Spend since last report: £197. Total hours labour since last report: 28.2

Who knew two months ago what fate would have in store for me. I had planned to be away a lot in Lorna’s crossover Poppy and in amongst that, be in the garage working hard on Eric the Viking. Sadly, neither came to pass. In June, I managed to finish the cleaning of the outside of the gearbox, the top coat and the new input shaft seal as planned. The input shaft seal is a pain to remove and needed 3 self-tapping screws drilled through the metal collar and then a puller to bring it out as nothing else seemed to work. The new one does not leak which is rather nice.

The front gasket was also changed since I had serviced everything in there and with assistance from my able assistant (my wife), the gearbox was mounted onto the chassis when Eric was on his side. Which is not easy!

Tinware has been stripped for the engine and an impromptu clothesline affair put up for rustproofing and priming plus the inlet manifold and exhaust manifold were stripped as well. Then Eric was ready to go back on his wheels. This allowed some brilliant progress – the nose panel has been prepared and primed, the cab floor has been prepared.

As that was drying, the rear hubs and CV joints were cleaned, driveshafts built up and installed meaning that from the back wheel to the other back wheel is complete and painted. During assembly, there were a few areas in the rear wheelarch that were sub-standard and they received an extra coat of L90D pastel white paint which really makes it all look very smart against the black of the running gear.

With the rear brake shoes now complete, I could finish and double check the brake lines from end to end and then enlisted a neighbour with a brake bleeding kit and more knowledge than me (not difficult) to assist on bleeding. We cleaned the top reservoir in the cab (under the driver’s seat) and filled that down into the new reservoir on top of the new master cylinder that goes with the new servo upgrade. More brake fluid added. And more. Nothing coming to the rear brake – traced to it all coming out of the unions at the front. Further investigation showed that I had made all brake pipe unions with trumpet flares like old English classic cars instead of mushroom flares. Every single end and that is about 22 ends.

Having just got Eric on his wheels, he was dutifully turned once more back on his side and I spent a good number of hours carefully removing each brake nut in turn, snipping off the trumpet flare from the pipe and making a new mushroom flare. Some of the brake nuts were damaged, so for completeness these were discarded as they are around 50 pence each, renewed as I remade each joint. As I got to the front, I had 2 pipes left to make but no brake nuts and they were overdue as we packed up for the AGM. Finally arriving on the day that we left, they were put in the garage ready for my return, so that I can make the pipes that go from the central union to each front wheel’s flexible pipe.

That was the weekend that I dislocated my ankle and broke my leg. Everything is on hold until that is mended!

Purchasing this issue are mainly odd sundries – welding helmet, clutch bearing, brake fluid and hoses, and oil cooler mount and a rev counter for a boat. Obviously!