Well, today has been vaguely success-shaped; especially if we ignore the problems I am putting off until later.
I have sorta-fixed the driver's window on my car, which involved welding a snapped window mechanism cable.
As an aside: Owning and driving a 30-year-old car that doesn't have a huge enthusiast following means nothing but misery, 'cause parts are few and far between. And the stuff you can get is generally hilariously crappy quality. Like, "Ask Me About My Ignition Problems" bumper-sticker levels of crappy.
I have some thoughts rattling around inside my head about making some replacement window mechanisms, 'cause the welded cable is only gonna last so long.
The problems I'm putting off 'til later are:
- More rust. My exhaust fell off, and I thought it was just that the rubber mounting thing had fallen off the hanger. Mmmmmmnope, the piece of body the hanger is welded to, has ... fallen off. Which kinda also puts a hole in my plan of putting the towbar on. Hm. Guess I'll have to fix that, then.
- MORE rust! There's a hole in the strut-tower, behind the fuel tank filler neck. This is gonna suck to weld up, maybe I'll just make a giant explosion and never have to deal with the car again.
- The exhaust is all rotted out, and stainless tube got fucking expensive! Goddamn! (Also rent got more expensive and that just makes everything worse.)
- Bodywork: I got some repair panels for the rear quarters. They're Adequate. I may have actual wheel-arches for the first time in like ... 5 years.
- Continuing to ignore the lower torque arm problem, because I'm not quite sure how to solve "there is a grade 10.9 bolt broken off an inch up into a cast-iron part, and the remaining part's shifting every time I accelerate or decelerate has worn the hole oval at the bottom"; I'm sure the remaining part, which is currently held in place by ??? and acting as a locating peg, will fall out at some point and force me to deal with the problem.
- TURNS OUT my wobbly steering is because the front balljoints are fucked again! And it also appears that the relatively cheap (and thus Cheap) replacement lower arms I've been using, are now no longer available via the bay of E; and the search is awash with results for parts for different vehicles, that the sellers have checked the boxes for every vehicle under the sun because SEO-brainworms. (Because the more people who see your part for sale the better, obviously, regardless of whether or not it fits. "L@@K! Ford Transit Control Arm (Does Not Fit Skoda Favorit, VW Golf, [...]" (Gods, I hate that crap so much. I think people who do it should be cast into a fire.))
So, uh, anyway. Looks like I'm going to have to do the unpleasant thing of grinding out the rivets and replacing the ball-joints on the arms I currently have, which is a whole Ordeal.
Very tempted to fabricate entirely new control-arms, but I already have enough on my plate and I am in no way going to have that done before I need them. ...but it would let me compensate for the body-roll induced tyre-wear.
Oh, yeah, and currently all but one of my welders is down because I managed to order the wrong fittings for the gas bottle, and I'm currently too broke to order the correct ones (Thanks rent!)