GRIZZ’s English 2001 S10 Extra Cab 4.3 V6 Truck

[Grizz1963]

DIRTY

DIRTY

DIRTY

And a load of rust.

As this comes apart bit by bit it seems a lot of this is original 70’s Cortina.

First stop was this one.



I did not realise for a while that I cound unbolt the other end.

Inappropriate tools abound.







Then the arms and their bushes that seem bushed.



A ton of cleaning up followed.

Wire brushed all parts.



Less and less to it.





Why a split pin, Nyloc and bolt retainer?



Bushes go there.

How the hell?



Anti Roll Bar gets new bushes both ends



So thats where we got last night. Still so much more to do.

I am also replacing all Nylocs and bolts as I go along.

Later team.

[Grizz1963]

Yesterday and today were and will be very busy.

Today is my first face to face team meeting with the whole team in 18 months, as our company is super conscientious about staff safety and social distancing etc.

I also managed to find a service station after passing 8 with zero fuel yesterday, and that included a 25 mile round trip to be allowed to buy £30.00 worth of diesel.


Amazing how the profiteering is openly happening.


£1.56 or $2.10 per liter at a Shell station on Bluebell Hill


I am sure some will say I should not complain and be thankful that I managed to find some fuel.


I did some Rezin Rockit “work” as well, stopping at a nearby Nuts n Bolts guy who has reinforced my belief in people.

He will sell two washers and single nut if that is what you need, and at the price of what that item is worth as a portion of the pack.

Hopefully the weekend which has a LOT OF RAIN and WIND forecast, will also allow me some time to get to the build, as it is Sally’s weekend off at work, and I feel the need to spend some good quality time with her as well.


Yesterdays purchases……..



Looking forward to seeing them back on the front end.

[Grizz1963]

So the weather forecast said rain.

A fair amount of it.

And I must be honest, it got worse, amd left me really thankful for this structure.



Lodger came home around 13.00……… a bit wet.



A big part of the time spent is just cleaning, matching, restoring, replacing, painting etc.





Two dots to remind me how it goes back together later.





Bushes cut to fit over the bar as ends are rather large.

Also added copper grease on every opened surface to protect and enhance movement.



First bit reassembled.



Followed by the steering rack bushes, after a bit of a fight to get them loosened up, they came off.

Both were split when fitted.

So still on the right track.







Though fit is a major problem.

The bushes are actually too small for the job in one aspect (fitting around the steering rack) and too wide, fitting in the prerequisite spaces, so the bench grinder helped.

Followed by BFH encouragement and Fairy Liquid in copious amounts.



And after a bit of a struggle to get both ends captive, it was all good, Nylocs and split pins back in place. The nut fixing. Plates need to still be folded up.




Then I started on the next set of bushes, on the top control arms.

More castle nuts and split pins.

Undid one, started to drive it out, not sure what the referred energy would be from the springs………

So with one end disengaged, it was time to panic and stop, as light was failing and I may need to approach this a different way.

Note the difference in height already there.



Is that a curve I see in the spring, or is it just happy to see me ?/



At this point I decided walking away till tomorrow was a wise move.



So I packed up tools and went into the garage and painted the roll bar a second coat of Hammerite Red as well as the rear shocks, mainly to see what they look like in red once refitted when planning the lowering, as I have red springs from @Kevins to go in there.


No Bootfair tomorrow as it has been raining most of the day, and will continue overnight.

So maybe a Sunday morning lie in in bed ?/

Unlikely.

[Grizz1963]

I rarely “give up” on jobs.

Today I did give up and changed direction for a while.

Sometimes you need to change place and pace to survive.

I had hoped to get the bushes completed and even the chassis partly reassembled.

Sousing a Mercedes Benz spring compressor which was not a Ford item, meant I ultimately failed to disassemble the upper and lower control,arms.



Unfortunately too big to successfully clamp and deactivate the springs so that I could get the arms off.



So once I gave up on the springs, having tried them three ways, I decided that reassembled parts made sense.

Problem with the poly bushes, was that even when completely wound in, they hardly give way, compared to the units removes.



VS

The old



So the space is taken up differently.

Looking at the parts next to the wheel you can see I had too much bush.







Minus the two steel eyes that this threaded though I was still dismally short in bolt thread.



So I took the 8 small bushes and ground about 3mm off each of them to create some space so that I could thread on, and tighten the nut.

Once completed, I felt a bit better about failing.

Despite the control arms still having to be done, possibly when I cut the front springs, or buy some correctly specced shorter front springs and shocks.



I am hopeful that I will be able to do this as soon as I have time to get to it.

Todays weather was decent in fact, starting out cold, but dry all day.

Weekend is over, work again tomorrow.

Life is good though .