Evening all.
Making some movement on the old dear this weekend.
Got it up on the ramp to strip the rear and treat the rust spots.
Firstly to drop the rear beam. Shock bolts came out easy, springs popped off easy. All in all, no dramas at all. Figured I was in for an easy ride, even the brake lines came off with little persuasion just a bit of penetrating fluid.
I was wrong. Rear beam bolts cracked off and gave me a few turns which was quite encouraging however that was it. Got a few turns on them and heard a ping and then they just spun. Managed to get two out in one piece (the ones with the least thread sticking out).
Chucked the wheels back on and lowered the car back down so it had a little bit if weight on the wheels. Then got inside, used a pick to snap the retaining clips from the top of the bolts. Let the car lower a touch further and then buzzed the heads off the top of the bolts. Easy! Right? Wrong.
Went to lift the car back up to find I may had snipped the head off but there was still the square element of the coach bolt left meaning it wouldn't come out the circle hole at the bottom. Passenger wide was able to be cut with a grinder on my back (not a fun job) and the driver side I ended up hacksawing out (an equally in fun job).
Many many swear words later and it came off. Wouldn't like to try this with only jack stands like I know folk have!
Next step was to get the fuel tank out. Quite easy to get off, 4 bolts, two fuel lines and a return line. The two bolts on the outer edges snapped pretty much immediately. They have both now been drilled. The one thing I forgot to unplug was the connector on top of the pump, so that's been ripped out, managed to do that and spill a big glug of petrol all over myself, definitely remove it with a helper next time.
All stripped back its in remarkably good condition. Half think I shouldn't haven't bothered!
Ground back the spring mounts which had light surface rust, got various sizes of wire wheel on the bits of box section to scrape off the old under seal and take off the surface rust. Luckily all solid metal underneath! I didn't picture it but I took the shocks off to check the mounting points and other from a 10p sized scab on the passenger side its all clean.
Once ground back I coated the underside in Dinitrol RC900 which is a rust converter and epoxy primer. Should all be dry for tomorrow ready for undersealing.
To shove two questions at the end of this as hopefully someone will know.
1. Where do I get new beam bolts from? Can I just use coach bolts with a tensile strength of 8.8 or above?
2. Would undersealing where the beam mounts too make any difference to the mounting of the beam? As in, will it move because of the couple of MM of under seal present between the body and the mount?
