WOW ! After almost 18 months of not driving a car and two years of not driving Brenda i finally got to England.
What a busy boy i was. Spent a week underneath the chassis, what a chore, started by degreasing the whole thing and then by hand with a wire brush i scrubbed and brushed both axles panhard rods the chassis and basically the whole shebang. no evidence of any corrosion other than surface mottling which produced a fine dust (which is worse for the eyes) After that it got a liberal application of some Aquasteel which I "acquired" cos we use it on rig legs. The axles have had a coat of Por15 and they look proper nice.
Then the AC drier was relocated behind the passenger headlight using parts i got off a scrapper in New Zealand ages ago., looks a lot neater without that thing dangling below the bumper line.
Next came the best bit... I finally tuned the fuel pump, I was going to connect the ACSD but that looked like a right f**k on and besides god knows where i put the blank and O ring.
So i pulled the short rod that let me back the idle off after i turned up the main fuel screw so the idle went up to 1600rpm, puff of smoke when i nail it but otherwise nice and clean.
Now comes the bit when i realised what a div i am, I'd been driving around worried about my EGT's cos they were topping 750c on long climbs. Turns out when i'd set the auber gauge up zero was not zero but in fact 86c. So i zeroed it and it still sometimes hits 750+ if i labour the engine but otherwise its sitting between 500-600c. My peak boost is still only 16psi so maybe ill up that but its made it a pleasure to drive.
Now I've got a long list of things to do next month:
Timing belt
POR 15 the whole chassis
hang one the swing outs on the onto the rear bar so i can remove the spare and fit the sub tank.
Modify the other swing out to hold a Hi lift Jack and composite waffle boards instead of a jerry can.
fit LED fog lights into the rear bumper as the original ones will be obscured by the spare on the bumper.
I've had some 20mm square section steel bent to suit the curve of the roof so that's to be welded up with square weld mesh into a dog guard. (Even though i prefer cats)
Finally after finding my cruiser mojo again I've got a drawer build mapped out with aluminum extrusion.
As they say .... Watch this space. Next time I promise there will be pictures.