Hi gang,
Disaster struck while grinding rust off the spare wheel well:
Yup... at the bottom of the red oxide is a lovely little hole. Neighbour tried to weld it up for me today but his welder decided not to work so he glued in a bit of metal... not quite decided on what to do with that yet but if its stuck i'll just red oxide it and get it fixed properly another time.
Moving on..
Fuel tank strap broke ages ago... but i had one from a breaker so used that. At the time i could feel it bubbling up and when i took it back off a couple of days ago it was very bad. Peeled the rubber back off and despite all the flaky rust falling out, it was still solid and good enough to grind and repaint... so here it is with red oxide:
Finished rear track rod and that other bar that holds the hub from moving too much:
Shock and spring:
Petrol tank came off today (don't laugh at the granny bag - my nan is gone now):
and yes.. that includes the filling neck!:
Turns out to be held in by just two very stubborn bolts (on two very flimsy brackets):
Filler neck was actually easy to remove after the bolts - it's just held to the filler flap by a rubber seal:
Incidentally those are the two nuts for the flap itself if anyone ever needs to replace one.
With the tank now cleanly out (but fuel pipes still connected) this is the rust situation:
Better than i had hoped for!
Tank strap bracket:
This is the drivers side rear wheel arch - the worse of the two but better than the previous safrane which i broke up. It's actually intact.. though rusty! I've already done the passenger side (sorry forgot photos) so I'll keep you updated on this one instead:
And thats yer lot! Now the tank is off i've got the rust removal process under way. Once that is done it's red oxide, hammerite, underseal and finally refitting of everything. Then it's brakes... the new pipes aren't a problem but i'm not looking forward to undoing those bleed valves - i snapped it on the previous safranes caliper
Oh and i still have the sills to grind down too .. and the jacking points
But on a positive note I checked the drivers footwell yesterday... still dry and so after short delay (probably a year) the front seats are also now bolted back in