Part of my work for Saturday actually started on the Friday night with the part removal of the steering column. I had noticed the week before that the steering link assembly had quite a bit of movement in it and should really be replaced. Dave Maton was coming up to do some welding on his wife's Herald convertible so I made use of an extra pair of hands while he was around.
By the time Dave had arrived Saturday morning, the old steering link had been removed and the new one was ready to fit.
With this job done, the estate was relegated to the garden and the Herald convertible was shoved into the garage so Dave could get on with his welding. Once he'd done his bit, he even managed to find some that needed doing on my estate as well!
My rusty piece of floor was cut out and a Tescos Fruit & Fibre template was made to construct a suitable replacement panel. (This was probably the nearest to healthy eating Dave's ever been!) :)
While Dave was cutting, burping, grinding, burping, filing, burping, welding, farting, swearing and burping, I was getting on with putting Gertie back together. By about 8pm, she was already to be fired up. We couldn't get the oil pressure up with no spark plugs in and turning it on the starter alone, so we ended removing the distributor and the timing cog wheel. We then fashioned a screw driver bit to fit over the top of the oil pump drive. (see pic below) Once the oil pump drive was spun with an electric drill in reverse, we got the pressure we needed and was able to attempt detonation!
After a few abortive attempts at starting which included a backfire loud enough to set all the neighbourhood dogs barking and was powerful enough to rid the back box of a good quantity of soot, she suddenly burst into life. Apart from the tappets (new cam followers) she sounded good but as it was now it was dark, we quickly set the timing with a strobe light and called it a day.
Dave came up again on the Sunday after his visit to the porn shop (Machine Mart) and helped finish a few other jobs off. This included making up a new loom for the overdrive after the old one inadvertently got cut up! (Not by either of us I hasten to add) With this done Gertie was taken out for her first test drive with the new (again!) engine and it all went rather well.
I just need to get some decent mileage on her now before the RBRR!
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