What's in the workshop this week? Jim's black Final Edition

[MikkiJayne]

I will be picking Jim up No hotdogs

The last few hours today. The electronics box was missing a few inserts so I did the usual fix on that



Sorted



Engine covers on



Headlights in and ready for the bumper



Not sure if I've shown this before? On most cars you would use copper anti-seize grease with steel bolts in to steel nuts. Not so with aluminium threads in the D2 though, as the copper will accelerate corrosion, not protect against it. Instead, for the D2 I use aluminium anti-seize in certain places. The front panel to the chassis legs for example, the subframe to body bolts, or here for the main bumper bolts. The aluminium grease stops corrosion because it doesn't set up a galvanic reaction. There are some places where steel nutserts are used (the battery junction box for example). These do use copper grease, so its important to know which is which.



The headlight level arm was seized, as usual, and actually the wrong one. This is for the non-20" cars so was rattling around on the arm.



This is the last ever FE levelling arm. We don't want that though cos its rubbish.



Chop the bracket off - we still need that.



Oh looky - ball joints



Set the length and then apply heat shrink to protect the thread



Attached to the bracket



That ought to last a few more years than the plastic tat, and I can make as many of these as we need

Re-using the original bracket isn't ideal. I plan to print nylon versions instead.



The undertray was pretty nasty!



Much better



All back together and ready for the road test





I used quite a lot of degreaser



Out in the yard after the road test. I haven't fitted roof rails - that's my A6 almost perfectly obscured



The final step - setting the headlight aim



72 hours all told. That's rather more than I planned for since there was an awful lot of cleaning to do, but a good result at the end. The engine is lovely and quiet now, and in fact starts up more smoothly than mine!

[IT]

Great work as usual, and an excellent write up.

Are you still squeezing all this in part time round your day job ?.. If so the mind boggles as to when you actually sleep... !!

[MikkiJayne]

Yeah still doing two jobs 7 hours a day pretending to be an IT consultant and then 4-5 hours in the workshop. I slept well last night

[steamship]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

Not sure if I've shown this before? On most cars you would use copper anti-seize grease with steel bolts in to steel nuts. Not so with aluminium threads in the D2 though, as the copper will accelerate corrosion, not protect against it. Instead, for the D2 I use aluminium anti-seize in certain places. The front panel to the chassis legs for example, the subframe to body bolts, or here for the main bumper bolts. The aluminium grease stops corrosion because it doesn't set up a galvanic reaction. There are some places where steel nutserts are used (the battery junction box for example). These do use copper grease, so its important to know which is which.

Another brilliant tip for everyone who tinkers with their own car.

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

Yeah still doing two jobs 7 hours a day pretending to be an IT consultant and then 4-5 hours in the workshop. I slept well last night

Unbelievable! And there was me thinking your were a 'D2 Doctor' 24/7.

[27litres]

Originally Posted by steamship

Unbelievable! And there was me thinking your were a 'D2 Doctor' 24/7.

+1!
Theres devotion to ones trade!

And 72 hours... whew!

IT consultant makes a lot of sense though when it comes to your 3D printing and tech talk MJ!

[MikkiJayne]

Heading home

[gninnam]

Awesome work and the car looks fantastic

[RS6]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

Heading home

Amazing work another happy customer no doubt!!

Just spotted the chrome trim round the fog light surround looks a nice touch! any closer pictures?