More of the Same.

More Cleaning, stripping and painting. That's all the components for the rear offside suspension and drive-train done. Just left them all hanging up for a week whilst the paint fully cures before putting them away to await rebuilding. It's all a little time consuming but well worth it, I'm more than satisfied with the results.

Also phoned Wards today. they aren't going to get the bits back to me before Christmas - no big deal as I've got nothing to bolt them on to! - Although I was looking forward to having some shiny new bits.

Had difficulty getting the remaining nuts off the rear shock shafts - no joy. Tried the nut splitter and eventually got the nut off but the threads on the shaft were goosed - explains why it wouldn't budge. Didn't bother with the other shock shaft as on closer inspection whoever last assembled it seems to have hammered it in and mushroomed one end.! That'll be two new ones then.

Called SNG Barratts but they had none and they had been on back order for a few months. So I called John Gordon's - he didn't have any either but said he could lay his hands on some no problem. Whilst on the phone to SNG I order some miscellaneous washers which appeared to have disappeared some time during the life of my donor?

Having some difficulty lining pictures and text up in the blog - seems like the preview window is just an imaginary concept!

Factory Visit

Went down to GD today - got off to a bad start as the A1 was shut at leeming lane due to an accident - if it wasn't for sat-nav I think I'd have been stuck there all day. Met Andy Burrows and his wife Meena and had a look round the workshop. It was a bit smaller than I expected but crammed full of delights none the less.

The best bit was when Andy took me out in the LS1 powered (400 HP) demonstrator - words fail me. I used to ride supersports bikes but somehow this thing seemed even faster. The acceleration was relentless. There was a story from back in the 60's that reckoned that Carol Shelby used to put a 100 dollar bill on the dashboard and if a prospective customer could reach it whilst he was accelerating they could keep it - I can believe that!


WATCH THIS TEST DRIVE VIDEO FROM THE GD OWNERS FORUM!!!.

Right click and open in new window

I don't think I needed much more convincing. The only real choice was which body style to go for? GD give you the option of a MKIII or MKIV body. The MKIII was in effect GD's own interpretation of the Cobra shape. The MKIV body has been produced from a plug taken from the Orignial Superblower CRS moulds. The MKIV has slighlty more muscular arches but the main difference is in the position of the scuttle. This is further forward than the MKIII resulting in longer doors, more distance to the dash and more height below the dash - particularly with the more original flat bottom dash panel. I'm nearly 6'4" but there was going to be plenty of room.

THIS IS MKIV BODIED GD

Asked a lot more question but mainly in a daze now. Anyways the deal was done and a chassis was duly ordered and the deposit paid. Allowing for Christmas shutdown my chassis should be ready end of February / beginning of March - this should fit in nicely with the refurbishment of the donor parts.

Haven't ordered the body yet as I've not fully made my mind up on my build sequence - plenty of time for that yet

I forgot my camera - Doh! - Sorry.

Bite the Bullet

I'm pretty pleased with the way things are going and I don't think that the refurbishment and re-assembly is going to present too many problems. So... it was bite the bullet time. I phoned Gardner Douglas and spoke to Andy Burrows - really helpful guy. End result - I'm going down to the factory in Nottinghamshire on Monday to have a look around - ask some questions - any maybe order my chassis!!

Cracking On.

Time to crack on - drive shaft components this time. Using boiling / hot water for rinsing speeds the process up a fair bit. Again the cleaning process turns out to be pretty straightforward - the

two components you see here only took about an hour and a half to prep ready for the acid bath.

Painting again proved no problem

apart from the wait between coats - maybe I should prep more parts beforehand and paint more in one go? Bit of advice - get a decent respirator that will filter fumes - this POR15 stuff is pretty nasty - And wear gloves - once it has cured on your skin even the solvent won't get it off! - you'll have to wait a week for your skin to shed. Oh - and and if using plastic containers check with a bit of paint / solvent as they seem to dissolve quite a few things!

The First Painting Steps...... of Many

Here we go - decide to start with a rear lower wishbone casting. Cleaning and remove all the accumulated c##p wasn't as difficult as I thought - it took about an hour to to get to this stage - Which I thought was pretty acceptable - I don't think you would have got much better with blasting? I did end up with a few nooks and crannies that were difficult to get into - but I found I had a small stainless steel wire brush for my Dremel - so that was them quickly sorted. It was surprising how well the parts came up - as the lower wishbones are cast they don't have a tendency to corrode to ant significant extent. The accumulation of filth mad them look in a much worse condition than they actually were.

