Saturday 28th March - A very busy day!

 My good friend Dave Maton came up today to help with the Lotus Cortina. I had a huge list of jobs to get done, as the plan was to finally get the Lotus off of the rotisserie and back on its wheels.  
I made a start before Dave arrived and rebuilt the front hubs and fitted new bearing races and new bearings. I also cleaned up the discs with a wire brush attachment on an electric drill. 

When Dave arrived our first job was to bleed the brakes on the Green Cortina so that I at least have one car to do the shows with. Fitting the new remote brake servo the other night had allowed air into the system which need to be expelled. With this done successfully, we moved onto the Lotus. 

I started by fitting the front hubs back onto the car, while Dave was fitting new bearings and retainers to the half shafts, and oil seals to the axle. The old bearings and retainers have to be cut off of the half shafts very carefully with a thin cutting disc on an angle grinder so that you don't gouge into the half shaft.
The new bearings and retainers then have to be pressed onto the half shafts with great pressure, but luckily I have a 20 ton press in my garage, so this was no problem. The original oil seals put up some fight before they would come out, but they had been in there for sixty years! 

Once this had been done, we then spun the car onto its side and Dave fitted a new metal brake pipe that runs from the front to the back of the car. whilst he was doing this, I fitted the newly refurbished brake master cylinder.

While the car was on its side, we then fitted the newly rebuilt half shafts so that we could move onto the next stage of fitting the back plates and brakes. We then fitted the rear back plates, new wheel cylinders and adjusters along with brand new metal brake pipes. 
By now, time had caught up with us and Dave had to leave at 4.30pm. However, we had had a very good day and achieved everything that we wanted to, so it was now time to finally remove the car from the rotisserie. I went and got a set of wheels and some car ramps from the shed and we got the car back on its wheels for the first time since last September. 
It's been a great feeling bolting bits back on, instead of the relentless removal and cleaning and replacing and refurbing over the past six months or so. It's also nice knowing that the car has new wheel bearings, new brakes and new brake pipes all round and all new suspension bushes too. 
There's still plenty left to do, but every job I do brings it closer to completion. I couldn't have got everything done today without the help of Dave and I am very grateful for his assistance. 😊