Drivetrain time. No good it just being a nice place to sit - it needs to be driveable too so its in for an engine-out service
Due to more bodging by the aforementioned perpetrator, general corrosion and nastiness, it took 2 hours to get the front end off, most of which was taken up with the bumper since both main M12 bolts were seized and one just snapped in half! I can get the bumper off while still attached to the support brackets, but in this case general bodging and gorilla-ing of the bolts made it even more of an ordeal than usual.
I've bought a Gopro for making workshop videos, so here's 2 hours of fighting with it compressed in to 3 and a bit minutes:
https://youtu.be/uUYPe-gVGD4
Only one front panel bolt snapped which is a bonus I guess, although I still have both bumper bolts to deal with at some point. Luckily I bought a load of front panel hardware from Tradition a while back so no qualms about binning rusty hardware now.
This is where I got to by the end of the vid:
This thing is in a
terrible state
This is a 2000, from when Xenon Plus were optional. It still has the original external ballasts, but has been retrofitted with the later integrated-ballast headlights.
Oh dear. What has happened here?
The perpetrator has replaced the original sealed connector with some repair wires and an unsealed connector, so of course moisture has got in and eaten the terminals
Not sure what to say about this next bodge...
Whiskey
Tango
Foxtrot
Both these abominations will be cut off and replaced with unmolested parts from a spare wiring harness.
End of play today - (almost) everything on the top removed, ready for underneath work tomorrow.
(the snub mount bracket is still attached because one of the bolts is rounded off - that needs cutting off, but Big Red is just out of shot so thats another job for tomorrow when she can be moved)
Brace yourselves for some extra-special bodging....
This is what the bumper support
should look like:
This is the passenger side:
One ear has been deiberately cut off to allow it to clear the AC radiator
Just for interest, this is the collection of tools required to get this far:
