I had this little gem out for a run yesterday 26th Jan, I took on some of the quiet roads around the district (LOL if there are any what with the terrorists from sydney getting to the vineyards) anyway I ignored them sitting on my arse as I was puttering along at 45mph, I covered some 30 kilometers and got off it at home walking like a half shut pocket knife as it rides like a dray with no suspension.
I had a long yarn with Numpty this morning 27th Jan re the logistics of carrying gear to sustain one's self for approx 10 days and as some of us know there isn't a great deal of creature comforts in a G/buggy, I asked about food storage/wet weather protection (overnight camps) cooking gear and eskies as I have 2 Engel fridges but I don't like the idea of them sitting in the footwell LHS and possibly it falls out, anyway after talking with Perry for almost 30 minutes, I bit the bullet and took to the rear suspension.
It was very warm here today 37c it has been hotter and I'm sure it was hotter in other places, but with some determination I set about the task of removing the springs, jack it up, body stands in place on the chassis in front of the rear spring front mount, in around 50 minutes I had both sets on the ground, but not without a few drama's, I used my MAPP gas torch on the U bolt nuts (7/16"BSF) as they were frozen, but with some heat and using a breaker bar and my Chicago Pneumatics rattle gun and the 42CFM compressor running they didn't stand a chance, realistically, I expected them to snap off
my next door neighbour yelled out at me, to tell me he was going to Sydney for a week, great I thought I will park my 110 in his carport and that way I can work on the springs in the shade of the house carport, ripper..
The center bolt nut looked as thought it had been hammered to stop the nut coming off, so some judicous work with a slim taper triangular file I soon had it round again, and using a single hex socket and the breaker bar it soon came loose, but it wouldn't come off, so I re-tightened it, got a sharp chisel and split it
this revealed a rather sad looking center bolt, so into my stock of steel, selected a length of 5/8" (0.625") dia bar, into the lathe and away we went
the breeze coming in through the shed door was 1st class, as I had stripped down my sweaty clothes and put on a full boiler suit (overalls) crikey were they hot, but I had to have them on as I was going to use a cup wire brush and a flap sander on the springs, it took me approx 20 minutes to make a new center bolt
then I took to the springs cleaning all the rust scale n dirt off them, they were then greased and re-assembled, the RHS is now complete, and I had faced off the 4 x 3/8"Whitworth bolts that hold the clamps together, they had been cut off with a axe I'm sure talk about bloody rough as, in this image those 4 bolts are laying on the concrete,
well that's been my day, I think I will fit the RHS spring to the chassis before starting on the LHS one tomorrow, hopefully this might mean that I can drive this vehicle the roughly 1600K's to n fro Corowa, as we need to get as many gunbuggies there as is possible, added to the issue of riding like a dray, as a result of my 50 year career in nursing it has left me with some scars, these days I can only drive for approx 90 minutes then I get severe pain in my left hip which radiates down my left leg, it is a killer, the only relief is Mersyndol, anyway we will see, cheers Dennis aka grumpy
ps and while all this is happening my 5" gauge live steam loco/tender sit around doing nuthin
