Stop fuelling around

The last couple of days have been a bit frustrating. Yesterday I attacked the Zook with the pressure washer, which promptly punched holes through a handful of body panels. It’s not like the pressure washer is extremely powerful, it’s more like large portions of the car were being held together by the mud!

After pressure washing the outside I pressure washed the inside. Amazingly the inside is not the brown colour everybody thought, but a shade of white! Took a cold chisel and a bloody great hammer to the spot welds that held the excuses for wheel arches on, why is it that spot welds are always stronger than the 2 bits of metal they join? Anyway, the result is that all 4 of the wheel arches have gaping holes through them and you can sit in the middle of the vehicle and see the grass through the holes in all 4 corners! Pulled out my arc welder and experimented with trying to weld 2 pieces of 1.6mm off-cut sheet using 2mm rods. Not a pretty sight accompanied by much swearing.

Feeling slightly dejected I turned my attention to the front wheels, only to discover that the free wheeling hubs were both jammed in locked position. Lots of WD40, a hammer and a punch eventually free’d the drivers side up to almost normal, the passenger side required me to open it up and pack the bearings with grease before could get it to turn and it still requires some persuasion. I’ll keep dousing it in the magic spray and hope it loosens up. I’m a bit worried that towing it with the front wheels locked might have caused diff wind-up, really should have thought to look before e towed it here.

Today was equally unsuccessful. Time being in short supply this afternoon, I decided to drain the fuel system. Much to my horror the fuel that came out was a mixture of petrol, water and sand! It seems that every time I do something that should be simple I find half a dozen other jobs that I hadn’t anticipated. Still at least we’ll know that everything is fixed when I finally finish all the work. Looks like I’ll have to strip the carb and fuel pump to remove the mud; should be interesting I’ve never done a carb before…

Spring cleaning

Seeing as the Zook is outside and I have a tendency to get very cranky when cold and wet I decided to work on the inside of the 410 today (it’s raining). The first task was to give her a good cleaning as the entire floor was covered in 1″ thick hard mud! After a bit of experimentation I worked out that a hammer and chisel were the best way to loosen this gunk and spent an entertaining few hours crawling around in the car, getting shards of glass stuck in my knees and walloping everything within striking distance with a lump hammer.

Next came the trusty vacuum; it took 3 completely full vacuum bags, but eventually I managed to clear enough of the mud off the floor to reveal a surprisingly sound firewall and floor plate! There are some spots of surface rust that will need grinding and quite a bit of metal around the wheel arches will need to be cut back to clean metal before being welded up, but on the whole I’m extremely pleased with how little work needs to be done on removing the dreaded rust monster.

The next task was to rip out everything that was bolted down. The door panels went first and were closely followed by the drivers seat after being very liberal with the WD40. The passengers seat gave me quite a hard time but eventually succumbed to a combination of the trusy lump hammer, a crow-bar and an angle grinder. Turned out that whoever had mounted the seats hadn’t used the correct thread on their bolts, so once the seats were out I retapped all the seat mounting holes so that we don’t have a similar problem when putting in some decent new seats.

I fitted the spare rear side window in the gaping hole behind the passenger , so the only remaining gap for rain to get in is now the missing rear window, which we’ll fill with a  piece of polycarbonate this week sometime.

I also found enough spare time to dismantle the dashboard and start working out the mess of wires that all seem to terminate in loose ends. There’s been quite a lot of home wiring done on the loom, but my initial impression is that no serious bodging has taken place so everything should be pretty simple to fix.

Break Sump Thing

Todays shennanigans involves freeing out a rather uncooperative brake pedal. 3 in 1 oil and a large crowbar obviously scared it into submission because before I even got them into the car it gave a strange honk and geriatrically moved back to it’s rightful place. Leaving the crowbar aside I treated it to a good dose of oil and it’s working rather well now.

Also on the cards was the sump guard. Now I reckon there are some pretty big rocks in Africa so this thing has got to be tough. One fine rectangle of 4mm steel later and we have a candidate. Now to figure out how to bend it.

Finishing todays bodging was a crafty coating of filler onto all those little blemishes. I’ve cut out and rewelded in metal where needed so thankfully this icky goo is only required to get a nice surface for paint.

Towing the SJ

Yesterday myself and Greg towed my SJ the 40 or so miles from my garage to Greg’s house.

Quite an event really, considering we couldn’t go much above 50mph due to the non-existent brakes. Being constantly worried I’d plough right into the back of Greg’s car made it quite a stressful journey. We (actually, I) managed to snap 1 tow rope by driving over it several times… I’ve got no excuses for that, really.

Once back at Gregs place, he set about giving it a once over whilst I went to procure a pressure washer for the much needed pressure wash - both inside and out - before any real work can begin. I have a nasty feeling that mud and generic dirt hide a multitude of sins. We’ve already discovered the cause of the bad brakes - the brake lines had been replaced with garden hose!

It also looks like the head needs to come off (we suspect rings or valve stem seals - or both) need replacing). The electrics need complete rewiring, some noise from a universal joint on one wheel needs investigating, and the bushes on the suspension seem iffy. It also needs a new exhaust system. Other than that, I think that mechanically, we’re sound.

I’m sure Greg will be posting a list of his findings shortly. In the meantime I’ll prepare my wallet for being regularly raided in order to procure parts. At least now we can start making some proper progress on the jeep.

