The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Stu wrote: Image

this baby is a redback spider, named for obvious reasons. they are endemic around here. Under every scrap of wood, piece of iron, under every table top, tool box lid, vice, brake drum, door card and seat, they lurk.


Image
the tell tale signs are the white nests the spiders leave. The female is large while the male is miniscule. The spider is venemous, but you'd be unlucky to die from a bite, hospitalisation is usually needed and the anti-venene is adminstered. Make you pretty sick, but they aren't killers these days, particularly if you have a large body mass. I'm safe . The pics are for eightiesflamer

Thanks for reminding me on a wet and miserable morning why I love the English climate

Top work by the way.

It's looking fabulous Stu, even more commendable while having to deal with all kinds of Austrailia's legendary venomous critters around you..

Been there, done that got the crap covered t shirt.

Yes, a labour of love if ever there was one mate, I scraped the underside of my previous car for near on a week to get it back to the metal, agony at times trying to keep your head up (balanced on various items of differing height).

In the early stages before I got down to the serious job of wearing a face mask I had black bogeys and a little Hitler style 'tash from the streaming cold I had at the time.

Ahhh happy days!

That is all beginning to come togther very nicely Stu. Fantastic job underneath. It horrid work, but curiously rewarding at the end of it all.

This will be one nice car.

Just to echo what Martin said really. Bloody scary spider

Stan Part wrote:agony at times trying to keep your head up (balanced on various items of differing height).

In the early stages before I got down to the serious job of wearing a face mask I had black bogeys and a little Hitler style 'tash from the streaming cold I had at the time.

Ahhh happy days!

similar story alan, neck hurting, so got a block of wood, then realised I had a 10" cube of foam that worked wonders.

the boogers, ahhhhh.....childish I know, but it is a sure way of securing a seat on the sofa. chasing off my 3 kids by waving around the most extraordinary black bits of snot.

sorry 'bout that

eightiesflamer asked me about spiders, so I spent, oh, 30 seconds finding one. This one was on the front sliding door of the shed. They usually hang out on the cross rail I use to slide the door open. There would be, at a guess, 3 dozen plus in the shed and I don't actually bother killing them. They are placid things and you'd have to put a hand right on top of one to get a bite.

The other exciting find was a dead tiger snake 'bout three weeks ago, where I stand working at the bench. Only a baby, about a foot long. Not sure how it got there, might have been killed by the dog or one of our cats. Tiger snakes are quite aggressive, we've had several of them around the house, and a brown snake (also poisonous) inside the house, slithered 3' past Thomas when he was a toddler. We do kill the snakes, but only when they are close to the house. The kids catch lizards and we have several "pet" blue tongues in the yard. Playing with one last week and the bugger latched onto my finger (I was trying to warm it up, it was cold and dozy), left a mark

thanks for the kind words everyone, I don't know where I'd be without this forum.

stu

Here in the Northern Hemisphere everyone does the underside first .
Seriously though.....good effort. Well done.

By the way, those spiders don't look too scary, unlike the Huntsman .

Stu,
What a fantastic thread this is. I have spent about an hour reading through it this evening. You are doing a great job of rebuilding the Spring and George is a real master. There used to be a local guy here in Scotland, also called George, who did similar work. Sadly he is no longer with us because he didn't use the proper respiratory gear when spraying. I loved watching him welding and shrinking panels and I am so grateful for the work he did on my TR.
If ever your your George fancies a holiday in Scotland .... !
Your car is looking great and I have enjoyed looking at the pictures and reading your updates. I love the additional pictures of the farm and spiders, etc! You should put this all together in a book.
Can't wait to see the finished car.
Nick

Good work Stu, keep the pics coming.

Mary was going to offer to come & help you with the trimming, but then she saw the spiders!!!

I've scrapped cars because of spider webs inside them

had to shoot up to Adelaide for a few days, but returned to find the SPRINTPARTS rear axle polybush kit had arrived so set about fitting them.

I'd heard a few stories about them being hard to press in, so wasn't expecting an easy afternoon. Faffed around trying to press the old rubber ones out before discovering a trailer jockey wheel clamp is the perfect size for allowing the bush to be pressed out.







getting the new ones in was a tad frustrating until I thought about using a jubilee clip to compress the poly bushes. That didn't work, but led to the idea of using the clip around the metal lip, to stop the bush moving sideways and splaying out, instead of pressing into the hole.


worked a treat. A bit of a fiddle getting the right method, but tight onto the rim around the hole, press the bush lip into the clip, then wind up the vice and they slide straight in.






picking up the headlining tomorrow. The seats might be ready as well.

Got the back axle cleaned, opened up the diff and had a look, drained the old diff oil and put new in. Read up on how to seperate the half shafts and thought it not worth the headache, since there are no signs of oil coming out of the half shaft seals. I'm going to leave the drums alone as well, until the axle is back on the car, when I will refurbish the wheel cylinders. Ordered four countersunk socket head machine screws for the drums, there was only one screw holding each drum on. I figured a socket head is infinitely better than mucking around with the burred slot head screws.

this spiders thing....we have a thread in another forum I belong to, about spider sightings and so on. Funny to read through it. The thread is called "what the hell is this and should I kill it ?". Goes on for a bit but some excellent commentary from a friendly amateur spiderologist. Some fantastic spider shots.

http://www.wargamerau.com/forum/index.p ... opic=43440



stu

Sticking on the subject of spiders I stopped at my local Esso this morning (not for petrol. I needed a drink and it is one of those Essos that has a Tesco Express) and when I got back in the car there was a small spider. I managed to get rid of it without having to kill it.

Getting back on topic, when I replaced the rear suspension bushes on Snowdrop I had the luxury of a workshop. (the workplace of one of my CT friends - an industrial unit somewhere in deepest Dewsbury) The car was raised with a 4 tonne forklift (don't worry, we didn't just put the forks under the car) the rear axle was supported and we removed each of the suspension parts one at a time, (the training arms and tie bars) burnt out the old rubber bushes with a blowtrorch, fitted the new bushes (those orange Polybushes) with the help of some washing up liquid (the only thing we had to hand) and replaced the rebushed part before moving on to the next one. I noticed the difference straight away and there was no more cringing whenever I hit a speed bump or pothole and there's plenty of those on West Yorkshire's roads!

Your spiders are so much better than ours

I just get loads of these in my car

The way you fitted the bushes is fine but more difficult than it needs to be.
On Superflex bushes, the stainless steel centres are removeable. If you remove them first it is easy to fit the bushes using the threaded bar and washers technique. The bush will contort itself (alarmingly) as it is pushed but pops into position upon arrival. The steel centre can then be inserted.
Going back to your method, plastic waste pipe (cheap and easy to cut to size) can be used instead of the jubilee clip.