Having recovered from yesterdays deluge of muck I set about the removing the anti-roll bar. The hub ends of the bar were no problem but the mounting brackets and bolts are badly corroded and three of the four bolts sheered under the ratchet socket. The fourth proved highly troublesome. The socket and spanners just kept slipping. I borrowed and cold chisel from Carl to try and knock the head off but all that did was make a bigger mess of the bracket. I was able to swing the anti-roll bar around and with some mole grips managed to get the bolt turning. But then i noticed a small access hole beside the bolt head. I put my finger in it and felt the nut on the other side turning with the bolt. Bugger! Then I notice I had torn on side of the bracket mount. Next time use the grinder that’s what it’s there for.
Back on to the plastic pipe guard and this time I gave up on the bolts and cut/tore the mounts free. The guard, now removed revealed, a fixing that held both the filler and breather pipes in place. It was also covered in road dirt and badly corroded. From my previous experience with the anti-roll bar I decided to leave it till last. I undid the Jubilee clip and removed the flexible pipe connecting the filler to the petrol tank, then went to work on the Filler point itself.
Three screws all looked clean and shiny, and I stupidly figured take them out and I would be left with the one badly connected fixing in the wheel well. The reality was the three screws were shiny on the top but in the wheel well they were badly corroded. The first one wouldn’t budge at all the second came half out and seized so bad I couldn’t turn it either way. The third screw turned marginally. I went to town on the backs of the screws in the wheel well with a wire brush and some penetrator/release fluid and managed, after much coaxing and some time, to release the third screw by turning half a turn and then back a quarter, add bit more fluid and repeat. The first and second screws still wouldn’t budge.
After a bit of thought and numerous attempts I took a hacksaw blade and in the wheel well cut the threat off on the top of the fixed nut. I tried the screw driver again and behold it moved and with a bit of coaxing and release fluid it came out. Two down one to go.
The second screw just would not budge. Half in, half out, seized solid and in true amateur mechanic style I knackered the Philips head so nothing could get a purchase on it. I was about to take drastic measures when Russ put his head over the fence.
I had asked Russ to pop round to give me a hand fitting cross braces on the trestles holding the tub up. He also wanted to see what the car looked like. We lifted the tub off the trestles and put it on the floor and marked up the ideal gap between trestles adding an extra 100mm for the existing timbers 1150mm. Then we drilled the fixing holes based on the holes I had already predrilled in the posts and fastened them up with stud bar. They were solid. I’m not going to say they could hold a tank but they are more than substantial enough for the job, and solid as a rock. We put the tub back on the trestles and, after a coffee and a chat, Russ left me to it and I went back to that last ruddy screw.
The only option left was to drill. Not a pleasant thought, but there wasn’t enough thread left to hacksaw off on the back of the nut. So it was out with the battery drill. I applied some pressure and the drill bit into the screw sending hot swarf all over the open fuel filler...... A sudden recollection came to mind. That of a guy at work how was welding on or near a petrol tank which he had previously emptied and it had promptly went BOOM bending the floor pan of his car and subsequently reducing the whole car to scrap metal (Fortunately he was unharmed). At this point I decided to fill the filler tube with something distinctly less flammable and continued drilling. Once through the head, job done, I decided to drill out the badly corroded middle fixing which worked a treat.
Success - I removed the pipe... Carrying it to the garage I tipped it up and a load of fuel spilled out on to the floor. So even though I had disconnected it from the tank there was still fuel inside the pipe... boy was I glad stopped put a stopper in the top when I was drilling.
Kim, who had been ill recently hence her absence, popped round to have a look at the kit and to discuss the next few jobs and what she would be able to help out with. There were to top mounts for the shocks which I was going to need off the old units to mount the new units on. Kim said if I brought them to college one day she would use the spring coil clamps to dismantle the coil over shock systems to retrieve the parts I needed. We also discussed numerous other jobs and the tools I would require. Once Kim had gone I went back to the breather pipe which offered a challenge in that it was heavily rusted. It took some manipulation the get the rubber breather pipe to the top of the fuel tank off and then some more cursing as I finally managed to free it from the car. I’d had enough by then and I had recorded the six Nations games earlier so I called it a day.
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