All about the car….
…and nothing BUT the car.
Yes, for all you Aston Martin restoration purists – no politics and no holidays, just work on ROJ.
Having four solid days off work was a real benefit. I took my time, and everything went remarkably smoothly.
Fitting the diff and axle was particularly complicated. The space (or as the engineers call it ‘the packaging’) is very tight, plus the diff had to be jacked up in stages as each drive shaft also had to be raised and supported on axle stands to remain level with the diff.
Each time I tried to jack the diff last time resulted in the whole car lifting up – so I loaded the back of the car with every piece of metal in the workshop – that worked.
I suspended the front of the diff on a 7 inch bolt, placed two axle stands under the body of the diff as a fulcrum. I removed both hanging bar brackets and jacked up the back of the diff so that it went up at an angle – avoiding snagging the bolt on the DeDion tube.
Then with Malcolm’s help – I pulled the diff backwards until the hanging bar ends were at an angle that when lowered would locate on the brackets – fitted the brackets and, bang on!.
On the left bracket the metalastic mount is supposed to be reversed – but everyone I have spoken to about this says it makes no difference – so as it was easier to fit the ‘normal’ way up that’s how I did it.
Fitting the suspension dampers and trailing arms was easier than I expected, as was refitting and adjusting the handbrake cables.
Ever the nervous type, I take every safety precaution – including tying up the diff with an old seatbelt.
So now ROJ has a fully functional rear axle.
When we stripped the car down it was obvious the poor thing had been treated to some pretty shoddy treatment. Cheap and badly done repairs original parts swapped etc etc.
The exhaust system was completely shot, and remarkable held on by four completely different brackets. I’ve pulled two off the spare car – but broke one in the process – the bracket frames cleaned up quite well.
The new exhaust system I’ve bought takes different brackets on the back silencers – so I’ve had to wld up the old bracket fittings on the chassis and have drilled the holes ready for the newer style brackets – when I can track one dowm to replace the one I broke!
After sifting through boxes for the exhaust mounts I removed the stearing rack and collumn from the spare car as I needed the centre section for ROJ – before fitting it though I really need to clean it up – so next time I’ll use the parts washer in the engineering shed.
The Snow
Remember the snow a few weeks ago? I couldn’t get to work on the Monday. The prep was the only school open so poor Stephanie had to go into work – leaving me to work from home. Well halfway through the afternoon I got bored, went to the garage and got Angus’s old plastic sled out and played around in the back garden for a while – this is how Stephanie found me when she came home.
