Scott's Cars: Spring Time

The Midget is equipped with 1/2 elliptic leaf springs as part of its rear suspension. In preparation for inspection, I went about replacing all of the worn bushings on the right side. Dad and I had done the left side back in 2008, so I won't go into a lot of detail since it has been covered before. But it was certainly more difficult than I remembered. I got off to a good start with disassembly, but I eventually had to enlist Dad's help on two occasions.

The first, I was only able to remove half of the bushing on the front side. Dad helped me hammer out the rest with a chisel. The second, upon reassembly, I somehow cross-threaded one of the nuts welded to the floorboard of the car. Dad showed up tonight with his tap and die set, and we were able to clean it up. He stuck around to help me put the rest of things back together for which I was extremely thankful. Some things are so much easier to do logistically with two people. Like when screwing in the 3 bolts in the rear plate, one person had to hold the bolt steady from underneath the car while the other secures the nut from inside the boot. It was quite difficult for me to remove them by myself, and I'd imagine putting them back in by myself would have been crazy difficult. It was tricky. It went relatively smooth with Dad here.

So thanks again to my dad for his assistance. When I called him, I was so frustrated that I could never seem to finish a task (of a certain magnitude) on my own. But I just keep reminding myself that I'm slowly learning new things (which I am) and continuing to acquire a respectable tool collection (Dad is 'lending' me his tap and die set and brought me some chisels) - both of which will help me in future projects.