These’ll work quite nicely, I think.
They’ll join together, like this:
And here’s how the car looks with a magnet holding the vertical piece in place:
Still got some cutting and welding to do, but I’m glad that he found these panels.
In related news, we froze the new bearings and pressed them into the now-painted steering knuckles. My brother ground down one of the old bearings to use as a driver that wouldn’t get press-fit into the knuckle itself. Worked like a charm.
Before pressing the wheel hubs in, this was a great opportunity to cut down the new wheel studs, which were too long. Installed, there was about 13mm of extra stud sticking out past the lug nut. This was preventing the wheel center caps from seating fully.
Reluctant to remove ALL of the excess thread, we took some measurements and found that removing 9mm would be a happy medium, leaving just a little extra thread while providing plenty of room for the center caps.
Once the studs were cut, we threw the hubs in the freezer to contract them a little while the bearings warmed up. Later that night, we pressed the hubs into the new bearings.
The press is working out great! We never did figure out a good way to stress-test it to make sure that it can deliver the advertised 20 tons of force, but it’s been kicking ass and taking names like a champ.
Standing in this corner of the garage allows the garage lighting to cast a shadow of your own body over the work area. So I stuck some magnetic flashlights on the press, and they make an even bigger difference than I expected. I almost want to leave them there permanently, but fear that the batteries might die between infrequent use of the press. Maybe I’ll rig up something that can be plugged into the wall later instead.
Lots to do yet. Still got an engine to put back together. We checked the cylinder head for flatness, and it’s well within spec. I wasn’t expecting any warpage anyway- it’s not like it was overheating or anything. So we’ll continue with reassembly soon.
While checking specs, we found an error in the Bentley service manual for the 900. See if you can spot it:
