Van a gone.

[growler_south]

The van is currently in a million and three pieces all over the workshop, the engine mostly disassembled, awaiting parts from around the world (well, the North Shore and Japan). No seats, rear floor, or cargo liner panels. No glass in the sunroof. This is actually an improvement, because last week it didnt have a dashboard or windscreen either.

This is all because the van had a leak around one of the wiper spindles that made the passenger footwell damp.
To get to them the dash had to come out, which revealed some rust around the windscreen.
To get the windscreen out the roof lining had to come off, revealing some rust around the sunroof.
To get to the sunroof the glass had to come out, revealing some perished seals.
The perished seals are the same on all the fixed glazing, so that had to come out, revealing some cracked spotwelds in the door skins.
To get to the cracked spotwelds the door glass and winder mechanism had to come out, revealing some dried out grease and sticky dirt.

Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly, only with much cleaning and greasing of old mechanisms, until...

While reinstalling the sunroof mechanism I dropped a screw into the engine bay, where it fell into a puddle of coolant on the side of the engine- which led to the top cover of the engine coming off to get to the water pump, which revealed a missing timing belt, which led to the removal of the front timing cover and crank pulley, which revealed oil and diesel leaks, which led to the disassembly of the timing sprockets, which revealed a damaged oil pump drive sleeve.

Which is the part I'm waiting for from Japan.

Brian is in deep despair.

Comments

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I've had my fair share of "safari jobs" like that, where one thing leads to another, money flies out, parts crawl in and every step ends up being an adventure.

[querrelle.livejournal.com]

Are you going for the Guiness Book of Records or DSM V?

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

DSM V.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

What, doesn't Brian like a Greasy Growler, all sweaty from his vehicle-repair labours? ;)

Though I can see the frustration in starting with what seems to be a simple repair that leads to a daisy-chain of doom.

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

On the positive side of things, I got my Thule 750 rack feet today, so I just need the Thule bars and fit kit and I can haul my own damn lumber home...

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you've missed the reinforcement bar in the door with the broken glue, and covering all your inside panels with black goo undercoating, and a thousand other things.

It hasn't moved under its own power in 7 weeks. It's not a vehicle anymore, it's a sculpture.

[emsporter.livejournal.com]

The knee bone's connected to the thiiigh bone...

[liftinmoose.livejournal.com]

YAY Brian in despair... I mean... awww poor guy... his man is a sexy hot sweaty greasy money... awww so sad...

[mikeybill.livejournal.com]

They will both disappear through a vortex into some universe of car parts... but they'll be happy there

[putzmeisterbear.livejournal.com]

It's enough to put you off doing any repairs isn't it? LOL More than once I've said "Why did I even open the hood?"

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

The engine is going to be beautiful thing once it's done. Rebuilt turbo and injector pump, new seals and belts: all it needs now is for the bottom end to let go and write it off.

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

Y'know-- I haven't seen you post about a project that hasn't had some element of being scattered about for some length of time. You always manage to get it together, and working fine eventually.
Those one thing leads to another fixes are aggravating, though.
Let us see the shiny results!