The Winter rebuild finally begins!

When I came back from Silverstone towards the end of October I just wheeled the Fury into the garage. And dumped all the tools and spares from the motorhome in there. Then in the subsequent weeks lots of other things got dumped in there. So to get to my bench I had to step over multiple obstacles. Then when I got there I couldn’t see the bench for clutter anyway

So over the last few days I’ve spent some time in there on a big tidy-up. It was freezing so I made use of the propane heater I got some time ago to make it vaguely tolerable in there. Sadly it does create some condensation but I decided to live with that.

Today I actually made a start on the car. Having removable bodywork and tunnel panels is at the very least a godsend if not essential. It was only the work of half an hour or so to get the rear tub off, bonnet off, hub nuts loosened and the whole car up on 4 axle stands. I then drained the fuel tank, removed the rear wheels, brake calipers and disks. Once drained the fuel tank could then be removed.

If you’ve read my previous entries you’ll remember I was worried about what appeared to be a transmission related vibration. So my plan is to remove the drive shafts, diff and prop shaft. I’ll then take the drive shafts and prop shaft to BAR and ask Andrew to check them over to make sure none of the UJs or the tripods are sick and to check the prop centre bearing is OK. I’ll also swap the diff – Andy Bates did great work at Snett getting the LSD into the 3.38 diff but he deliberately rebuilt it with a bit of backlash to allow for it heating up in use. Sadly I think there’s a bit more backlash than I’d like so I’ll get my now shiny 3.14 diff back in there. When I took it out one of the bolts pulled its helicoil out with it so I re-tapped the hole, slapped some stud lock in there and fitted a new helicoil.

By this stage I was trying to make up my mind which was the worse smell – the petrol that was inevitably dribbling out of the tank outlet as I disconnected it all or the distinct smell of cat pee. Sadly my neighbours cats love it in my garage and every time I leave the door open they take the opportunity to get in there and mark it as their territory. It was difficult to tell what they’d actually peed on, the foam mat I use for kneeling on, the seat that I’d removed from the cockpit to dry it out or the car itself. I ended up suspecting all three

At the end of play I was ready to remove the drive shafts. This is tricky with the wheels/hubs removed as it’s difficult to stop the shafts rotating but experience tells me the wheel gun with a 6mm hex key on the end of a long extension bar makes short work of it. Sadly I sheared off the 6mm bit when tightening them up so I’ll need to get a replacement tomorrow. But I’m still pleased to have broken the inertia and made a start

I need to order some bits and pieces but have held off until I gave had a look over everything in case I discover I need things I wasn’t aware of. I’ve got a half day tomorrow so hopefully can get back in the garage in the afternoon.