Interesting stuff Jon. How did you get on with the strut cup repairs ?

Cheers Dave

Thank you - I'm sure it'll be great. Its with the maestro now ;-0

Back on the old Rover and still trying to sort the brakes. I put everything back together and bled it through but they still don't work *sob*. My fault, I was skimping on the checks I should have made and only now have found that the rear cylinders are seized. Anyway, one of them has come off for a clean-up and new seals, barring disasters, so far so good.

Other side removed and seal kit ordered.

On the deep blue 340, here is the repaired strut after adding a shock absorber insert and a bit of paint. That should be more-or-less everything ready to go back together with the spring compressors and then back on the car.

The strut has been going back together, or, given my slippery spring compressors, "boing back together" might be a better phrase. Note: important health and safety issues if, like me, you try this one at home, or anywhere at all for that matter ;-0 ,-0

Going back together a bit more.



But its slow joe crow.

Almost back together, as in tightened up but not torqued up, bar the main ball joint crennelated nut which broke. My substitute nyloc one doesn't seem to have the right thread. Work in progress on that front.




The e-clip which holds the speedo cable bobbin in the grease cap unfortunately got lost in transit to the welder but has been replaced with a substitute from the local lawn mower repairer. The diameter of the circular slot in the bobbin is 3/16 of an inch by my non-metric ruler and general incompetence but the new item fits OK, thankfully.

Torque it up, baby.



Well, the suspension nuts and bolts were set to 40+ lbft as pacified in the Hades manual, but I couldn't push that hard, hold the phone and press the shutter all at the same time, so the piccy doesn't show the right torque.






The strut top bolts are set to 16 lbft, too, and a used nut with the right thread for the main balljoint was found in my box of suspension scrap! Plenty of thread lock used everywhere.

Next up is fitting the caliper but before that, more worryingly, I want to try refitting the speedometer cable to the hub.

Yes, it was a high-stress day. The speedometer cable definitely wouldn't go back into its hole despite grease, graphite dust, using heat to soften the plastic and all the strength I could gather.





So, yes, a Stanley knife was used to whittle away at just enough of the plastic cable coating so that it would, at last, just about slot in the hole fairly tightly, I should say.

The caliper's back on now and torqued-up. From my photos it seems that one of the sliding caliper nuts with a rubber boot went missing before it was posted i.e. I can't blame the postman. I'm obviously getting to be old and rubbish and losing everything. Still, must be very careful about this in future. Anyway, I have plenty of spares to fall back on, which saved the day.




I'll do a check on the nuts and bolts and then pop the wheel back on for a test drive, next time, hopefully.

Yo! It's back together and running. The thin back-plate for the disk was given a bit of straightening and the wheel refitted.



Still need to set the tracking and look for anything that might be causing an annoying knock on slight bumps which has just started. It had to happen. Also, in my stupidity I completely forgot to check if the speedometer is giving a steady reading! Finally, need to reset the straight-ahead position of the steering wheel as its madly badly off.

Also, found the missing caliper nut slider thing.

Well, the plan was that I would run the old rear exhaust silencer for a few more weeks to get every last bit of life out of it but on actually looking at it and seeing its chronic state, I decided that it would just be better to fit the new one. I tried to get an econo-one from ebay, as usual, but couldn't so this one came from Dafhobby and has some epic ovolovov branding. Does that mean it was made in week 43 of 1994? If so, I was half way through my first teaching job and having about 20 nervous breakdowns ;-0 ;-0 Anyway, I really hope it isn't the last one left in the world...







Anyway, after much grief with a hacksaw trying to remove the old rear pipe, I finally decided to use the Dremel and that sped things along epically fast so on a day when I thought everything was going nowhere, suddenly the job is just done! I hope Mr or Mrs MOT tester won't mind the jubilee clip and dodgy exhaust hangers ;-0

Today, the exhaust was tightened up a bit and the sills and front wheel arches given a bit of waxoyl. The plan was then to do an oil change but a look at my notes showed that the last one was done only 4k miles ago, so that can wait for another year! However, the distributor cap was removed and given a clean-up. All the contacts were good and the carbon brush at the top was still present and bouncing on its spring. I think that one should all be back together and working. Nice one.

I forgot to tighten the handbrake a bit so that will be done asa...

Bit of a delay on the 340 work but the renewing of the seals on the Rover P5B rear brake cylinders has progressed to this stage.