5 May 2020
Well after 9 weeks of the COVID movement ban which started 12 March we are finally allowed to crawl out of our homes and learn to drive again and interact with
people but not leave the state and not the 6 cats in my house. The office has told us to work from home for another 12 months at least. However, life is different parts shops have closed permanently, workshops have gone parts cannot be got no stock etc as the suppliers have not reopened. Cannot have coffee together and the list goes on and on.
My condolences to anyone who has lost friends etc from this virus we have been lucky here in Malaysia we managed to get it contained no thanks to people who spread it from a few larges gatherings despite being told not to have them. However, our lives are changed for a very long time moving forward. Those people on the front line are the hero's of all this.
The errant Landcruiser 80 is off to the workshop 70k away to be cut up and the salvagable parts being installed in the new acquired really cheap Landcruiser.
The mighty Isuzu is getting a new clutch and master brake cylinder and rear brakes after something fell apart in the rear drum destroying the complete insides lol.
Now that we have decided to loan Hotpant the 80 Series for her Africa trip. Elcheapo the Africa bound Landcruiser 80 has the engine and auto out with the engine getting a complete overhaul after being able to blow smoke of every colour out of the exhaust. The 5 speed manual gearbox from the other 80 is being installed. Its also being kitted out for overland with roller drawers etc all being recycled and the 80 gutted inside to cleanup any issues before we start the internal cargo barriers and electrical installation.
The Volvo is still up on jacks and has not been started for 9 weeks.
Bleeding the brakes we find the issues the pads are not moving enough. It's back to stripping everything out of the Volvo again. We pull the portals out callipers and all Pedals out Callipers out and strip and rebuild and refit but I could not get the callipers with PADS to install. Finally we see the problem. The callipers had been pulled and rebuilt previously with new pads installed but they did notice that the old pads had had 3mm trimmed from the middle of the pad so it could clear a portal bolt resulting in the pad not clamping the disc correctly. Fitting the PADS after the calliper bolted in caused the pad to hang on the portal bolt.
We fixed that and refitted the pads and checked for correct operation. Still no proper BRAKES. We elect to start building up the brakes to the before 2010 status.
We add a vaccum tank and the brakes are better we add another tank and build a rack of 3 tanks and add the cross member vaccum tank back to the setup. More brakes now it stops from 60kph but still will not lockup. Investigation to a bigger master cylinder is continuing.
Pulling the portal and discs and callipers off
Zing is very happy to have us all back in the shop especially at thunderstorm time he has someone to hug.
