How it started
OK the deed is done, Matthew and I had a good look round the Stafford Kit Car show, and I've paid my £50.00 deposit for a Series 3 Robin Hood. Now I've got five and a half weeks to get organised before I get the kit. Panic.
Mention to a friend that I have ordered the kit and I am looking for a donor Sierra. One of those things that only happens in stories - he says
"I've got one on my drive someone is storing there until he can get rid of it, are you interested?"
Go to have a look at the car with him - the owner explains that he has just put another engine in because the existing one was knackered - ideal. Car is rusty and unbelievably scruffy inside, but has 10 months MOT so should be more or less mechanically sound. Engine is oily outside, but rocker filter is clean and exhaust looks OK, quick test drive reveals a nice smooth gearbox and no expensive noises so I've found my donor.
Glad I don't need any of the steering components because I discover on the way home that it has an interesting tendency to wander all over the road at anything over 40 m.p.h.
After a brief debate over whether to put it in the drive or on the front lawn, the drive it is. The slope on the drive is going to make stripping it an interesting exercise! Matthew is off school next week so he can start stripping the interior.
Stripping the donor
Two weekends and a few days work from Matthew and friend have got the car stripped down to body shell, front and rear suspension, and engine. Now for the bits I am not looking forward to, hauling out the engine and working with the car on axle stands on a slope. The Robin Hood prebuild manual suggests dropping the engine and front suspension as a unit and lifting the body off. Might be OK on the flat, but don't fancy it on a slope, so it will be the traditional route. Someone volunteers a hoist for the engine, and I found someone else to lend me some scaffold poles. Making use of the fact that I don't need the body, I have cut the front top cross member off with the angle grinder so I won't have to lift the engine so high to get it out.
First problem is with the scaffolding poles. Having partly assembled them on the garden, I discover how heavy they are - could do with a hoist for them. Needs both of us to lift one side which leaves nobody for the other. Fortunately a neighbour comes to the rescue. Next problem is with the slope - the engine is slipping back and locking on the threads of the engine mounting. Daren't position the hoist to pull at any greater angle, because it would swing too far when it came free. In the end with a lot of heaving pulling and levering it is free. Glad I cut the cross member because it still needs to go up a long way - not sure the scaffolding would have been high enough to get it over the top. The engine is now free, but over the car - Matthew lets the car roll back slowly on the handbrake while I manoeuvre the engine. Finally clear and I can lower it onto the trolley, which for once works out well, the bed could have been ½ an inch longer, but it fits pretty well. Lash the engine mounting to the trolley on each side to make sure it doesn't topple sideways, and wheel it into the garage. A good days work!
The suspension
Put the car up on axle stands and drop the front suspension - much easier than I expected. Now just the nasty part left. I can't see any alternative to having the car on 4 axle stands. Leave this until I can get a full day on it as I once I start I will have to finish. Start by doing everything I can with the back wheels still on - chock them and remove the handbrake, brake pipe union and anything else I can find to take off, then loosen all the nuts and bolts.
Jack up the diff, put the axle stands under and take off the wheels. First problem - I forgot to take out the shock absorber bolts, which are now taking the weight of the suspension. Bottle jack under the suspension arm takes the load off and frees the bolt, but now I can't get the bottle jack out! Fix that with a pile of wooden blocks. Next problem is the flexible brake pipe - now I have let the suspension drop this is under tension and won't come out. Not too big a problem as I don't want the pipe, so I cut it in half. Now for the other side, which goes without incident. Adjust the front axle stands as the car has moved back, before going underneath to undo the diff mounting bolts. Everything clear, it only remains to lower the diff and suspension on the trolley jack. One small problem, the jack goes down but the diff stays where it was. Put the jack but under, adjust the front axle stands again, and crawl back under. Some skilled mechanic has repaired the rot under the car by welding plates on. Unfortunately he has welded one of the plates to the diff mounting bracket as well as the car.
As I am crawling round trying to see what I can do, I catch one of the cut brake hoses, and with exquisite precision flick a drop of brake fluid into my eye. Flush it out with water while Anne reads the Haynes manual which says brake fluid is harmful to eyes, so off to Casualty to get it flushed out professionally. Straight in with no wait, and a nurses washes it out (which hurts more than the brake fluid did). Seems to good to be true getting treated so quickly. It is - have to wait 2 hours for a doctor to confirm that it is OK. Getting a bit desperate now as I still have to get the back suspension off.
Back to the car - I can't get an angle grinder in without chopping bits out of the diff. A search in the things which I have put away because they might come in useful one day reveals an old cutting disc worn down to about 2" diameter (I like to get value for money). Mount this on a flexible drive, and with Matthew operating the drill from outside, I can just get in to cut the weld (having first repositioned the front axle stands of course).
