Running Gear Complete (ish)

A fruitful weekend saw most of the running gear make it back onto the van.

Front Steering and suspension all on, including the shiny new Koni shocks:

Rear brakes all re-assembled. These are the shoes and backing plates that came off the van when I started the resto; they cleaned up really nicely and have plenty of use left in them:

And fitted the drums too, ready to go back down onto wheels:

I borrowed a wheel from Wayne in the unit next to me to pull the hubs into the drums and discs. Even putting one wheel on it makes it seem so much more ‘van like’, rather than just a lump of metal:

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A little further on the running gear rebuild over the last few days. New rubber boots on the ball joints, new front bearings pressed in, steering pin fitted and front beam installed back on the van. Hoping to have all the running gear back on by the weekend.

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New bearings pressed in and rear suspension all built up tonight. 😎

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Master cylinder and regulator installed. All new kunifer brake lines made up and fitted with goodridge flexi hoses. And the back end is off the jig for good now!

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All ready to start bolting on over the weekend!

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A really productive night this evening. Finishing prepping the rest of the running gear and got everything top coated in Anthracite Grey (an old beetle colour that should look awesome with the neptune blue).

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My phony Koni steering damper to match the new shocks, complete with Koni decals.

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Under strict supervision tonight sanding all the running gear ready for topcoat. Got the torsion bars and steering damper painted too.

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Last of the running gear epoxied tonight. Hoping to have it all top coated for the weekend so I can finally start bolting bits back on.

Also got some bits back from the powder coaters; the brake backing plates and all 5 wheels. Shiny shiny! 

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More Snow!

Poole got another good coating of snow this morning. Not enough to stop me getting down to the workshop though in our crappy little Fiesta.

I’ve been putting off repairing the wheel arch on our Fiesta for some months now; I hit a column in a car park which dislodged a chunk of filler that someone plastered over some rot. It’s off for an MOT tomorrow so I couldn’t really put it off anymore. Pretty cold repairing this outside, Before:

And after. I didn’t want to spend long repairing this as I’m not planning on keeping this car for a huge amount of time, so it was very much a ‘fill a hole’ repair, which should do for now:

The ducks were back to keep me company in the cold:

I finished cleaning up the front beam so Zinc primed it, along with some of the brake components (Paracord is perfect for hanging bits to be sprayed on):

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