Finishing off and getting started again!

Cabinets

I spent hours cutting and putting ribbed matting in the bottom of all the drawers of the cabinets and the tool chest. I had found that anything else that I used moved with the weight of the tools, including the lining stuff supplied with the tool chest by Halfords, when the drawers were opened and closed. This was a real time consumer, but worth it in the end. The ribbed matting came from eBay and cost nearly 25% of the cost of the same product from one of my regular on-line parts suppliers!

Mirrors

I finally got the bench grinder and vice fitted to the new work bench.

The windscreen fixing screws on the stanchions were dome headed. The second screw up from the body at each side are located behind the mirror bracket. These had the head filed flat so that the bracket would sit flat on each stanchion. After filing, the screw still had the slot in the head to allow it to be fixed and tightened. A light rub down with P400 wet or dry paper removed any file marks.

Next the four screws that held the mirrors in place were shortened by 6mm each, to avoid touching the windscreen when tightening the mirror brackets. I had been warned that if the screws were too long I risked cracking the screen, ooooh expensive, so care was needed here.

Mirror fixed in place. Note the hidden screw behind the bracket, with the flattened head.

Steering column

Andy at GD had recommended that one of the shafts was shortened and a groove filed to allow the bolt to fit through the universal joint. As a last resort I could tap the inner column in to the main Vectra column. I chose to follow his advice and did the former.

The lower shaft was connected to the steering rack, using one of the universal joints and two bolts. The middle shaft was connected to this lower shaft using another universal joint, after feeding through the rose joint that I had fitted earlier. At this stage the flats of the UJs were aligned. The pinch bolt groove was slightly enlarged by filing in the appropriate place and the bolt inserted. Finally the Vectra column was fed through from the cockpit, the large bulkhead grommet slid over and it was then located with the U clamp to the chassis. After working out the distance required between the middle shaft pinch bolt and the pinch bolt for the Vectra column, I cut about 10mm off the middle shaft using a hack saw and then tidied it up on the bench grinder. The final universal joint was then fitted and the groove for the last bolt filed, before washers were used between the column and the mounting points so that it cleared the bulkhead hole all around. All the universal joint nuts and bolts were then tightened.

Steering column spaced with washers on the mountings

Steering shafts and universal joints fitted

Finally I jacked up the front of the car and checked that there were no tight spots on the steering when turned from lock to lock. Job done!