A tale of ratchets, oil and starter motors.
Matt owns a Renault Clio and it recently failed an MOT test on a number of points. On getting a quote for the work required he figured it would be cheaper and easier to do a lot of the repairs himself. Knowing I had had some experience working on cars, well Land Rovers, he gave me a call to see if I would give him a hand doing some of the more complicated work such as brakes etc. I agreed.
It has been a few years since I had last worked on a Land Rover, I had sold mine in February 2005, Steve’s has been off the road up in Bulmer for a couple of years now and Jon’s hasn’t had that much work done to it since either. I had helped Jon do a bit of breaking on his spare LWB job, but that’s not exactly mechanic’s work. I was realy looking forward to getting back into the swing of things, the excitement of taking something that doesn’t work and making it run again. I couldn’t wait.
Monday saw me take my first look at what we had to do. The list of work seemed fairly small on fist appraisal, but on closer inspection we realised it would be quite a task.
Work required:
Remove failed starter motor.
Fit new starter motor and test.
Remove defective brake discs and pads.
Fit replacement discs and pads.
Remove defective brake drums and shoes.
Fit replacemetn drums and shoes.
Untwist brake hoses.
Locate and fix electrical problem in front indicater.
Visual inspection of vehicle for MOT.
Armed with a fairly decent tool kit, the trusty Hayne’s manual and a glorious afternoon we set about the task. Now, as any amateur mechanic will know nothing ever goes to plan so by 10.30pm we had removed the atrter motor and semi-replaced it with the new one. We had removed one of the front wheels and removed the brake pads and that was about it. We had had to run out in the middle of the job to get a new socket for the front brake caliper retaining bolts and a tub of high temperature copper grease for the rear drums. Matt and I had also ended up covered in oil from head to toe and both wearing filthy clothes.
I have never had so much fun!