Well the return to work has been consuming.  Now I like my job, well actually I love my job but it knocks the living daylights out of me so getting in the garage is nigh on impossible during the week.  Last weekend I was out on the Triumph Thruxton so that means that it is two weeks since I last got going on the Healey.  I started by collecting some stuff from my in-laws shed so I could get on with building up the drive train.  I was a little undecided on what exactly to take.  I took the rear springs so that I could mount the axel and the shocks as I know they will go on soon.  I also took the front wishbone / kingpin set up but decided against taking the box with all the brake parts and bearings which I will definitely need when I do the front suspension.  Sometimes there is no logic in my world.


Illogically I decided that I would start by looking at the the rear shocks.  It took some Oxy-Acetelene action to persuade the shock link (the thing that is on fire below) to come away from the shock arm.  I'm a little perplexed now because I wasn't sure what the shock link was called so I looked on Ahead 4 Healey's site to check the name and have seen that the type I have taken off the car today is the type fitted to the late 100 cars.  Now everything else about the rear suspension is the early type, so how does that work out?

Having teased it apart with minimal force and maximum skill (Oxy-Acetelene and a big hammer) I left it to cool.

Then I set about getting the crud off.  One of them looked much better than the other as far as the build up of road grim is concerned.

However, on the inside they were identical.  Both looked well topped up with oil but both had loads of congealed gunk inside, some of which is visible in the picture below.

I emptied the oil into a waste canister and you can see the type of gunk I referred to in the picture below.

Having had a good go at cleaning the inside out I figured I should probably run some fresh oil though it to flush out the rubbish.  However, I couldn't actually waste good oil on this so I filled the pair with degreaser and place the cap back on.

So now I just need to remove the degreaser and double check that it is truly clean before filling with oil.  Actually I need to order the oil as well.  Once done I will paint it black.  I know the original colour was silver, well just aluminium but I'm convinced it'll just corrode so I'd rather have it black and neat looking than original and corroded.