What's wrong with this picture Part 2, but much more serious this time.
In my initial "What's wrong with this picture" post I was feeling kinda cocky, and I'll admit I had consumed a couple adult beverages while posting that one.
This post is semi-related to that one, but now things are more serious.
Recall I'm working on a RHD, 1971 Valiant VG from Oz, and I removed the front suspension, k-member, and steering, as the owner had (past tense) a complete rebuild kit in the trunk. Yesterday I got (almost) everything ready for re-installation, and this morning I decided to clean-up the area around the frame-mounted steering box (the subject of my initial post), as this was the area that suffered the most from that God-awful upside-down engine mounted oil filter (one of my first posts on this site).
Well, let's just say it's a damn good thing I've done all of this work, as here's what I discovered when I started cleaning/degreasing around the steering box:
Initial "WTF?" shot:
And then another with the steering box removed and things cleaned-up a bit:
I haven't broken out the grinding wheels/discs yet to see the full extent of the crack(s), but it's bad enough that I can physically move the two frame sections side-to-side with just my bare hands if I push/pull really hard at the bottom. (There's a similar crack on the outer part of the frame, but the pictures I took are too dark and blurry.)
Bazza always said the front end was "loose", and that's the reason he bought the front-end kit from Oz. But to be perfectly honest, the bushings and tie rods that I worked with were bad, but not "that bad". Looks like I just found the proverbial "smoking gun" here.
What really sucks (insert my whine here) is we recently moved here, and I don't have 240V power in the outbuilding (yet) to run my wire feed.
Not sure how I'm going to handle this just yet (rent/buy a 115V welder, hire this out, run 240 power...), but thought I would just pass along this little Oddity from Oz to y'all while I start opening-up more adult beverages and contemplating what to do next.
Heading towards Comfortably Numb,
Jim
In my initial "What's wrong with this picture" post I was feeling kinda cocky, and I'll admit I had consumed a couple adult beverages while posting that one.
This post is semi-related to that one, but now things are more serious.
Recall I'm working on a RHD, 1971 Valiant VG from Oz, and I removed the front suspension, k-member, and steering, as the owner had (past tense) a complete rebuild kit in the trunk. Yesterday I got (almost) everything ready for re-installation, and this morning I decided to clean-up the area around the frame-mounted steering box (the subject of my initial post), as this was the area that suffered the most from that God-awful upside-down engine mounted oil filter (one of my first posts on this site).
Well, let's just say it's a damn good thing I've done all of this work, as here's what I discovered when I started cleaning/degreasing around the steering box:
Initial "WTF?" shot:
And then another with the steering box removed and things cleaned-up a bit:
I haven't broken out the grinding wheels/discs yet to see the full extent of the crack(s), but it's bad enough that I can physically move the two frame sections side-to-side with just my bare hands if I push/pull really hard at the bottom. (There's a similar crack on the outer part of the frame, but the pictures I took are too dark and blurry.)
Bazza always said the front end was "loose", and that's the reason he bought the front-end kit from Oz. But to be perfectly honest, the bushings and tie rods that I worked with were bad, but not "that bad". Looks like I just found the proverbial "smoking gun" here.
What really sucks (insert my whine here) is we recently moved here, and I don't have 240V power in the outbuilding (yet) to run my wire feed.
Not sure how I'm going to handle this just yet (rent/buy a 115V welder, hire this out, run 240 power...), but thought I would just pass along this little Oddity from Oz to y'all while I start opening-up more adult beverages and contemplating what to do next.
Heading towards Comfortably Numb,
Jim
