Wasn't best pleased about that having waited so long to get the suspension fixed and now have the rear end sat on the bumpstops again. Investigation revealed one of the nearly 40 year old rear hoses had burst.
That was super annoying because they're NLA and so custom ones were the only real option. Extra annoying was that if I'd thought on I could have saved myself some cash by getting custom hoses made in the first place and only 2 individualiser blocks. Knowing what I know now, deleting the suspension connecting pipes and individualising the displacers costs about £100 all in, which isn't too bad for custom engineered pieces.
Happily, the suspension has stayed where it was put after this. The car wasn't done with me yet because on trying to take a test-drive video, the clutch hydraulics decided to play up.
https://youtu.be/2WpHFqJOvFk
It was initially cured by bleeding it, but then I found the clutch had worn out and it was almost impossible to find gears. Changing the clutch is a job I've been putting off since I bought the car in February 2012. Fortunately, almost every car I've ever owned has needed a clutch so I'm pretty good at driving cars that are difficult in this regard, a womble to the unit wasn't therefore too bad and there was more fluid-sprung cars to keep the Princess company.
Changing the clutch requires you to drop the coolant, oil, and entire engine and gearbox assembly. It is a long, tedious job. We started the job on the 10th of January. In the process of the clutch change, I decided to also tidy up the engine bay, including degreasing and respraying. That meant removing the coolant rail that runs under the radiator which, typically, had holed and was generally in such poor condition on the hidden side it could not be repaired. The only thing holding the coolant in had literally been the rust of the pipe against the metal bracket it clamps to, once disturbed the seal was broken and all the coolant fell out. My replacement pipe was just as bad once I started cleaning it up.
Anyway, that issue set aside I'd spent quite a while transforming this...
.... into this..
... and then this!
