I'M BUSHED

All front suspension parts back from the sprayers now and new ball joints have been received. The delay in blogging is not because the spraying was delayed, on the contrary, Francis from Adept Finishers had all the bits ready as promised, finished in satin black, but we had been away in France for most of December and on return left immediately to join family for Christmas.

Not to get bored high up in the wilds of Southern France I built another three wheeler. A model of course, but painted up to look a little like my Marjorie, the car that lead me into the world of Classic Car restoration.

The last two days have been glorious, but cold, allowing me to get back to work on Stella. I started by pressing the new poly bushes in. Photos below show a big one going into one of the suspension arms and then the central steel tube being pushed home. Lower picture shows one of the four steering rack bushes going in.

I gave the steering rack a couple of coats black Hammerite, but before I could reinstall it, the advice given was that the steering rack should be given six or so squirts of grease via a grease nipple that needed to be screwed into a small hole in the top of the rack. I ordered a 1/8 BSP grease nipple, in fact I ordered a pack of 10, only £2.50, but they were far too big. I couldn't find any the right size, so I improvised, I warmed and stretched a short length of plastic tubing over the screw bit of the nipple and inserted a smaller diameter tube into the larger tube. With nipple in the grease gun and the end of small tube squeezed into the hole in steering rack I pumped in the required amount of grease, allowing for what stayed in the plastic tube.

The little red plug went back into the hole and now all is ready to refit the large front cross member and steering rack, I think wriggling the rack back into place and connecting it to the steering UJ will be tricky, so I left that to the next day. In the meantime I need to get the two new ball joints pushed into the steering arms, getting there.