The propshaft, well marked before disassembly of course and cleaned a bit afterwards, went into the car almost by itself. No problems here whatsoever. New self-locking nuts, of course. The flexible joint discs at the front and at the rear were checked and proved to be OK. Very rewarding.
Next on the list was the rear exhaust: pick up new part from workshop floor, hold it into direction of car, fit it. Easy.
The fuel tank got a new seal for its filter element and was also easily refitted. New fuel hoses and clips at the same time, of course. And the missing plastic locking cap for the boot floor (where the wires to the fuel sender unit pass the floor) was added, not too expensive a part at about 1,50 Euro.
Our prayers were then obeyed and the bleeding valves of all the brake calipers opened without ripping off, although they were quite rusty. So we bled the brakes, cleaning the brake fluid reservoir on the way. One of the three caps of the reservoir proved a bit leaky and a little spray of brake fluid eat itself into the paintwork of the engine bay. Most was rinsed off in time. But I forgot to rinse the left front wing. No idea how the brake fluid got there in the first place. Nice row of dots though.
I continued with little cosmetic improvements, like mounting new bonnet buffers.
Meanwhile it was time for dinner, and afterwards Felix started to clean the interior of the car out of pure kindness. I tackled another task, bigger this time. The leaky radiator.
This started well, with the old radiator easily removed (it includes an oil cooler for the automatic transmission and is mounted together with the oil cooler for the engine oil, so some wrenching was on order). The new radiator fitted in with more difficulties, as some details and the mountings for the fan shroud were quite different. After long hours it proved impossible to fit the fan shroud without the fan touching it, making loud noises. The resolution was to move the radiator forwards as far as possible, using a lot of force (it should not move anyway, so another problem) and locate it there with cable ties. 1 am by now. A quick fix but not a satisfying one.
Work was not finished and I installed a new-old Blaupunkt radio (with FM) so that we can listen to some radio/iPod during our trip tomorrow. Well, today. I finally took the car to my house, arriving there at about 2.30 am. A long day, a short night.
