What's in the workshop this week, Pelikanblau edition

[MikkiJayne]

A fairly small update tonight - changing the clutch hose is officially the worst D2 job of all time As far as I can tell, they build the body shell, fit the clutch hose, and then fit every other thing around it. The designers clearly thought there would be no need to ever change it - there isn't even a procedure in Elsawin for it.

Here it is going through the bulkhead behind the steering rack:



It connects to the master cylinder inside the car. So take the bottom of the dash off and have a look. Simple right? Not so much - I can't open the doors with it on the lift, and it has no front suspension as the subframe is sitting on axle stands with the engine on it So, I have to move it forward three feet without using it's own wheels. Those of you with a nervous disposition might want to look away now...

Support the front of the body with my drivetrain removing trolley and some wooden blocks



Put the rear wheels on dollies as I can't roll it on the these partly because the propshaft is loose, and also because it would tip the body at a weird angle which is too hard to work with. The dollies lift the rear by about 3" which makes it a bit more level.



Make a bridle out of a tow rope



Attach to an immovable object and winch forward with a ratchet strap



Then begins actually getting to the hose. Obviously driver's side lower dash, tunnel side trim, and the air duct have to come out. Then steering column at which point I can see the union in to the master cylinder, but still can't get the hose out. Eventually I took the suspension off the driver's side and the steering rack out completely along with the hoses at which point I can finally get to the hose from the engine bay! It would be totally impossible to do this job with the engine in the car. Undoing the union pushed my lying-upside-down-with-my-spine-bending-the-wrong-way skills to the limit!



I had to remove the accelerator pedal to give the hard line clearance to remove the hose. That required the making of a special tool to release the pedal from the mounting bracket



Finally got the pipe out.



Old and new



It took about 4 hours from moving the car to getting the pipe out so we called it a night at that point and went to the pub

Vera has decided to fly home on Saturday and leave me the car for an extra week since we've lost two full days at least to the crack and the clutch hose so there is no chance of it being driveable by Sunday. I'll spend next week on it too and have some fettling time to fix a few niggles before Vera flies back to pick it up.

You'd think I would have learned how to estimate job times for D2s by now. How long will it take? Ok add contingency time for complications. Now double it