Having cleaned and degreased the next stage was to use the POR "Metal Ready" solution. This essentially comprises a concoction of phosphoric acid and zinc salts. It will dissolve any small areas of rust you either missed or couldn't get to and then etches and coats the surface with zinc phosphate ready to receive the paint. The destructions indicated 15-30 minutes was required (all you do is keep the surfaces wet - hence the spray bottle). However this would appear to be at normal temperatures - i.e. not my garage at the end of December! Maybe if the final rinse was done with boiling water the piece would warm up? would also dry quicker.



Next it's time for the paint - this proved to be a bit of a commitment. Any over coating must be done before the previous coat has cured. If it has then you will need to abrade it or use a tie-coat primer. Essentially this means don't start painting unless you've got at least the next six hours spare - it takes 2 to 3 hours for a coat to become dry (slight finger drag) before you overcoat. The careful degreasing and treating with "Metal Ready" seemed to be worthwhile as the paint covered exceptionally well. The photo shows the wishbone after one coat. It will probably take a week for full cure but by then the paint should be rock hard. All in all - I felt quite satisfied with my first efforts - I tried not to think of how many pieces I had left to do!

The end of Dismantling?

It has been a while but that’s it – everything dismantled – all the bits for Wards boxed up and waiting for the courier. Finished my big list of required parts. There are a lot of parts here - however I see no point in saving a few bob by re-using bearings or other parts with an unknown history. It's gonna be a little frustrating if a few miles down the road it all has to come apart again becasue I re-used a dodgy old part! The ilst was sent off to Wards for them to send back with re-conditioned callipers, rear hubs and diff.

Mess

Got my order from Frosts today - that was the easy bit - now time for some mess!

Time to Clean.

Sent off an order to Frosts today for all the stuff I'm going to need to clean, prep and paint all the components that I am refurbishing myself. The planned process is:

1) Clean / degrease

2) Strip all old paint / rust (stripping discs - wire brushes in grinder / drill)

3) Clean / degrease

4) Prepare by acid etching (convert any remaining rust / etch surface ready for painting)

5) Two Coats of POR15 rust preventative paint

6) One Coat of POR15 Chassis Black

The POR15 paint system appears to be a moisture cured urethane and if it performs only half as good as the manufacturers claim then it should be excellent.

Now some people would advocate grit / bead blasting followed by plating / powder coating. This would still require some prep - a lot of masking off and paying someone else! However, this was going to be one of the key stages and I really felt it was something I wanted to do myself - I had the bizarre notion that I would find it satisfying and therapeutic? - I also hadn't got as far as committing myself to ordering a chassis yet. If I could get through all this and end up with a fully refurbished set of suspension and drive-train components then my thinking is that the rest of the build shouldn't be too daunting.

Troublesome.

The front suspension has been proving troublesome, plenty of penetrating oil and plenty of care. Slowly but surely my collection of disassembled parts has been growing. I’ve also been busy compiling a list of all the replacement parts required together with those parts to be reconditioned by Ward Engineering. Wards will be taking care of the diff, rear hubs and callipers. A full car set of reconditioned (including high and low pressure testing) callipers - front four pots, rear two pots and separate hand brake callipers at 245 quid in return for my own units as exchange seems like a particularly good bargain compared to the amount of work required to do it yourself – or am I just being lazy?

Front Suspension Strip

Whilst the rear hub was being abused by messers Thompson I had been busying myself with dismantling the front suspension. This is a bit more of a hassle, many of the fastners appear corroded fast and have been requiring plenty of penetrating oil over a few days to come free. After having broken one bolt in the diff – I didn’t want to break any more.

However the lower shock bracket bolts were stuck fast – time to break out the angle grinder (grinding has turned out to be particularly therapeutic) followed by a drift and lump hammer.

Having discovered the pleasure of aimlessly grinding metal – It was pleasing to find that the lips worn onto the edge of front discs were preventing the callipers (pads frozen in) from passing. 10 minutes of showering sparks – sorted.

Satan's Rear Hub - 5 - Good Triumphs over Evil

Sorted – Hub removed and only charged a tenner – big thanks to Tony at T Thompson and Sons.

Satan's Rear Hub - 4 - The End is not so Nigh!

Following the application of 20 tonnes over 24 hours the driveshaft was still refusing to part company with the hub – I was assured that the application of a “gas spanner” (an acetylene torch to you and me) would sharp sort things.

Satan's Rear Hub - 3 - The End is Nigh

Found a small family run Automotive Engineers close to where I work – took the stubborn rear hub in and was assured that it could be removed no probs.

Breaking Things

One of the last things to do is to remove the lower wishbone inner pivot brackets from the differential housing. These seemed to be particularly stubborn but came out after a few days of soaking with penetrating oil. However after 3 out of 4 came out the last one snapped off with no warning – this was probably due to the application of too much force on my part.




A quick phone call to Ward Engineering who will be reconditioning the diff assured me that the broken bolt could be removed easily - simply by me paying them an extra 25 quid – better than having to find a new diff casing.