117: Tuesday 9th February 2010

Yesterday I put the rear brakes back together. It was fairly straight forward. Today I had a day off work as I was going out in the afternoon. So for the morning I set about mounting the DC-DC converter. I found the place next to where it was before on the battery hold down bracket. I made 2 small aluminium brackets; one was fixed to the battery hold down bracket and the other to the end of the battery frame. I will try to put a photo in soon. I realised that I would need to extend the mains cable as it would not reach the 120v supply. So that is the next job. I was also having a problem with hood catch not holding. At first I thought it was the catch being out of position, but after removing the latch and found it to be working correctly I realised the cable was seized. I worked it free and lubricated it, then fitted the latch back and now it works perfect. I also put the wheels back on the rear and took the car off the stands. I then adjusted the handbrake (that works now) and had a little cautious test drive. I need to give brakes another bleed as they were very spongy and the handbrake needs adjusting up some more. I will get a friend to help me bleed the brakes. While I was working away, the delivery man turned up with the Toyota power steering pump. I might be lucky and find the high pressure pipe has the same thread as the Probe pipes. I will need to remove the old pump to find out and also I need to make a bracket to mount the new pump and motor. I will get another Allbright contactor for this motor as it is a heavy load and I am not sure I can trust the auto relays even with 70A contacts. I have seen some forums and it seems favourite to use an 80A self resetting breaker for the supply and this does make sense as you don't want to loose power steering. That's something else to track down.