Since work
on Old Biddy has come to a halt, I have decided to work on projects left over from
the donor car that I have been putting off. My ultimate goal is to have my cellar
all cleaned and organized. The project I am working on is refurbishing all of
the 1100 rear suspension parts that I have so I can sell the extras and keep
the rare ones. Since I never posted about the 1100 rear suspension, this is relevant.
The
biggest parts are the rear trailing arms (or as the parts book says “radius arm
assembly”). Both of them look like they were pulled up from the bottom of the
ocean.
My main
objective is to strip all the ruined bits off, sand blast the good cores, then
repaint, and reassemble them with the good savaged “bits”. Some parts
came off easily after they were squirted with Aerokroil and soaked for a few
hours.
And some
parts were pretty stubborn, but with patience and perseverance, they too eventually came off.
The smaller
rusty parts were put in a container of Evaporust and left to soak overnight.
When I
went back downstairs the next morning, the liquid had turned black. At that stage,
the parts were taken out and given quick wire brush scrubbing, and a rinse
off with dish detergent and hot water.
They came
out pretty nice!!
And after I
polished them and painted the hand brake cable/hose anchor thingy, they look
great. Even the hand brake cable quadrant sector pivot part, which I thought was going
to be trashed, looks great!!
Now the stripped
radius trailing arm and brake backing plate are ready for the sandblaster. The
radius arm still has the pivot shaft in it (on the side towards the bottom of the picture) since the bushings are frozen on.
That will have to be taken out somehow. I do not think that the shaft stub (on the other end of the arm) will be touched as it is in excellent condition.
This
hydrolastic displacer unit strut, which is equivalent to the Mini’s trumpet,
still has the hydrolastic unit skirted or tapered cone/cup piston part attached. That
part has so many names!! I will be getting that detached this week.
My goal is
to have everything that is going to get sandblasted set aside until I can get
to John’s blaster when it warms up. Reassembly of the “bits” and pieces should
go quickly as I am only cleaning everything up and not rebuilding them.
Thanks for visiting.
Toddy 