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Here is the window frame, ready to accept the replacement glass. The glass can be removed and replaced by flexing the frame vertically. This gives enough clearance to enable the glass to come out of its tracks. The assembled frame can then be refitted into the door. It goes in from the outside, with the rubber carefully prised into position on the door frame.
The gear selector knob split into two pieces the other week. I looked at getting another one the same, but original peugeot ones are quite expensive, as they were also used on the popular 205.
So I decided to make one out of some aluminium that I had in the shed. That won’t break!
Today was a bit of a milestone in that I have welded the last repair section on the exterior bodywork. This piece is on the rear, right hand side.
There will be more welding on the inside floor eventually, but for now, I am going to concentrate on getting the exterior ready for painting. So plenty of filler and rubbing down to do!
The indicators are fitted and working, also the headlamps. These are not the ones I will be using finally, but I want to keep them safe and unused until the UMM is ready for the road. The wipers work too. Almost all electrical systems are now operational, although the brake lights will have to wait until I have fitted them on the back.
The new brake pipes and rear flex hose are now fitted, the brakes are bled and so there are brakes on all four wheels at last. The only thing that remains on the brakes is to fit new discs. This will be done just before the MOT, as I don’t want them to go rusty, sitting on the car.
I removed the rear side windows to make painting the top rear panel easier. It also gave the opportunity ot clean the sliding windows. They now run much more freely.
Once the paint is fully hardened, I’ll refit these. The bottom side panels will be the next things to prepare for painting. Then pretty much all the painting will be completed.
I moved it over to the side of the drive today, to sort out the working area a bit. It gave an opportunity for a photograph too.
Right hand side panels are now all painted. The storage compartment door is also fitted. Now i can start on the other side.Today, the painting preparation continued. In order to paint the rear panels, I needed to remove the rear door. I thought I would take the opportunity to change the hinges and hinge pins on the door, as I already had the parts.
That was a tough job! I removed the old hinges using a disc cutter, as I knew that the old roll pins were not goung to be easy to get out. Then I put the hinge in the vice and started to press the new roll pin into it. It was a very tight fit, and I needed to use a length of pipe on the vice handle to get enough force to press it in. Not recommended, even if you have a strong vice, as I do. Eventually the first one went in, but I had bent the vice! I was able to remove the vice from the bench and dismantle it. A bit of grinding on the runners, and it was working again. I pressed in the second roll-pin a bit easier, and that was that. It’s a job that I wouldn’t want to do again without a press.
I had been looking for some suitable seats to replace the UMM ones. I chucked the driver’s side some time ago, as it was beyond any repair. The passenger side isn’t too bad, but it is better if they match, so I was looking for two seats ideally.
I found someone on ebay who had a P38 Range rover seat, and some extra bits. The bidding started at £5, so I put on a bid, thinking that if the seat was cheap enough, it would enable me to try out if theses seats could be adapted to the UMM. As it turned out, mine was the only bid, so £5 was the winning bid! Bargain.
I went to fetch my purchase, and found that there was a second front seat in bits, and a rear seat too. I just took the two front seats.
And here is the seat installed in the UMM. It had a lot of motors and mechanism in the base, which I removed. Then it was just a case of welding the base frame to a square tube that was drilled to suit the UMM seat runners.
Comfy!
The second seat is now installed and the door mirror is fitted on the passenger side. It is all looking pretty good now for the Winter. The next big job is to clean up the front axle and fit the replacement springs. In the meantime, I am buying some Dicovery roof rails to see if I can make them fit to the front section of the roof.
Now it’s time to get on with the front axle. Both sides have been dismantled to this state. The brake discs need replacing, and the driveshafts need new universal joints. The needle roller bearing on this side is no good either. So everyhting will be cleaned up and new parts added as required. The actual wheel bearings and swivel bearings are OK, thankfully.
This is a before and after of the front driveshaft. Once again, the electrolytic rust treatment proves to be effective.
I have also removed the swivel housing do that I can clean it up better. One day, this will all have to go back together, but it will be less rusty.
The front axle is now off the car. I have wire brushed it and painted it with a coat of red oxide primer. Eventually, it will be painted black.
The work will slow down for a few weeks now, as the weather has got worse. There are still a few jobs I can do in the shed, as long as it’s not too cold. Recently, I dismantled and cleaned out the front wheel locking hubs. These were OK after cleaning, and so I will put these to one side until needed. The 6 screws that hold these onto the hubs are an odd size 8/32″ x 32 tpi, with a non-standard taper too. Some of them were damaged on removal, and so I will replace them with 4mm x 0.7 stainless cap head screws. This is a standard size and similar to the original. I can tap out the thread to metric 4mm, and counter bore the housing to suit.
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