Various Cars - not interesting enough for separate threads

Seeing your brake woes its a shame this isnt correct, its a new cylinder for some obscure FD Victor so I bet the bore is correct but its servo mounted so the lugs are at 3 & 9 oclock

I know what you mean about the mental hurdles!....We can certainly build up the complexity of a job in our minds, or have to build up courage to drill through new paint, ect....

great that you are back on this..looks quite nice.

JP

Still working on the brakes, I am still tracking down a rebuild kit but in the meantime yesterday I was working on the front brakes and the lines (which I actually have patterns for) The splitter block has one hole to attach it and I must have turned it 8 times only to look at it just before I went in the house and realize it was upside-down. Tonight I went to continue and quickly(ish) realized I had the servos in the wrong order. I knew this not because of intrinsic brilliance but because of the manual and the fact that one servo has an anti flow valve from the factory for the rear brakes. In the manual this valve is described as code 186 and 190.

Looked them up to find that it is the same thing one for Vauxhall one for Envoy. I hadn't realized until now that they had Envoy/Vauxhall specific codes for the same part.

will do! (any idea how expensive they might be? Girling SP2485)

In other news I discovered more of the cars back story this week.

Last week I was filing some old papers from the Vauxhall when I came across the 'used car package' for the SL body of the Vauxhall (remembering the PO had to rebody the car). In Ontario this is a document you get when you buy the car that lists previous owners/ mileages/ accidents etc so you (hopefully) don't get ripped off. I googled the last owner, only to find that there were about half a dozen of the family name in the community listed. I called one who called back and I connected ultimately with the daughter of the PO. Turns out he bought it for his son who had Cystic Fibrosis. The son didn't get his drivers license (he died when he was 20) but drove the car around the farm instead. The father (PO) is this man, I don't remember the story but it made headlines worldwide. Quite an unexpected ending.

people.com/human-interest/elderly-couple-die-in-freezing-cold/

What a sad tale

Indeed but they obviously lead long and loved lives , all be it with tragic loss but also laughter. So many are denied the joy they obviously shared and neither had to suffer being alone at the end of their lives.

So the point of all of this was to replace the last two bushing in the arms of the subframe (the hole top left in the pic. It was something I was dreading and should have done while all was apart, but, it turned out way easier than anticipated - I used the assembly grease plus dish soap plus hot water as well as a long bolt and a manly socket. Hurray!

What are these shims of which you speak? Pics and explanation welcome. thanks!

I should add that the steering rack is one thing I did take apart and I have no recollection of shims.

Well that's awkward. Not a whole ton to report. Been working on the GT.

Did I ever tell you about the Jerry Seinfeld's 'Don't break the chain' method. I thought not. In a nutshell he (Seinfeld) writes a joke a day and when he does he puts a big red X on his calendar. Then the only thing to do is not break the chain. mrbuzzfactor.medium.com/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-hack-don-t-break-the-chain-8d1944b8323d This has BTW been parlayed into any number of productivity umm products. I on the other hand use it not for work productivity but car. Like the child I am I have a calendar on the wall in the garage and every day I work on the car I get to put a sticker on the date. They key is to get as many stickers as possible in a month. Stupidly it actually works. I find that I can lose 6 months in the blink of an eye - which is why I am 9 years into a 2 year project. Then I read this www.hemmings.com/stories/2020/05/11/how-i-got-my-garage-projects-moving-30-minutes-at-a-time and decided to combine the 2. So far so good. Actually I go for 45 minutes while SWMBO watches an episode of Doc Martin (which I used to find hilarious but now I think has jumped the shark. But Port Isaac is beyond beautiful)

So, back to the story. This week the wiper motor is tested and installed. I was working on the heater fan (works) and then got diverted to the heater controls and then various cables. I have the unit the heater sliders fits in cleaned and protected, cigarette lighter (remember when they were there for that and not GPS's) and the choke cable sorted. I think I will try to repaint the white shapes on the knobs, but then moved onto clutch cable/ emergency brake cable/ bonnet opening cable.

But, then I recalled some new cables in boxes in one of my boxes, so time to dig it out. Did and they looked completely unfamiliar. Looked closer and oh, that'll be a bonnet cable for a Fiat X-19. And that one? Oh that is from a late 80's Acura. And then one other cable which just seems generic - it looks like a choke cable in that it pulls out and locks but, it has a metal T-handle like a bonnet cable, so, no idea at all what it is for. But, hilarious (and awkward) that I have been taking such good care of parts that have nothing to do with the car.

Onward.