While sitting at my desk minding my own business today I got a call from the receptionist at work to say a heavy box had been delivered for me.
Yup that would be the buggy parts I ordered. They don’t look like much in the box but should help get a lot of little jobs done.
Parts Shipment
Jon is ordering the following parts tomorrow ready for fitting next week:
I’m gonna try and pick up some underseal ASAP as well tomorrow, then I can do that one evening this week.
Posted a poll as well as we can’t decide what color to paint it. I’ll leave that page up until we make the choice.
We finally decided to pull our thumbs out and do some more work, the new floors have been sat in the garage for like a month or so. So we got up fairly early on Saturday morning and cleared the driveway shortly to be joined by this updates guest star. Simon’s fiance’s dad just so happens to be a welder and also loves boys toys so the buggy is right up his street.
Jacked...kinda
After getting the front wheels off and the buggy lifted up onto a makeshift framework we had in the garden, we set to work on cleaning off the remaining dirt.
Phil brought out his gas welding set and a length of steel right angled plate and the real work began. With Simon and Phil shouting out measurements, I cut some plates and angle bars to remake the missing front sections. Rebuilding these took most of the morning and a steady supply of cups of tea. (Cheers Rachel!)
After stopping for some chip shop lunch we cracked on with getting the new floors in place and started the welding, this is where we ran into problems.
Fixing the front of the pan in place
The new floors are nice new thin metal and the original center tunnel is heavy steal, there was just no way we could get enough heat into the center tunnel with the gas torch to weld them together before the metal of the floor pan melted away. Next we tried the arc welder, this is a unit I picked up cheap a few weeks back but this had the same sort of problems, with the thicker rods the arc just blew the floorpan metal away and with the thin ones there wasnt enough power to heat the tunnel.
While all of this was going on Simon disassembled the front right brake drum and hub to find out why it was so stiff, after adjusting the brakes and a bit of wiggling and testing it now spins a lot better.
By this point it was starting to get on towards dusk and we wherent getting anywhere with the welding kit we had, so I pulled out the phone and made another quick call. Knowing that Edd (Previously mentioned for the lending of his airline and generator) had just bought a MIG set, I scrounged and mangaed to borrow this while he was out.
So with a bodged uplighter + flood lamp combo and the flash from the welding sets lighting up the drive we carried on into the darkess.
Working into the night
Once simon had finished getting his technique down the welds where going in quick and steady. Top it off with a good brusing down then a coat of hammerite over all the bare metal and the floors are in and protected.
Seeing as its nearly payday and we both have next week off work we are planning on getting on with the little bits and bobs that need replacing and rebuilding before the body goes back on.
Simon knows a man who knows a man who happens to work in a body shop as a painter so is in the middle of aranging to get the car resprayed. (That means you Steve!)
The Flickr gallerys for me and Simon have both been flooded with pictures, and Have a fantastic slapped together video of the days efforts:
