Working on the car

10/1/2008 - 10/3/2008

Replacing the steering box with a spare I had and the rest with the new parts that came with the car.  On the drive home the steering was loose and it was in the steering box.

The drums are like new, never been turned down.  Everything is in really good shape.  I repacked the bearings.  On the way home the front right leaked grease on the trim rings.  Turned out it wasn't tightened enough so heated up enough to liquefy the grease.  The front left wheel was very hard to turn.  Even with the steering disconnected and no wheel on the assembly, it was very hard to turn.  So the next thing to do was to tear the rest apart.

10/4/2008  I went to pull the brake assembly off the rest and a large bolt was frozen on.  After two hours of using the impact wrench on it, I ended up cutting into three pieces with the grinder.  This allowed me to take it apart as seen above.  Fortunately I had a complete extra assembly.  The reason it was tight was because there were several shims used to take up slack.  The person who put it together last had one too many shims which bound it up.  Removing about 0.03" in shims made it turn smoothly.  The car steers great now.  I replaced the tachometer with the extra that came with the car.  The original tach and speedo are going to North Hollywood, CA to be rebuilt.  We drove to Smicksburg today to a Fall Festival and ended up being part of a car show.

10/14/2008  Well the steering was still pulling to the right and the right front brake would get hot.  I cleaned it but it looked fine.  I took the left front apart and one cylinder was leaking brake fluid and got on the shoes.  So I decided to replace the brake cylinders.  New ones came with the car but they were a little different than the stock ones on the car.  I called the 190sl parts place an they had the adapter pins.  They shipped them today and said they should be here tomorrow.  So I did as much as I could without the parts.

10/23/2008  I got the parts last week to finish the brakes.  They work great now.  I got the rebuilt speedometer and tachometer from North Hollywood Speedometer today.  They did a fantastic job.  I already put the spare tach in the car and put the rebuilt speedometer in tonight.  Finally did some work on the MGA last night.  Have to concentrate on that now.