A bit one sided

So today 6 hours of work on the 2000. I really must be a slow worker!

Here's my first attempt today to get the first bush in the trailing arm using threaded rod, washers and an old socket. Not succesful again as the bush was distorting but not going in.

So I decided to get up off the floor, bring my workmate bench out onto the drive and get the trailing arm up on that. Then I got the bush back out, cleaned inside of the arm thoroughly and then smeared vaseline all over the bush and inside the hole it has to go in. Nothing like a bit of lubrication! Although no doubt someone will tell me I should have used something else.

This time, using the threaded rod, lubrication and making sure everything was lined up properly I got the result I wanted, the bush pushed home fully in the appropriate hole.

This method worked for the second bush too :-)

Now with the whole assembly on the bench I carried on with other jobs which would be easier now, like greasing the inner universal joint. This was the side with the leaking wheel cylinder so I stripped all the brakes off too, the wheel cylinder and the brake shoes along with all the fittings.

Then the new braided brake hose was fitted to replace the old flexi brake pipe as can be seen below but I will now need two new pipes which broke during dis-assembly :-(

Now I could refit the trailing arm but I put copper grease on the new bolts and nyloc nuts to help keep things from seizing up and to make it easier to take apart again at some distant time in the future (another 46 years?). Again someone will probably tell me I have used the wrong grease; are you reading this Mike C?

The next session was all about lifting the trailing arm up to the shackles and it took some doing, none of which I could take a break from to take photos.

Basically I attached the old shock absorber again to hold the rear of the trailing arm and then used two jacks at the front to get the two bushes lined up with the shackles. Then good old pushing and shoving got the bushes nearly in place.

Techniques learned over the years were used next. These were getting a small screwdriver in through the shackles and the bushes to start to pull them in to place, then using a smaller diameter bolt than the correct one to get them closer again. Finally I used the old bolts to fully locate it all at which point anyone nearby would have heard me almost shouting "You beauty, GET IN".

Once the old bolts were in it was then relatively simple to get the new bolts in and tighten them up with the new nyloc nuts.

So, on now to fitting the new shock absorber which in comparison is a piece of cake and with that in place at maximum drop the new uprated 575lbs spring went in sitting on it's poly +5mm insulator. All of this means one side is well on the way to being complete.