Day 43 21/6/11 It’s all in the balance

Dan popped round to assist with the outstanding bolts on the rear strut tops. It took the two of us and some tape on the ratchet spanner.  Now it is on to mounting the differential. I hoped to mount the Differential nose bracket first and fixed it in place then when looking at the differential itself we decided it would be easier to put the nose mount on the differential off the car and fit the whole lot as one.

We were right eventually. With the nose mount now bolted to the diff we put it under the car. We discussed how we would lift slide the rear bolts into the bushes and hold it in place.  In order to lift it we had to move the tub back on the mount about 4 inches. We were about to lift it into place when I had a thought.  The diff with its nose mount and the hubs represent a sizable chunk of weight. I gently pressed down on the rear of the car and the front of the car lifted. Doh! I dug out a length of rope and tied the front frame to the wooden framework the tub was sat on.  This is obviously a temporary solution till the engine is fitted but I can’t help wondering if it will tip the other way once the engine is fitted.

  

We lifted the diff tail first into the new bushes on the rear sub-frame we then stacked 3 wheels under the diff nose and set about fixing the nose bracket.  Once the Diff nose bolts were in place I tightened up the rear diff bush fixings.  New minor problem – the new bushes appear to be thicker than the original bushes.  There appears to be about 6mm difference (see the photo).  Everything is tight and solid but a little voice in the back of my mind says the IVA inspector will frown upon this and I may have to replace the stud bars with something longer.

We moved onto the trailing arm mounts with the aid of a heel bar we were able to line each bolt up on one side the other side was going to take a bit more work.  It was getting late so we called it a night.