I finally plucked up courage to drill out the holes in the wishbone brackets to 3/8", only to find that, rather than metal shavings, I just got a load of rusty dust! The chassis was painted (maybe in 2001) with Smooth Hammarite and it seems surface rust has begun to develop underneath. In the insides of the hole, and also on the mounting brackets themselves, the rust is quite thick. A quick clean with the 3/8 drill bit and all was well.
The problem with the new lower wishbone appears to have been acombination of thick rust on the inside of the bracket and one of the hinge tubes being too wide. The opposite wishbone fitted fine and, comparing the two, I found that the new one was about 1mm too wide. So, out with the file, clean up the rust, lube-up and hey presto.
I am really pleased to have finally got to the point of fitting the wishbones and uprights. This is the point when it starts to look like a real car again. Looks great but still a couple of niggles. (i) I can't for the life of me find a grease nipple that fits the uprights. Even the ones sold to go with the new up right don't fit. The old one fits fine but is rather gnarled and rusty. (ii) I can't get the cones on the upper ball joints to grab the inside of the eye on the vertical link with enough tenacity to do up the Nyloc without the cone spinning.....still, it was about 9:30 and dark when I gave up. Sort that another day!
On the subject of the rust: If you look at the chassis, yoiu can see that it has quite a few dinks in the coating where rust is starting to take hold. The plan for the chassis is to use it, as is, to mount all the ancillaries and check them. Once I have a rolling chassis with the drive train fitted, I will trial fit the body and measure up for the planned roll cage. This means that any welding or drilling that needs to be done doesn't have to damage the powder coat on the chassis. Also zinc coating a chassis prior to powder coating apparently makes it harder to weld to.
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