Eddie Honda's wheels of steel (and occasionally alloy)

[Eddie Honda]

Improves my chances of running over something in the road by 50%

#watchoutyoucatwankers

[John F]

Cat wankers, you have been told!

[Hooli]

The RSPCA will be after cat wankers too

[Eddie Honda]

Just for Hooli, here's my Breville:

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1/4" AF to 1" AF in sixteenths (plus 11/32", minus 15/16")

They don't do the cased AF set 748264 any more, but they do those AF sockets on a rail as E031803B. It a shame really as I can't be arse pointlessly lugging around metric tools in a mixed Imperial/metric set.

[Eddie Honda]

The postman delivered this yesterday:

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That's the support for the front edge of the seat sorted. I'll have to do some more shopping first, as I need some starlock washers and some domed caps for the pivot pins.

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I've been at this seat 13 years ago, as the springs were bust.

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Hence the rear pair were doubled-up to fat cunt spec.

I've ordered some runners for the floor on both sides, hopefully they won't take too long to turn up. I've also ordered a new petrol pump. I don't think there was much wrong with the old one, bar the fact it was a plastic-topped one and I don't fancy playing inferno roulette.

[Eddie Honda]

Tricycle tinkering has stalled at the minute. I'll be back on the case soon enough.

Haven't done anything to the Pug, but been doing a bit of looking up what I need. Eventually got an a 4 month test extension to 4th Aug. Despite sitting on the drive, I've renewed the tax today. Even if I declared it off road before end of May, the gap needs to be at least 3 months before retaxing or else they charge back tax for the gap. Robbers!

Back to that broken OSF spring: Not having a pair of death sticks handy, I went looking for a sturdy strut spring compressor. Given I don't have a van to work on (just in case) I still went looking for a big fuck-off heavy duty one.

Working my way back from the overpriced posh Hazet 4900-2A/5 (309mm span / 26kN / Impact / €1100)

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https://www.hazet.de/en/products/specia ... 2A-SLASH-5

I found a cheaper version of the big bastard, the Hesselink FS-8000 (315mm span / 26kN / Impact / €579)

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https://www.hesselink24.de/federspanner ... 0_173_1057

Then found a Chinese (great bunch of lads) one that looked the same, the Dongning Tools (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. DN-B1064 heavy duty coil spring compressor (317mm span / 26kN / Impact (yes/no) / €133-145 unit price):

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https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ ... 92266.html

"High capacity of max. load:26.000Nm. Max,working stroke:317mm. Suitable to work with air impact. Inchudes 3 pairs of C jaws for a wide of vehicle applications. Safety design of free turning since unacceptable overload. 3 pairs of yellow covers help protect lacquered springs surface from damage. Do Not Use Impact tools."

Make your bloody mind up lads! Impact or no impact? Fuck it, who cares? Went off to find a Euro supplier...and found the TecPo Profi Mc Pherson Federspanner Satz 300131 (317mm span / 26kN / non-impact / €189). TecPo is just an own-brand label of PoTec Vertriebs GmbH / www.autoteile-werkzeuge.de on Chinese-sourced tools.

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https://www.autoteile-werkzeuge.de/tecp ... 00-nm.html

Ordered it from PoTec, coughed-up €16 for the shipping. One week later my order still seems stuck with a status of processing (Bestellstatus: In Bearbeitung) despite being an in-stock item, so I email them in my finest German and an auto-reply acknowledgement comes through shortly after, but I hear nothing back. Wait a bit longer until yesterday and although the order was still showing as "In Bearbeitung" rather than "versandt", it turns up yesterday lunchtime with the DHL man.

I send a follow-up email to them thanking them, but noting the slight damage to the case in transit. This time I got a very prompt reply asking me to send them some photos. This time round the response speed was kind of what I was expecting the first time, but then the last email may have fell through the cracks.

Verdict so far: Fuck it is heavy! (c. 30kg)

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As usual with these things, now that I am armed, all the springs on my fleet of vehicles will refuse to break now.

[fried onions]

Would these compress a spring from the inside, i.e. taking the place of the shock absorber?

[panhard65]

Would these compress a spring from the inside, i.e. taking the place of the shock absorber?

No they won't I have got a compressor that will do that, I bought it to fit the spring in the Thunderbird and it is a real dangerous bit of kit. I expect on a lighter car it wouldn't be so bad but the springs on the Tbird are really long. I can dig it out for you if you want but I think they are called an internal spring compressor.

[fried onions]

Thank you, danger sounds fun. The Humber demands the use of one. Shock absorber comes out, spring compressor goes in, then take up the slack and undo the lower spring pan whereupon the whole thing can be slowly released. There is a S-P service tool listed in the workshop manual but I've yet to come across one.

[panhard65]

That sounds a lot safer a bit like the MG Midget front springs which can be done with 4 long bolts put in one at a time in the spring pan. You put the long bolts in in place of the originals and slowly release the spring pan a bit at a time one side then the other if that makes sense.