a busy day

[Dave Adams]

Yesterday as i have mentioned on Danny's status i replaced all 4 wheel bearings on my sierra. at a cost of £6 each for the rears and £5 each for the fronts. The rears are straight forward to do but you need to disconnect the brakes and re-bleed them. Because the brake back plates are held in by the half shafts.....now i know that it is possible to remove the half shafts with out removing the brakes, but in practice if the half shafts have not recently been removed it is just easier to take the brakes off with them. It was a good job that i found a slide hammer being thrown out, and was able to obtain it. (the owner didn't know what it was, so let me have it free)

Easier it might be, but both brake pipes on the rear axle broke trying to remove them (and they are recent pipes only a year or so old) When i went to make new pipes my flaring tool broke (the little nipple on the flare end broke off, it happens) so i also had to buy another flaring tool.

The O/S bearing was totally knackered, and once removed via the angle grinder an easy thing to tap back into place. The N/S bearing wasn't too bad, but since i had removed the half shaft it also got replaced. (it was a little worn)

The fronts are the small type on the earlier 1300e struts and again the N/S was totally Knackered, the bearing was full of rusty slurry (even though i repacked it with grease last year) and was very noisy and these are very easy to knock out and replace. The O/S bearing was also worn but not nearly as bad as the N/S. My discs are also totally shot and i am  looking for some big repair washers to replace them.......they are the smallest discs i have ever seen they must be only 7 1/2 - 8 inch diameter.

[Dave Adams]

yeah an option for me as i have an electronic distributor....just need the amplifier pack.

[Dave Adams]

By way of a helpful tip to those of you out there unfamiliar with points ignition systems and because my car broke down on the way to Danny's (twice)  i had to do a bit of fault finding on my car and noticed that when the spark plug sparked it was a yellow colour not a healthy blue colour.

This is caused usually by a knackered condenser next to the points. they often get left in place when points are replaced and this is a big mistake........I had bought some points and condenser to replace mine but both were wrong so i left them until i could  replace them and paid the price.