It costs something like € 70,- to galvanise a box of parts. It does not matter if that box has 2 bits or is cramped full. So, I’ve been gathering things to fill the box with, but kind of struggled to get a reasonably filled box. As I do want to finish the rear end of the suspension soonish, the box was delivered to Galvin to process. It should be back here within 2 or 3 weeks or so.

Not sure how I am going to fit the throwers onto the hub though. There is a small edge on the hubs over which the throwers should be ‘clicked’. Obviously I do not want to damage the throwers so I’ll either need to find a way to equalize the pressure over the circumference or heat it up so it sort of drops over it automatically. The edge seems to be smaller at the bottom than at the top, so heating it seems a plausible way to go.

Once I get them back, I’ll give that a try first.

I went for the el cheapo option on the stand and crane; this showed during assembly. I had to augment the bolt pack inside with quite a few to get the things assembled, but alas it’s there now.

While I was there I noticed a little gadget which seemed perfect to set the camber and castor for the suspension.

It’s capable of doing both absolute and relative angle measurements and has a magnetic base. Sounds perfect in theory. I’ll report back on how the thing works out in practice.

I started to put in the bearing tracks. The fulcrum ones are relatively easy.

and the stuff is blue! I’m sold.

After a while I fabricated a suction device from an old vacuum cleaner. That helped a lot, until the vacuum cleaner decided to short out and smoke a bit.

This morning I gathered all the parts and delivered them to Galvin where I had the hand brake parts treated too. This time the parts will be yellow-passivated, because that will provide a better profile for coatings than the blue passivation. Got some compliments of the guy at the factory, he said the parts he usually got to treat looked a bit different.

It makes the parts almost look like there is a paint finish on them.

I also got my hands on a broken bench drill. It’s a new machine but the motor does not start well. Bit of a gamble, but it sounds like the startup capacitor is either the wrong size or broken. It’s too big for my multimeter so i can not be sure if it is Ok or not.

Opening up the motor itself revealed a loose wire?!? Seconds before the motor ran smooth, so i must have torn it loose on opening up the motor. Other than that, the motor looked fine. I also noticed the motor got quite hot when trying to get it to run, but i’m hoping that is the abnormal load on the secondary coil during the testing. If I can get this fixed by a capacitor replacement, i got a really good deal! If not, i got a lousy one.

A short talk with the guy at the excellent Rustbuster shop quickly convinced me that MIG was the better option for my skill level; beginner, not to mention my wallet. A good TIG machine costs the world. After trying a few welds in their training room I went for the Cebora Bravo 155 machine. This was one of the rare occasions where i spent less money than originally envisioned. I am going to attend some welding course when time permits.

While the cracked housing is bad, that didn’t explain the earth leakage. Opening up the motor itself did though:

That’s fried! I’m hesitant to just put another motor back in. I’m thinking of turning the whole compressor in and getting one back with a little more grunt and running on 3 phase current

It’s not trivial to make a good rivet I found out. The first thing you have to get right is the amount of shrinkage you want to introduce in the rivet. Too little and the rivet is loose, too much and it deforms too much.

The next thing to be aware of (at least in the aluminium rivets I bought for practice) is the speed at which you ‘rivet’. Slow is the thing, apparently. If you go to fast the threads will be ruined. I’m waiting for delivery of the steel rivets to be used for attaching the brake-lines to the chassis.

Enough said…

Some careful sawing and using a vice to hold the puller slowly released the last bits from the pivot shaft.

Yay!
On the other hand, trying to pull the stub axle from its carrier broke my puller:

All the donor parts are now disassembled, so the reconditioning of the diff is next. I ordered the gasket and a replacement pinion seal, let’s hope that is all that is needed.

That is, taking a picture of some stupid mistake I made to explain it to someone who actually knows what he is doing and help me out. Also, good excuse to fiddle with mirrors taking a picture of the camera with the camera

The part on the left is the air filter / reducer, right is the oil dispenser. I created two outlets, one after just the air filter and one after the oil dispenser. That way i can use compressed air with oil (for rotating tools etc. which need lubrication) by hooking up at the end. By connecting in the middle it will just be clean air without the oil; I gathered that for spraying paint oil is the last thing you want in the air flow, but i have not much experience with these tools.