It's been a bit of a dog of a day

[pyoor_excuse]

So, we spent another day working on the car, it took about 3 hours to get the single bolt off, and then the exhaust didn't want to budge anyway. Technically we didn't have to remove it, but it was enough of a nightmare getting the engine out without trying to loop things around the exhaust so I'm pleased we did take it off.

Unfortunately, when we finally got to the clutch things didn't look good.

This is the whole clutch, you can see that the friction pads have all but disappeared entirely, and the metal shoe backs have been doing their job.




Here's the worst offenders, it must have been worn out for thousands of miles. I can't imagine that it's ever been changed.



Unfortunately the drum is so badly worn that I don't think you could just skim it. It's got deep grooves cut into it (I wanted to take a picture but the camera batteries are now completely knackered; and all the other batteries in the house are ex-camera batteries which are also knackered).

We reassembled the engine and with a great deal of difficulty got the engine back in (it's really been one of those days. The work lamp broke, the batteries that came with the Skil tool's torch are the worst batteries I've ever encountered and died incredibly rapidly, the desk lamp I got from upstairs accidentally got shorted out (it's one of those silly ones with exposed metal poles to carry the current)... however, thankfully it stayed working until I'd crushed my fingers with the prop-shaft, ironically after I'd stopped fiddling the engine unexpectedly settled in having finally aligned correctly with the shaft.

...'s just my fingers were in the way.

Anyhow, it's just finishing putting it all back together.

Kathryn spent some time filling the inlet manifold cracks with plastic-metal, it's rated to 150 degrees C... hopefully that'll do. And Kathryn, again, rocks for helping so much; without her this job'd be impossible.

Comments

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

Can you get replacement drums for them? Hope your squished fingers are OK... :)

[pyoor_excuse]

I doubt you can get new, someone might have a good spare kicking around...

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Hunt for a spare drum (ebay.nl ?), or could you get the inside of the drum metal-sprayed to build it up and then and then turned? Someone who rebuilds automatic gearboxes might be ale to help, as this isn't an unheard of problem (although inside out).

[pyoor_excuse]

Apparently you can do that to them; sadly we need the car for Kathryn to learn in so a few weeks without it's a bit of a disaster. Hence opting for putting it back together and paying for the destruction of a set of clutch shoes :-/

I think, come the summer, we'll have to strip it down proper like. :)

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Always goes against the grain to mis-fit parts, but that sounds like the sensible option.

[pyoor_excuse]

Actually, a third completely unexpected option materialised. I'll post about this some time when I'm less likely to fall over thorough exhaustion.