Time on Snow Covered Driveway: 1.5 hours
Friday was an "interesting" day on the project.....while doing the final clean up on the rear shock absorber plates I decided to go back and check the shock absorber resistance. One shock was fine but the other had no resistance. I was a bit surprised at my finding. I also checked the "hanger" that attaches the plate to the shock absorber pivot arm and found one of the bushings fairly worn. It was very nice winter day yesterday(about + 4 C) and sunny so I decided in my wisdom to go out to the stored 1959 chassis which is leaning up against my fence in my driveway and extract the shock absorbers and then pick out the best 2 out of 4 for the rebuild.... Wedged between the fence and my camper van the chassis was frozen to the ground. The shock that was in the upright position was fairly straight forward to remove although there was a fair amount of crud and rust to contend with...the shock in the "ground" side was a much different story!!! Access was very restricted to begin with and I had to contend with a bunch of snow that had accumulated. After some struggle one of the bolts came undone but no luck with the other so I ended up taking my angle grinder and grinding off the head of the bolt. Even after I did this the bolt would not push through so I had to get a drill and drill out the center of the bolt. All of this was very time consuming. Finally with the help of a center punch and a large hammer I was able to drive the beheaded bolt out of the bracket to free up the shock. Unfortunately the spring was partially buried in the snow and was covered in ice. To make matters worse one of the fender hold down brackets was blocking the way of the extraction. It too was totally frozen in the ground in the absolute best place to block my extraction. So back into the garage to get a socket wrench to undo the nut and bolt. Not an easy extraction either. Finally the bolt came off and with the use of a hammer to persuade the bracket to move over ( a bit) I was finally able to get the shock past the spring and free...by this time my knees were soaked and I was a bit chilled. I thought to myself I am I don't work in a auto wrecking yard in the winter...
Another coat of black paint on the right hand shock absorber hardware and assorted lug nuts etc. The front hubs are now in two coats of primer ready for the final coat of paint...
I am heading off to the mountains this afternoon for a few days of cross country skiing. Hopefully I will get out into the garage for a while this morning...
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