The Engine is in - phew!

Little actual progress yesterday, Tim made the four hour round trip to Westfield in Kingswinford to pick up a bag of missing bits including the vital prop shaft bolts - thanks to David in stores for his help and patience.

Then Tim and eldest daughter had to brave the sub-zero temperatures for a quick trip to Highbury to watch a satisfying 4-0 victory over 'appy 'arry's Pompey mob.

Today was the last day we had the engine lift so we had to crack on....

First the propshaft was fitted to the diff, actually not too difficult as jobs go, although one of the bolts we found impossible to get a tourque wrench on and had to just do it as tight as a ratchet spanner would allow (on the basis that that was bound to be less than 35lbft).

Then we had to lower the chassis onto axle stands, we did this as a three part move, firstly we lifted the back of the car an inch using the engine lift....



Then we took the chassis stand out and lowered the rear of the car by about 50cm, we then manually lifted the front of the car onto low setting axle stands (wanted the front of the car to be lower to allow easier engine fit)


Then we lowered the rear of the car via the lift onto two other axle stands that were on highest setting.




Again this operation seemed to go fairly smoothly we borrowed wife and eldest daughter [Jenny] to help with lifting front of car down and that was actually quite easy. [Third daughter Anna was the photographer for all the pictures you see here (very good indeed considering she is only 9 years old)]

Finally the real pig of a job, was to fit the engine....

Here you can see master lift operator Chrissy with her charge, we found that a 5.99 two tonne tow rope from Halfords was a useful sling, as it comes equipped with metal hooks and spring clips at the ends. (it's the yellow rope in the picture, the blue rope is just 'belt and braces')....



It was an extraordinarily tight fit, many thanks to advice from other Westfield builders, particularly Fraser White and KerryS for their prompt responses to our calls for help on the WSCC website, in particular vital clues such as to use a trolley jack to push up the gearbox were invaluable, we owe you guys a pint or three....




Just as we were starting to steam, Jenny's boyfriend (Tom) turned up out of the blue and was able to provide us that extra pair of hands that enabled us to locate the gearbox drive studs into the propshaft, by rotating and lifting the proposhaft while Jenny and Wife lifted up the gearbox, supported by a trolleyjack and with Chrissy operating the lift.