The Leesbian cometh !!!

Tomorrow the 410 is going to get towed to my place. I finally took pity on Lee and decided that if his vehicle had any chance of making it round the course she was going to need some TLC and prep done on her (and frankly I don’t trust him to know a dipstick from a dipsh*t!) So the plan is to tow her over to my place so I can get her through the MOT. By coincidence I might have also sourced enough 1/2″ square tube to build a roof rack out of. I’ve found the carcass of an old shop counter, which I think I might be able to scavenge there’s plenty of material on it to build a roof-rack out of and the best part is that with some thought and judicious use of an angle grinder half the welding has probably already been done for me!

Maps, Radios and Chemicals

Todays panic revolved mostly around the arrival of a decent map. Actually two. Given the regularity with stuff bursting into flames around here we thought it only wise. So one is being examined while the other is kept in the freezer. The basic plan at the minute is to stay on the yellow stuff, avoid the blue stuff, keep going south till we cannot pronounce the town names, then turn left. Easy.

We got a CB working today, so we can pollute the African airwaves with profanities and generally listen for the Eastern Route loonies at night. It was a disturbing experience. Channel 14 had some mad woman praying to what sounded like Heaven’s Phonebook. Apparently she knows them all well enough to bother them. After trying to answer and tell her thanks but we’re doing fine up here we gave up. We reckon the FBI have wired a nun by mistake.

In a lightning attack Bob rolled in the heavy artillery in the form of some spectacular flip paint, which he duly applied to an unsuspecting Vespa in the Bunker. We’ve got a car show in Kilkenny on the 7th and 8th of June and as the car still looks destroyed we’re planning ahead. Still, the fumes were unusual and I swear I’m sitting here beside Elvis…….Over and Out.

It’s alive!

After 6 months of standing (with a mere 5 years before that) I was a little sceptical as to whether the Minor would burst into life or sit there idly while I turn the key. My heart was racing… I turned the key and… nothing. Only then remembering that I’d disconnected the battery some time in March I popped her open and reconnected the juice.

One little turn of the key and she rumbled into action, coughing and spitting 6 months of cobwebs and then… well. It wasn’t exactly dainty or beautiful, but she was running. Uneven, too fast, and kicking out a cumulonimbus of smoke. Still… any life is good life. Checking plugs and compressions will be the next step.

Before the triumph of her sewing-machine-like purring I was also rewarded by the gift of a buggered thumbnail and a rear, driver side drum brake. Finally got the bastard off after a combined effort time, over the last couple of days, of probably 90 minutes. All sorted now though so only the front to worry about. Then the exhaust. Then the rust. Then the electrics. Then the engine. Hmm…

Day of wReckoning

First of all Bob would like to say “Ow ow ow ow ow…..”, this is due to him practically removing a knuckle while performing yet another feat of automotive ninjitsu-surgery.

Right, what did we get done. Radiator and cooling system fully plumbed in. Fuel tank broken and fixed by us today (much swearing and petrol burps), fuel pump fitted and tweaked. New hyper-budget performance-loud-bugger exhaust crafted and installed from unconventionally borrowed (stolen) pipe and a single rather fruity silencer. New brakes lines everywhere, ran inside the car so no snakes in the arse for us! Brake lines by Leonardo de Bob because they are a work of art. All exhaust bracketery made from scratch. Fuel gauge fixed but not working. Starter removed, fopped, cleaned, reinstalled and working beautifully. Petrol cap lost. Oil light working. Oil tasted and confirmed. Engine test ran and admired. Some bodywork done too.

Team Suspect Device would like to apologise for the alarming daftness of this blog. The combination of bloodloss and petrol ingestion while fixing the fuel system means it’s another evening with the Pink Heffalumps down in Dingley Dell for us.

Drum Braked

I’ve never been a fan of drums but I’ll admit the ‘65 Minor has a better rear drum setup than the ‘89 Mini… go figure. I pulled off the rear passenger side siezed drum in a mere 30 minutes or so. Pads changed, rust wire-brushed out, sorted. Once you’ve done one the rest are all easy I reminded myself. If only. 45 minutes later I’d moved the driver side rear drum about 2mm and had snapped one of my flathead screwdrivers. Dowsed in 3-in-1 I left it for a surprise attack several hours later. Still no luck.
Tomorrow I’ll find the most leverable and invasive tool I can find and give it the balls. If that doesn’t work I’ll set it on fire and/or blow it up and convert the whole damn thing to discs… or a landrover subframe. Hmm!

To be continued…

Vehicle documentation (and the hassles therein)

Kind of ironic that my first blog post on here is about paperwork. Well, maybe it isn’t - considering I probably should have taken care of this the same weekend I collected the jeeps. Anyway…. as deadlines loom (it’s less than 2 months away……AAAAAARGH!), it’s about time I got these jeeps legal. That means getting V5’s, road tax, MOTs… all that fun stuff. So, we’re starting with the V5’s. Who knew it could be so difficult to find a VIN plate? Suzuki (in their infinite wisdom) decided that every SJ owner would enjoy a game of hunt-the-vin-plate, and so errr… hid it. In random places. Then LIED about where it is in the workshop manual. Good work.

Anyway, VIN plates have been located on both jeeps (Greg from Team Wingnut is using my SJ413) and the V5 applications will go off tomorrow. After that we need to get both jeeps towed to Gregs place so that we can start fixing them up.

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