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The time has come to start wielding the
grinder and getting the major components off our donor car...
First up, we decided to remove the engine, it's big and
heavy and while the wheels are on the donor we can move
it around and get the engine into the workshop and then
move the shell outside where we can strip the rest of the
bits.
First things first though, get a Haynes manual for the
Sierra and you'll find it much easier to strip with a bit
of prior research. We got ours for £3 from a second
hand bookshop.
| Removing the engine |
| Hey, why make things easy. As we
are doing this on a budget we felt it might be a better
reflection of the home mechanic if we tried to simulate
the typical home workshop Loosely translated this means
we are too tight to buy an engine hoist (around £160)
for a one off job. So could we get the engine out without
a hoist, well brute force is always a good substitute...
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| Removing the rear sub-frame and front
suspension |
| After the engine we thought this
would be easy, and if you follow the right procedure
it is, although it is pretty heavy the main effort is
disconnecting the brakes/handbrake etc. The front macpherson
struts are also needed for the rear subframe of the
kit so these need to be removed and dismantled completely.
With the struts dismantled, you need to remove (grinder/hacksaw)
the closed end, remove the fluid and the shafts. Be
careful doing this as there is a large quantity of nasty
suspension fluid inside the strut body. The shatfs are
used in the front suspension. The bottom half of the
macpherson strut is inverted and forms the top of the
spring mount for the rear subframe. We did say that
the kit finds innovative uses for the donor parts. |
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