Sunday, 22 September 2013

September 21st- Gertie is back on her feet.

With the welding finally completed on Gertie's rear floor it was time to start the reassembly. There is some more welding to do, but it’s near the handbrake mounting so I need to remove the seats and carpet and I can only do that with the car outside the garage. So today's task was to get it back on it’s wheels and rolling at least.
The first (and trickiest) job was to refit the differential. This is normally straight forward with two people but today I was working alone. Plus the car was jacked up at an insane height, so lifting it was going to take some doing.
After the third attempt and several swear words the diff was bolted up on the pins with a large truck axle stand supporting the nose piece. The diff has been fitted with a new quill shaft bearing and new seal and has also been reinforced while it was out. Next to be fitted was the nearside subframe complete with a new superflex suspension bush. The trailing arm was next followed by the spring, brake back plate and the driveshaft. With the nearside completed I then reassembled all of the offside.
The next job was to refit the fuel tank which was a bit awkward to get to the breather pipes and the filler pipe. However, after removing the vinyl parcel shelf tray, this became a lot easier due to having more access. While the car was still up in the air I filled the diff with new oil and also refitted the exhaust. Fitting the exhaust was a mistake actually as I then realised that I should have fitted the propshaft first due to clearance and I cant fit the propshaft until I’ve welded the floor and refitted the handbrake. So it will have to come off again. By close of play though everything was refitted and Gertie was standing on her own feet (Or wheels) again, so it was quite a successful day.


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