June 5 2010

With the guidance and assistance of Pete, today has been spent building up the offside rear spring from the afore mentioned ‘kit’ of leaves – not particularly easy when you don’t have the correct equipment for the job! Nevertheless, we finally managed to get the straps on and have what we hope will be a sufficiently strong unit. Unfortunately our pockets aren’t deep enough to shell out for a complete new spring to match the nearside.

After a bite to eat and a bucket of tea each, our enthusiasm took hold again. The hanger brackets and swinging arms were attached to the new nearside spring and using the same improvised equipment as when we removed it, the whole unit was manoeuvred into position and carefully jacked up ready for bolting in place. This whole job took less than an hour and at the end of the session the first piece of this particular jigsaw had gone into place

 June 12

Picking up where we left off last weekend, we find ourselves ready for a hard days graft!

The morning was spent preparing the tools and equipment for today’s mission - to re-hang the offside spring and get the axle back in. The same sequence as last week was repeated for the spring, again this went in in double quick time – we must be getting good at this! Our plan to get the axle fitted consisted of wheeling it under the springs on a pallet & truck and then attaching it to a block & tackle to lift it into place. To say this went like clockwork is an understatement! With the ‘U’ bolts tightened up our refurbished axle unit was soon back in place with no oil spilt this time!

To complete the work session the prop shaft was reconnected, diff drained of oil (stinky!) and both brake assemblies refitted – Hurrah! That left us with just enough time to sweep up and bugger off home for a long shower before watching England's attempt at playing football!

June 26th

With Steve working a late shift this Saturday evening, most of our time today was spent moving our Chapman seats ready for them to be collected by Mr Nick Webster, who had set off early doors from Norfolk to attend "Total Transport" at Blackpool. It was rather good to know that these seats, which we rescued from a yard near Chadderton, were going to finally get re-used. Especially nice was the fact that they came from an Abbott's of Blackpool Coach and are going to be refitted into Nick's ex Abbott's Harrington.