General:
- Keep your work area clean and tidy. Apart from being able to find things easier, it a safety thing too. Don't forget, time spent in hospital is less time spent in the garage.
Take 5 mins at the end of the day to tidy up and put tool away, it helps tremendously. - Read the manual ahead of what your doing. i.e. on the front suspension it recommends using copper-slip on all suspension bolts, I didn't see this mentioned when I put the rears together which is first!!
- When tightening up nuts and bolts to specific torques, it's hard to remember which ones you've done and which you
haven't.
To keep an easy to spot record, mark each nut with tippex/paint/marker of some sort (see pic). This also serves as an easy to spot check to see if any of the nuts or bolts have come loose over time.
- Some threaded bosses/fixings need cleaning either on the newly powdercoated chassis or Rusted up engine bits. The best bet is to use a tap of the correct gauge but if you don't have one there is another way around this.
Get hold of a bolt of the same diameter/pitch and cut a couple of grooves down the thread at an angle.
Wind the bolt into the hole a few threads with some WD40, back off and clean out the grooves, do this a few times and the thread will be cleaned out - A nice cheap simple solution (see Pic)
Brakes:
- When fitting the brake pipes, it helps if the actual connectors stayed at each end, if they don't you will end up bending the pipe straight again, just to move it up and re-bend the pipe again, not ideal.
To do this, simply tape the connector (as in pic) to the end of the pipe, this will stop the bleeding thing sliding up and down the pipe and annoying the hell out of you.
Electrics
- Well not strictly Electrical but it's to do with the washer system which is so it's under this heading.
When you fit the washer tube to the water jets, Tie-wrap it on. Although this may seem silly, it's a 2 second job and may prevent you from failing the SVA. Why you may ask, because they put their finger over the jets to test for leaks. This will prevent it from coming off under pressure.
