place by this point but still be moveable by hand. I just then tightened it as much as I could (within reason),  checked it was still moveable by hand,  reconnected the shock and job done,  finally.

Last little job was to use a paint pen to mark all the bolts.

Oh and another good piece of advice is to make sure any bolts that come close to where the rear panel will be,  is to make sure they are put in with the nut end nearest to the panel. This means that,  one day in the future when the rear panel is on,  you will still be able to remove the bolt without having to make a hole in the rear panel. Hope that makes sense...

I've started on the next job of preparing the drive shafts:

They're directly off an old Sierra,  so I just want to replace the boots and clean them up a bit. Taking off the old boots produced a large amount of old grease which has made a right old mess of my workbench. Not done any more for now as I need to work out what to degrease it with and what sort of grease to put back in.

For a laugh,  I took the handbrake kit out of its bag but not a great move -  I have absolutely NO idea how it fits in. I fear poor Simon at GBS will be called upon again...