How did it suddenly become April???
Well, I guess it's pretty obvious that work on Pod stopped over the winter. It was so cold outside I just couldn't find the enthusiasm to spend more than a few minutes at a time in the garage. Once the weather started to improve I found hundreds of jobs to do on the other Land Rover (aka "Mortimer") and before I knew it, we were into the fourth month of the year!
Today I decided I had to get back into the swing of things, so I finished stripping the chassis. There were a few bit still attached such as the handbrake, the brake pipes, the engine and gearbox mounts, and the towbar. I had to resort to the angle grinder to remove every one of those items!
With the chassis finally completely "naked" I attacked it with the pressure washer. I just wanted to blast off any loose dirt and really flaky paint. The next step will be to degrease it, especially around the engine and gearbox crossmembers, before preparing it for painting.
I inspected the chassis to see how much repair work will be required. For a 41 year old, it's doing remarkably well. So far I've found a small section on the front of the nearside dumb-iron, a hole in the nearside bulkhead outrigger, and a hole in the bottom of the chassis rail under the nearside axle bump-stop. The rear crossmember has been replaced at some point, so although it has plenty of surface rust (like the rest of the chassis) it's good and strong.
No pictures today - I'll add some of the chassis when the repair work starts. I just hope it's not another 3 months between posts...
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