I had a great welder in to discuss solution no. 1 but did not like his attitude. There is another guy in Germany that is absolutely unbeatable when restoring /8, and I will talk to him eventually. This will be VERY costly, anyway. Solution no. 2 was out easily, I will not destroy this car. After some thinking, solution no. 3 was chosen as a temporary remedy for the next few years or so. I will try and find out whether I can live with it or not. Its main advantage is that the green Crayford /8 estate will be on the road again, soon!
So, work commenced again today. After being laid up for almost a year, the car started easily and I drove it onto my workshop lift and got to work. First thing was to remove the radiator - again, and I finally found the reason why the fan touched its housing all the time. The radiator was missing a rubber running down its side that secures its position relative to the body. This time, I removed the radiator together with the oil cooler, because otherwise its brackets would finally be destroyed during dismantly. This meant unscrewing the oil feed lines that were last touched almost 40 years ago, but everything went very fine. The radiator was out and cleaned, as was the fan shroud.
This was only foreplay, the main reason to attack the car was the huge oil leak from the front of the engine, and I suspected the front crankshaft oil seal was the reason for this. With the radiator out of the car, getting to the seal is not too difficult. You simply dismantle the car, beginning at the front. Both alternator and power steering pump had to come off to remove the respective belts, and both protested. A bolt securing the alternator was rusted solid in the alternator body (someone tried to remove it a long time ago and failed, but managed to damage the tensioning mechanism), and the power steering pump simply refused to surrender. Eventually, I won.
With the belts taken off, you remove the pulley on the crankshaft and then attack the balancer that is mounted to the crankshaft with a very sturdy bolt. Out came the impact wrench and on went the 1000 litre 8 bar air compressor in the workshop. The next half an hour was rather boring and very noisy, but finally the bolt gave up. Thirty minutes of continous attack! Next, I removed the balancer using a specially made extractor and collapsed.
The workshop looked a bit clattered by then, it was like in the good old times, a /8 on the workshop lift, tools all around and the scent of oil in the air. I simply love it. This is so rewarding!
