21 May 2012

To get the frame down, in order to put the nuts on the rear shocks, it was necessary to put quite a bit of weight on the frame. One of those rocks is well over 60kg. Exactly how I had carried it last year (to where the ramp was) I have absolutely no idea. I literally could not lift the damn thing, and had to roll it.

Picture showing the pile of rocks and successfully getting the bolts on the shocks. Hooray!

Now that the shocks are down, it was possible to weld up some supports for the top of the springs, ready to cut out the old supports.

Reviewing this picture I just realised that there are diagonal braces (bottom left to top right) missing. Those will have to go on before cutting out the older metal.

Ok, brace on one side added. Had to be very careful though: the first place chosen for the brace turned out to be where the wheel would be. not good. Second choice turns out to also be suitable (later) for triangle-stabilising the spring mount. Please ignore the rocks.

Just underneath where all the rocks are, a thin vertical brace can be seen. The short horizontal cross-piece it's attached to was 2cm higher than its counterpart. Clearly this was unacceptable even by my "who needs a tape measure" bodge-it standards. However, getting the metal to "sit-tah!" even with the sledgehammer-axe simply wasn't cutting it. So, instead, approximately 120kg of rocks had to do the job where brute force and ignorance failed spectacularly. I am gaining an enormous respect for rocks.