Well, I seem to have spent most of my spare time since Saturday with a spanner in my hand!
First of all, I discovered that the driver’s seat was broken – two of the fittings holding the seat to the slide base had come loose. I ended up swapping the seats and repairing the loosened interference fit with quiksteel. It seems OK so far. This involved an awful lot of awkward nuts and bolts. Having done it once, I now know the “easy” way: remove the 4 screws holding the seat to the slide rails, and then remove the rails from the car. I say “easy” in quotes, because it took 40 minutes to get all 4 screws back in place when I can neither see, nor reach what I’m doing.
I also got around to tackling the poor performance I’ve been seeing. According to the timing marks on the engine, it was running perfectly. Yeah, right: the marks were 20 degrees out. I haven’t done a proper road test yet, but a quick spin up the road suggested it will be much better.
I’ve got some new wing mirrors on order after smashing the passenger side one clean off it’s arm at at TV4x4 event.
I’m in the process of removing the propshaft to get at the handbrake internals to see what’s going on in there and why I’ve got no handbrake to speak of. While I’m under there I’ll pull the speedo cable so I can order a new one.
And that just leaves the windscreen washers and flasher relay so I stand a chance at an MOT this year, and the “optional” job of getting the winch fitted at long last.
I’m also wondering if I should replace the power steering box. Paddocks have them listed at £199+VAT including a £100 exchange surcharge, so that’s effectivly only £120 or so to replace, by the time I add shipping charges. At a fiver a go for a bottle of ATF to keep topping it up, it seems to make sense to replace it.
My confidence at doing this stuff is definitely improving!