Graham will be arriving early afternoon in the mean time I popped back to my parents place to pick up one of the first tools I ever bought. A sump spanner. The engine has a sump plug that you can undo with a socket. The gearbox has a sump plug you can undo with a socket. So why do you need a sump spanner to undo the rear diff sump plug? I got back and set about lowering the front of the car back down to an acceptable level.
The crane, although it won’t lift, it will hold any load I put on it. So I decided to use it as a safety support. I used a block of wood and the trolley jack and the metal work I used to lift the car yesterday and raised the metalwork up on the jack to meet the car. I took some rope and wound it through the holes where the springs used to go several times and hooked the rope on to the crane hook. When the jack took the weight of the car I took the axle stands and lowered them down to the lowest setting. Then very cautiously I began to lower the jack until the crane took up the slack on the rope and then lowered the crane so the car sat back down on the axle stands.
Then I tidied the garage making it ready for all the toys Santa Graham is bringing me. Garage prepared, I put the back end back up on the axle stands making it ready to drop the back end out of the car. I heard a diesel van out on the road looked over the fence to see Graham in his van. Not a bad six hour run. And there was my baby tied to the back of the trailer. We had a coffee break and then back to the work in hand.
Graham drove the van and trailer round to the garage and backed it up to the garage door. We unstrapped the tub and carried it into the garage and put it on the trestles. Alright so it took two attempts. I still have to cut and drill the trestle cross members to make it stable enough to work on, but for now more I need to see the rest of the kit.
First out the van the Front end Frame, then few small boxes. One contains the AST coil over shocks and they look so much better than the ones I took off the Scooby. They were also the first time they have been fitted to a Murtaya. Another box contains all the nuts and bolts I will require not to mention screws, P clips and ty-raps. One small box contains the new handbrake, an MG Rover handbrake? Then one last huge box contains the Roll bar, a bag of HEL stainless steel Kevlar effect flexible pipes for brakes and clutch, and all the fixing plates and bracketry required to assemble a rolling chassis.
I couldn’t help thinking there should have been more but then there is all the equipment I have been stripping out of the Scooby for the last month.
We chatted about various aspects of the build and I asked various questions. There were a couple of questions that escaped me like why do we need to use the interior lighting? And I have yet to see a Murtaya with standard Impreza side indicators so are they just ignored by the builders in favour of custom option?
Graham left with another six hour journey ahead of him. I now had a chance to look over the tub and other equipment. The tub had been sanded down for the most part to take the gelcoat shine off. Graham explained that this makes it easier for the resin to cure. The better the curing the better the paint finish/ easier it is to paint because any "trapped" solvent in the rersin gets evaporated. If trapped solvent is present when spraying it can affect the paint finish.One idea Graham suggested is once I have a rolling chassis, before the engine and wiring are installed, is to have the car “baked” in a spray booth for a couple of hours and then primed. This sounds like an idea but I would probably do it when I get the second part of the kit with the boot, doors and bonnet. So I would need to find a sprayer first.
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