After that fantastic trip to the US, landed and the next morning headed to pick up the car.
Here she is home.
The workshop had tidied up the engine bay. Put in missing bits and fitted some new things:
They had sprayed a matt black rubber coating to the underbody and the engine bay.
Cut out the battery tray that had become rusty again and fixed in a new one. Sorted some gaps and holes in the firewall, got the engine tuned to 750 rpm.
So I drove it the next morning.
The engine fired up, no issue with the battery.
But it just would go into gear. The garage had advised my friend to drive it regularly to loosen things but this was something weird.
It just about clunked into second gear. Managed to drop the missus without incident. The shifts were tough, and when I pushed it a bit on open stretches, there was a severe rattle and shake from the gear lever and the prop shaft below. It was hitting the floor
Drove it back to the workshop and described the noises. After being dismissed off saying that just use it, it will be a bit tight I asked them to have a look.
Waiting for its turn to get inspected.
So got the interior trim fitted, the logos I got from Amazon superglued to the wheel caps.
Needs detailing, but will keep that for later.
Inspection showed that the new rubber coupling was smashed into a dozen or more pieces.
And that the Clutch Slave cylinder had failed.
The pressure hose was on its way out too. Showed signs of old age that no Olay regenerist cream could have solved.
Off I went to the local spare parts market at Opera House/Lamington Road.
Turned out none of them had the slave cylinder or the pressure hose.
One shop offered to remake the pressure hose. And try to order the cylinder but would take 4 weeks.
Bought a new rubber coupling for the prop shaft.
Was informed that maybe the prop shaft was not fitted or aligned properly that's why it was in smithereens otherwise it is rare that it should fail within a short span of time.
The sample piece in the picture above that I carried to the shops was the original one, all 28 years old, with just a crack or two.
Looked like after a day on the road, it was going to stay in the workshop for another month till the slave cylinder and hose were sourced.
