Repairs 22/09/21

After the last trip ended prematurely, on the first ‘lane would you believe? It was (again!) time to make some repairs… primarily the bottom radiator hose, but also the offside rear drum brake piston was leaking…

New piston and shoes (the old ones were covered in brake fluid). Quite a job to get them reassembled, but I think I’ve got the knack now…

I was going to change the nearside out too, but as it’s still working fine, and as –

… on this side the previous owner has fitted little bolts and nyloc nuts to replace the usual twist mounts, I figured I’d buy a rebuild kit –

… and replace both side during the winter months back in the garage, and also because…

Good friend James Priestley was over my way this weekend gone, and dropped some more parts in for the new “lil’bugga” build over the next few winters… He had some disk callipers at a price I simply couldn’t refuse… He bought a batch of ten, needing four for his own projects, so I ended up buying the other SIX! Four for the new buggy project (as it’ll have discs all round) and two for this buggy, I thought if I was replacing the rear cylinders, and have recently had an issue with one of the front callipers, I might as well swap them ALL?! 😉

Homemade Easi-bleed kit comes out again, silicon hose and an empty water bottle! Does the job! Means I can bleed the brakes on my own… 🙂

And a crowbar and plank used to test the brakes lock up properly…

New radiator hoses from Martin Lines at the BigJimny store (and forum).

Ready to fit! Again, I figured I’d better change them both whilst I was at it…

Here’s the spilt in the old bottom hose 😦

With both hoses fitted and new coolant added, time to run it up to temperature to test… Note the ZookBOB accelerator brace?

This folds down and rests on the accelerator pedal, and you then wind the wingnut to extend it until you get the correct rpm…

So I ran it up to temperature and then for a further twenty minutes to give it a good run and a test, no leaks, and maintained the correct temperature 🙂

Meanwhile…

With the engine running at 2,500rpm and both batteries being fed, I thought I might as well unspool the winch rope, and…

… respool it all neatly (it had been used a couple of times at the BigJimny Meet in Parkwood, Tong.

All good after the test run on the drive… so time for a test drive on the run (see what I did there? 😉 )….

As the buggy had come back from the last trip on a flatbed recovery truck (again!), I drove to my favourite Car Wash some 9 miles away, for a good wash –

There, all ready for the next run out, whenever that is, hopefully before the winter sets in, but even then the buggy will be taxed and insured and ready for a run out on either of my two days off (Wednesday and Sunday) if the weather looks reasonable enough!