Frustrating Day 6

Day 6 was a frustrating day, the old problem of missing parts reared it's head, namely missing bolts for the chassis cross-member. We spent far too much time looking for them which had an impact on the rest of the day.

The good news was that the bolts that Derek promised for the front Anti-roll bar and the special nyloc nut we burred arrived (on the right of the picture below), so we can fit those bits soon.

 

 Thanks Derek

 

 Also another good thing we got to do was use the engine crane in anger, worked a treated. The all-castoring wheels make maneuvering the engine around easy-peasy. The load leveller was useful too, although the placement of the lifting eyes makes it difficult to keep the engine level. What do I mean by this? In order to hang the engine level along the long axis of engine (down the gearbox) -  'pitch' if you will, it introduces a twist to the assembly, 'roll' to use aeronautical terminology.

 Engine crane doing well.

Anyways we got it onto my trusty Workmate bench (250kg loading capacity if you think it can't take it!), ready to fit the gearbox.

 

 Black and Decker Workmate (250kg SWL) and some surplus kitchen work surface, ready to fit gearbox.

Fitted some plugs to the gearbox as per the manual then manhandled it over to the engine, put the silicone sealant on the O-ring seal and mated the two together. Took a bit of jiggling around to get the splines to engage, but finally we got them to fit and securely bolted the two together.

It was getting late at this point so we called it a day. Not before putting the crane in place to just to make sure that the engine did not break the table and fall (not taking any chances!). Like I said, frustrating as we would have liked to have had the engine in today. Will have to wait.

 

 Next time, car...