Today's pictures

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19 Feb 2012 - Cleaning and cleaning!

So the last week or so has been continuous cleaning of the chassis and suspension parts. It is a lot of work and with the amount of underseal on this car, I have been losing the will to live some nights! It is a combination of Nitromors paint stripper, the parts cleaning tank and a range of scrapers, chisels and wire brushes to get the bits free from crud and crap and ready to paint. For the smaller bits, the wire wheel on the grinder has been my best friend! Have a look at what it can turn a grotty master cylinder into....

Each bit has been dismantled as far as it can go and I have inspected the bushes and rubbers, and the joints to make a list for replacement parts. Luckily, a lot have already been replaced so the car must have had some TLC along the years. It is then a case of cleaning and sorting out what needs painting and what doesn't.

A weird anomaly is that the rear wheel cylinders are different sizes as you can see in the picture opposite. It makes sense now why the MOT tester last year had fun trying to balance up the rear brakes! These will be replaced so hopefully I won't have that problem again.

The front brake callipers were in a bit of a state, but luckily since the car had an MOT and had been driven, they weren't siezed so came apart relatively easily. Even the seals were okay and I will be able ot clean these up and reuse them. I have a special little honing tool that is great on the piston bores, and so a little oil and a battery drill on a slow-ish speed brought the insides up lovely. The callipers will be painted and put back together in due course.

At the end of this weekend, I had a lot of bits on my pool table ready for painting. No pool for a while then!