I spent the morning doing some final tidying of the garage and getting the exchange donor parts out ready to return to AK. Note that AK now no longer need the rear wishbones as exchange items so it was just the front lower wishbones, stub axles / uprights and driveshafts that needed to be returned.
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| Exchange donor parts ready to go back |
Noel, the AK delivery driver, was right on time; having advised he would aim to arrive between 1.30 and 2.00pm, he pulled up bang on 1.45pm.
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| What a glorious sight!! |
I'd booked the assistance of a couple of friends, Richard and Paul, to help unload. First task was to roll the body / chassis off the back of the trailer and onto the drive way. Next was to remove the variety of parts that come with the kit, plus the extra parts that I had ordered, from the body tub where AK had loaded them for transport. We also discovered some parts loaded in the boot later on (after lifting the body off....).
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| Lots of parcels in the body tub! |
The body was temporarily bolted to the chassis with 4 bolts. Once these were removed, the four of us lifted the body off the chassis and onto the waiting body support frame.
Something was not right...Despite my matching the AK factory frame measurements, the body did not sit right on the frame and the front cross member of the frame was nowhere near the front footwells in the body that were supposed to be sat on it.
After a bit of head scratching we all concluded I would need to buy some additional bearers to sit under the floorpan - a job for later.
Next task was to lift the chassis into the garage and sit it on four axle stands (with a strip of old carpet to protect the freshly powder coated chassis!).
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| Chassis in its new home! |
Then a quick trip to Wickes was in order to get some extra lengths of 63mm by 38mm timber studding and sort out the body support problem.
On return I realised what the problem was. We had put the body on the frame with the rear support under the channel for the rear axle (which is how Stuart Holden had supported his body)
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| Stuart Holden's body support frame - rear support sits in channel for rear axle |
Although my frame was based on Stuart's design, the measurements I had taken at the AK factory were based on the rear support sitting under the boot floor.
Richard and I managed to lift the body up and forward on my frame and hey presto! now the body sat flat and the front footwells were sat on the front cross member of the frame. There was still quite a gap under the rest of the body, and so the extra timber I had bought didn't go to waste and we added an extra crossmember to sit under the rear of the passenger compartment. A bit of fine tuning with some pieces of thick corrugated cardboard was required to get all contact points supported on the frame.
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Body sitting correctly on frame - additional crossmember added to support rear of floorpan  |
With that sorted, final job for the day was to stow all the bits and pieces under the chassis and wheel the body into the garage over the chassis (and it all fitted - just!)
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| Hurrah - it fits!! There is even a bit of working space as well! |
With body safely stored it was time to retire for a well earned beer. Thanks to Richard and Paul for your help
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| Think I could be standing here for some time...... |