We now have the diff and suspension free, and can wheel them back out from under the body by supporting the hubs. Matthew takes one side, I take the other, and the car takes a dive off the axle stands. Amazingly neither of us is hurt, other than me losing a bit of flesh on the wheel arch, and there appears to be no damage to the diff. All those lectures to Matthew about making sure that you never had any part of you under the car unnecessarily paid off.
The back axle stands toppled, and the triangular base prevented the car from going right down, so the trusty bottle jack goes under and lets me get the car back on the rear stands while we get the diff out.
Drop the back onto a couple of blocks and that's it. Finished.
All I have to do now is get rid of the body shell, and find somewhere to put all the stuff in the garage to make room for the kit. Phone round the scrapyards - nobody can collect a car without wheels on! Weird. Try the council - they can do it, but there is a 6 week waiting list. Looks like I could be reduced to cutting it up, but I am running out of time. Final phone round the scrap dealers, and the last place I phone says they will collect it for £15 - another problem solved.
Start to strip down the front suspension, as all I need are the hubs and brake callipers. Discover why the car was wandering when I drove it, neither of the steering rack mounting bolts were even finger tight! Take the left hand McPherson strut off - remarkably easy. Start to undo the pinch bolt on the other which immediately shears off. Have to either use an extractor, or get another one from the scrapyard, but decide that that is a decision that can wait with only a week left till collection.
The Garage
One of the issues that is worrying me is that the garage is pretty small. I am just hoping that I can get the engine, rear subframe and kit in - space to work would be a real bonus. Clearing out all the junk is nearly as much work as stripping the Sierra, but finally get it done, and chalk out the outline of the car on the garage floor. Great relief I can get everything in and still get all the way round. Put racks up for tools, and spot somewhere I can put a really big shelf up above head height to store the nosecone and wings. Its looking quite good now - I'm starting to feel a bit more confident.
Robin Hood work by giving you a collection date and time for your car, the idea being that you meet other builders etc. My time slot is 10-12, so with a 2 hour drive, a fairly early start is in order. First stop is at the friends who is lending me the trailer - a ten foot one which will be only just too small.. He has foolishly volunteered to come with me and Matthew to help. Typically after several weeks of sunshine, it is pouring with rain, and crossing the Pennines is quite interesting with visibility down to about 20 yards.
Directions to the factory are good, and we arrive about 11 a.m. to a scene of controlled chaos. First of all redirected to another gate as this part is full, then directed to a parking spot amongst as diverse a set of collection vehicles as you are likely to see. We are next to a school bus, opposite a horse box. It transpires that there are 83 kits being collected today - fat chance of getting to know anyone else. The kit parts are already collected on a trolley,
and we are given a spot to check off all the parts against a checklist. Happily this is undercover, and there is room to disconnect the trailer and wheel it in as well, so we don't get too wet. With the checklist is a photo of hard to recognise parts, which makes life a lot easier. Decide to pack as much as possible into the car, and just use the trailer for the body shell and GRP, on the basis that the things will get very wet on the way home, and getting things rusty before I start is not part of the plan. We take a fairly robust approach to checking items off - when we are left with parts we can't identify from the photo, we just check the number of things left unticked matches the number of parts we have left. Notice the people next to us are being more thorough, checking off each individual nut, bolt, and pop rivet against the fasteners list - hope they aren't in a hurry to get home. Get a hand with the body onto the trailers from some Dutch guys who are taking a left hand drive version home. Given that they are using a 6 foot trailer, I can't help being impressed with their confidence - there is nearly more of the body off the trailer than on it, and it is a long drive to the nearest part of Holland!
Arriving home, the next interesting part is getting the body off the trailer and into the garage - now I will fund out whether my chalk marks were accurate. The trailer has a ramp rear, so we put the back of the body on a small trolley (which I actually made for moving the rear subframe around), and wheelbarrow it into the garage - shame the front end is the heavy bit! A major surprise - my chalked rectangle is slightly bigger than the body - I will have more room than I thought. Now I just have to find a home for the rest of the bits which are totally filling my car. Again surprisingly all the shelfs, racks etc. I have put up seem to be adequate and it all goes somewhere - I can STILL walk around the body. Time to take stock - first reactions area bit mixed. I had assumed that the video was in addition to a build manual, not instead of one - I hadn't planned on a VCR and TV in the garage. Also, having let my helpers go, I started the video and discovered the recommendation to start with the body upside down - ho hum, have to get them together again.
Next month's installment - aiming for Mid October
