Al Zhiemer Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 Well the time has come, after spending well over $3000 on Ruby in the last couple of months, finally get her back on the road to only have 2 days of trouble free motoring, it seems I'm making no progress. Its time to let Ruby die a peaceful death. The last couple of months have just been one problem after another with her, I fix one thing, she breaks somewhere else. At the moment she has developed another REALLY bad vibration, seems non related to the original vibration that I set out to fix. And this one is so severe I'm not even game to drive her anymore and I'm out of ideas as to what it could possibly be. Everything has been replaced in the front end, nothing has helped. But its not all bad news... The plan... Take Ruby off the road permanently and do a full restoration job on her, replace every nut and bolt in her and anything that can be rebuilt, will be rebuilt or replaced with new. Remove any rust or dents, straighten the panel work out and a new coat of jam to finish her off. Hopefully within 12 months, Ruby 2.0 will be back on the road and be better than brand new. It looks like my nice low mileage 1290 R is about to start racking up a few extra km's this year Not that the low mileage (1400km's since Jan 2017) has been my choice, stupid bloody job, if they didn't throw so much money at me a week I'd go find something else to do. Not that that seems to work anyway, I've quit 3 times now in the last 2 years and they keep offering me more money to stay. Also on the upside, the north Queensland trip planned for later this year will now be done on 2 wheels instead of 4 so I can't wait for that, 4 weeks of touring Cape York and the gulf on the bike is going to be awesome!!! Cheers, Al 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkyboy Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 (edited) Well that is not exactly r.i.p! Putting her out to pasture maybe. Just make sure you come back for her when planned. I know you said you replaced everything, but the most violent vibration i have experienced was on my sube, and it was a loose motor mount. Not the 14 on the bottom, but the other nuts holding the rubber part together. Have fun on your motorcycle trip! Edited January 22, 2019 by sparkyboy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Zhiemer Posted January 22, 2019 Author Share Posted January 22, 2019 Its already happening, have dropped the replacement front fenders and bonnet off at my mates panel shop. Engine bay is almost completely stripped out ready, motor and gearbox come out today and she gets picked up at the end of the week to be delivered to the sand blasters. Have ordered the steel to make up a rotisserie to put Ruby on so she can be moved and have the underside painted as well. This was always the plan, this year was meant to be the EJ conversion year and next year was going to be the body. With me now heading back to work, I get to spend very limited time at home to be able to work on her but my mate has no problem with keeping her in his workshops for the next 12 months while body work gets done and the EJ gets transplanted so that makes my life a little easier. All the engine mounts where checked and in good working order, I did notice that nut loose on one of the engine mounts but I made sure to tighten both of those before reinstalling the engine and gearbox and have been checked since. You can definitely feel something is not right in the front end, it's almost as if a wheel bearing has collapsed but they have all been replaced less than 7,000 km ago, once I've done the complete tear down I'll investigate further and see what/if I can find anything. At the moment, its got me completely stumped and I'm out of time. Cheers, Al 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el_freddo Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 I’m with sparkboy - RIP is a bit up the deep end! It’s making a comeback so more of a hiatus... Sounds like you’ve got a good mate! And what’s being sand blasted? Not body panels I hope! They’ll come back rippled no doubt, unless blasting techniques have changed. The rippling is due to heat from friction of the beads contacting the metal. I’d look into that before professing with the sand blasting. Cheers Bennie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Zhiemer Posted January 22, 2019 Author Share Posted January 22, 2019 (edited) Yeah, sand blasting can cause more damage than its worth if you don't take your time but in my opinion, its still the best way to clean up rust and show how much cancer is really hidden under the paint work. Complete under carriage is being sand blasted, its covered in surface rust and any of the areas that are either rusted (To my knowledge I have to sections of semi severe rust, at the back of the cabin where the tray meets and a small section in the drivers foot well) or starting to are also being done. The body panels on these old girls is just not heavy enough to cope with the stress of a complete head to toe sand blast. I restored an old Landcruiser years ago and completely sand blasted the entire cabin, I swore after I finished blasting that old girl I would never do sand blasting again, the old saying about damn sand gets everywhere most definitely is true when it comes to sand blasting. I discovered even on that old pig you could only blast small sections at a time to help prevent the warping/rippling of the panels. Have also found that using walnut/almound shells as your blasting medium causes far less damage as well. He's a good mate, known each other for about 35 yrs now (Holy crap, working out how long we've known each other has just all of a sudden made me feel old LOL), we have been through hell and back with each other and to be honest, the only person I would trust with my life. He mostly works from home with 90% of his work being restoration work on older model Holdens and Fords. A couple of years ago he offered me space to build my own 6M X 6M shed on his property for myself to use as storage and a workshop, am seriously considering it now as I'm fast running out of room here and all I have to pay for is the shed and concrete slab. Another mate of mine in Toowoomba who is a qualified sparky will come down and wire it all up on the cheap. The bonus is that if I go through with it, the only conditions he has set is that I have to put a hoist in. What a bugger, having to install a hoist in a shed at my disposal. Seems a reasonable request considering that the shed will be mine to use for as long as I want rent free Cheers, Al Edited January 22, 2019 by Al Zhiemer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Loyale Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Pictures pictures would be really nice to follow along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Zhiemer Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 Yeah, I may join a photo share site one day but I'm not overly keen on using them. I do use Onedrive and it shows up on my screen that the images are there but apparently no one else can see them but it could also be the PC operator as well doing something wrong. Will see what happens. Cheers, Al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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