Anton's build

[Anton]

I have a feeling someone hasn't got the bumpstops at the correct height and has been bottoming out the shocks

I know not of what you speak...

I made mine out of box section, dont forget to add spreader plates to the chassis first.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking of doing.

I may look into longer shocks at the same time. I have some astra ones, but the pin is on the bottom end, so I might just weld an eye on to the pin and go with bolt-through top and bottom. Or use the astra shocks on the rear.

[twiss]

Driving like a twat probably doesn't help either Anton

[Anton]

Driving like a twat probably doesn't help either Anton

I know not of what you speak...

[Anton]

Remember this?



My health's been a bit better these last couple of days, so I managed to get a bit of work done today. Got rained on for a few hours while working, but meh. So I jacked her up, got a mental huge axle stand set from Hilux Scottie under the wee beastie, pulled the wheel, and pulled off the bent leaf.

Pulled a spare front leaf from the parts bin, but found that the 413 leaf springs have a 45mm rear eye, and the bushes are all 41mm. Pulled the bushes out of one of the rears to take a look - they've got an insert lining the eye, and it's literally rotted out completely.

Rang a couple of motor factors, nothing doing. So I found some 3mm sheet, and used an angry grinder to make it (roughly) 2mm thick, cut it to the right length (pi times diameter - 141mm) then took a hammer and bent it to shape, before walloping it into the eye:



Worked nicely, although it's a tiny bit ugly.

Put everything back together (without the shock for now):



Tomorrow, health permitting, I'll get on with temporarily patching up the shock tower so I can drive the SJ again, as I have a doctor's appointment and my Yaris is currently in someone else's possession, and I may not get it back in time (mum took it to visit my bro, and had a bad fall and sprained her wrist, she's in too much pain to drive back to Londy). On Sunday Hilux Scottie's gonna help me replace the shock tower with something more beefy (I trust his welding a lot more than mine for something this critical).

Hopefully after that I will be able to get on with making some extended bumpstops. The shock bent the lower mount as well as popping the top off the shock tower... Must not let that happen again!

[donkeychomp]

Nice work! Sorry about mum Anton.

[Anton]

Thanks! Once the shocks are sorted properly, I'll start bugging you about a greenlaning day...

[Anton]

Sorted the first tower today. The other side is still ok, but I'm going to tear it off and replace it anyway, I think it makes sense to have matching shock towers. Plus the towers I've made are a hell of a lot stronger than standard ones.

Next job is to make bumpstops, so I don't destroy my shocks. I probably should put the matching shocks on the back too (I have a full set of pro-comp ES1000's, but I only fitted the front ones for reasons that I forget...).

After that I want a bambar...

[donkeychomp]

Looking very good but have we not learnt lessons about Pro Comps! Piglet 6 will get KYB's as soon as possible.

[Anton]

I can't remember why, but I got mine of a scrapper before it was sent to the yard. I paid the princely sum of £0 for them when I nicked them with my Samurai axles (which were in trade for stripping down the rest of the Sammy and ebaying off the bits on behalf of Mad Lada Tony - I believe that ScottieJ ended up with the shackle reverse kit from the same Sammy). I would rather have rough country or KYB's, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I might have to pay more than £0 for them.

[Anton]

MOT was today. I remember thinking last night that I should check my lights and things one last time, but for some reason this morning I completely forgot. I did check them a couple of weeks ago, and the other day I switched on the headlights, walked around the back, saw the lights lit up and decided all was good.

So this happens:



I...

Erm...



Espèce d'idiot.

Fitted a couple of new bulbs, but the fog lamp is working just fine - it's the switch that's buggered. Gonna sort that and go back. Works if you turn it on, then twist it slightly back towards "off" - let go and it stops working again. Got a new switch somewhere, but it's a completely different shape, so I'll have to cut up the dash a little. Retest is booked for Wednesday afternoon.

On the bright side, remember my emissions problems?

CO was up at nearly 8 percent last year, messed about with the carb for a while, got it down to just under 5, eventually had to lean it off waaaay too much to get this:



Well, after that I did my timing and colourtuned the wee beastie. Was crapping myself about the emissions today! Had NO CLUE what they were going to come out like. So when I saw this:




I ended up looking like this:



Got an LED high level brake light. Gonna get that fitted soon so that I'm never running without brake lights again, that thought is rather scary! Anyone know if there are any rules I have to consider when placing this thing? I was thinking of mounting it on the roof just above the tailgate, or on the back door (although wiring it in on the back door would be more complicated) at the top of the rear window.

Anyhow, besides being a monumental berk regarding the lights (good god, I'd really take the piss out of someone if they did that, then I go do it!) I'm actually well happy. He did mention that my front axle knuckle balls are leaky, which is concerning since I only rebuilt my front axle 500 miles or so ago! Still, pretty happy anyway.