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Build
Diary
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The
first thing I had to sort out was transporting the donor Panda approximately
250 miles from where I'd purchased it to my parents place in Co.
Durham. The Panda is a very light vehicle so I wasn't worried about
being able to tow it with my own car. All I had to do was get a
tow bar fitted and find a trailer. With the tow bar duly fitted
I set about trying to get a trailer as cheaply as possible. Most
trailer rental places wanted about £30 - £40 per day
and as I'd need it for two weeks I ruled this out. As it turned
out eBay was the best place to look. I actually bought a trailer
that had been designed to transport minis and the Panda fitted on
there perfectly. Once I'd transported it to Co. Durham I sold it
again on eBay for slightly more than I paid for it. Result! |
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| When both vehicles were stripped I pressure washed the 'Rat chassis and all the parts I wanted to re-use. I then rubbed down the rusty parts of the chassis and painted the underside with underseal. I then painted the rear axle assembly from the donor and fitted it, along with the new shock absorbers. While the axle was off I removed all the old brake components so nothing would seize as I'm going to replace them all with new components. I'm leaving this job to the end of the rebuild as it will be standing for long periods between being worked on. | ||
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next job tackled was the fitting of the donor front suspension. Prior
to fiitting it I stripped it all down to it's individual components,
cleaned it all, and sprayed it all black. Inspection of the components
revealed that some parts would need renewing so I bought a new steering
ball joint, a lower ball joint and hub carrier, and two new brake
disks (the ones I got from eBay turned out not to fit so these were
resold). Once reassembled they were fitted quite easily. I also bought
a load of servicing and other parts while I was in a buying mood.
These included a new clutch kit, a pair of rear brake drums, a pair
of rear brake cylinders, complete set of brake pads and shoes and
rear brake overhaul kit, distributor cap and rotor arm, air filter,
oil, oil filter and a few other sundries I don't recall now. Next I fitted the donor steering column. This required no refurbishment and was fitted very quickly. I had left the pedal box in place when stripping the chassis as there was no need to remove it. So the next logical step was to fit the steering rack. Both the old rack and the donor rack had split boots but fortunately on different sides so I fitted the good boots to the donor rack, sprayed it silver and fitted it. With the steering wheel loosely in place I now had a rolling chassis. It was a good thing the weather was good during this time as all this work had to be done outside, there not being enough room in the garage to turn the chassis over during some of the work. |
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The
next job I undertook was to paint the inside of the cab. I painted
this with underseal up to the level of the dashboard. None of it
will be visible once the interior is sorted but I wanted to give
it as much protection as possible as it is intended to use this
vehicle off road and I expect it to get wet and muddy. That was
most of the major work done for this trip. I did also strip, clean
and paint a load of small components ready for the next time I would
work on it. I also split the gearbox from the engine and degreased
and cleaned them both. One more task just before putting it back
under cover was to try on the Cinquecento alloy wheels to get an
idea of how it would look. The tyres are completely the wrong size
but once it's got proper M&S tyres on they should look pretty
good.
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