Coping mechanisms

Couldn't quite get to work on the 2000 engine this week so I changed tack and decided to replace the driver's seat in UNJ with one I bought from ebay.

The original driver's seat showing rip/wear to outer side section - there is something broken inside too!

The much better ebay seat.

So, a good plan then and I set off to remove the original seat only to find I could only get one retaining bolt out! Further attempts would probably result in getting absolutely nowhere and making things worse so I decided to call a halt on this project.

Never fear, next week I hope we can do some welding to the bulkhead in the passenger footwell and it would be a good idea to remove the passenger seat to give clearance room as well as to get a chance to dry the floorpan out! Much more progress with this seat; 3 bolts out and only one being a pig! Same decision made, leave it for another day.

My theory is that I am playing a long game and I know too well that if I let myself get impatient I only make things worse. I can even prove this theory as last week I replaced the viscous fan coupling. Now, when this is done it is easy to think there are only 3 bolts holding the mounting to the front of the block as one is lurking underneath.

Of course, this difficult to see bolt is also the one that is the most difficult to get to when bolting the mountiong back on, so much so that last week I left it off and decided I'd just make sure the others were tight by regular checking.

This week though, after the seat debacles I decided to return to the attack and succeeded with very little effort really. There you go you see, leave a difficult job alone for a while and come back to it with fresh eyes and attitude and "the job's a good un".

Check out next week's adventures to see if the theory works on those seat bolts.

The awkward bolt is the inner one at the bottom of the housing - much more visible in this photo than in real life!