Manalishis Mk 1a 827 Vitesse (manual)

[scoobyh123]

The struts should be a straight and easy swap Henrik, you might find they're standard height in which case it might sit ~20mm higher at the front or perhaps they're the correct height and someone has changed the springs on your Vitesse for standard height in the past so it sits ~20mm lower or both sets may be the same.

Three nuts on the top of the suspension turrets and one through bolt and nut on each yoke (look out for the groove in the strut for the through-bolt) and you're done. Took me about half hour each side (taking it easy) last time i swapped a pair of front struts on the Rover.

[Manalishi]

Some frost…

[scoobyh123]

It's only a tiny bit of frost Henrik! Had much worse than that here a couple of nights ago whenit got down to -9C although i hear somewhere in the north of Sweden reached -37C recently?

[Manalishi]

It's only a tiny bit of frost Henrik! Had much worse than that here a couple of nights ago whenit got down to -9C although i hear somewhere in the north of Sweden reached -37C recently?

Probably due to the humidity in the air. We get pretty much humidity compared to the north of Sweden and you probably get a lot more being close to the ocean, being an island.

But it’s still spectacular. I don’t mind the winter but I don’t like snow.

[Lodein]

It is very surprising the shape of this gel, and give beautiful pictures

Lodein

[Manalishi]

It is very surprising the shape of this gel, and give beautiful pictures

Lodein

Indeed!

[n1tr0_9]

I like snow to start with, just for a change, then it begins to piss me off!

[Manalishi]

The working horse!

[Manalishi]

Finally stripped from the old tyres. Next step is some cleaning and prepare for some paint.

[scoobyh123]

Yay, progress! Are you doing them silver Henrik?

[Manalishi]

Yay, progress! Are you doing them silver Henrik?

Yes sir! Hopefully the correct paint code too, but I’m a bit worried it might be wrong. After reading some it seems there were two shades of silver and perhaps the older rims where the other colour. Time will tell putting the hub caps on.

Oh. I might have forgotten to post this:

[scoobyh123]

If all else fails Henrik, i'm sure you could paint the centre caps to match the wheels with the same paint. I'd suggest spraying them black first so the raised longship has an extra coat of black then do the silver and gently sand the silver off the raised parts before lacquering them.

[Manalishi]

Regarding tyres and rims, I’ve made some archeology.

My four dog leg rims were separated from their very long gone tyres and this evening I started some pre paint job only to discover one rim seem to be a bit too far gone with a huge dent.

No worries, I have a spare tyre!

And this is interesting. The spare has Obviously never been used. The tyre is perfectly new. It’s also easily seen that the black coat of paint was applied with the tyre still on the rim so obviously a later job.

And now some good info: The tyre is a Dunlop SP Sport D40. 205/60/VR15. The code is 398 pointing At week 39 1988. How can I tell? Well… After the nineties the regular tyres had a different code including a triangle. In the 2000s the code was 4 digit.

These things rock my chain really. My spare is the original from 1988. But I need the rim, so I need to kill the tyre. I hate that.

My expensive solution is to remove the tyre and put it on the bad rim, keeping that as a spare. Putting a 34 year old tyre on my spare isn’t really that intelligent, but still…

What’s your opinion guys. Silly?

[scoobyh123]

I would have the 1989 tyre removed from the good rim, use some T-Cut or similar to polish the black paint off the rim and leave it nice and silver. Then i'd use the T-Cut on the damaged rim and have the 1989 tyre fitted to that as the "spare" (that you'll never really use but is there for posterity) and carry a proper spare for road use if needed, any 15" wheel will do for that.

Unusual size the 205/60/15 as well...................

[Manalishi]

Yes Dave, isn’t 205 too wide? My log says 195 but I truly believe this tyre is the original spare. My plan is to get 195s all around as it should be, but the 205 spare is interesting.

This is a spanish car so thinking there might have been a different size fitted there. No idea really and not that crutial.

I think it could be difficult to remove the black paint without touching/destroying the original paint though, plus if this is to be used it needs the exact same paint as the other three.

Finally the weather is turning around too, We had a bad backlash with loads of snow and sub zero temps. Let the season begin!