I'll hopefully be getting the bolts for the steering box for this old girl this weekend. As far as I can tell it's only the two top most (longest) bolts that are broken. The one down lower towards the front still seems to be intact, however from what I've read if I'm going to be taking it out to drop down the steering box I should replace the bolt anyway, as reusing these bolts seems to be a big no-no.
Here's a few pics from yesterday after I got a bit of time to give it a good pressure clean:
http://i.imgur.com/a5LS7tY.jpg?1
http://i.imgur.com/yF9Oeib.jpg?1
http://i.imgur.com/d1YiQmc.jpg?1
(Yes I washed it inside a dairy yard
)
Of course that meant actually starting the car and driving it about 500m each way, which of course I did very carefully, especially making sure to not turn the steering wheel while in a stationary position. A good charge of the battery and it's never really hard to start, even after sitting for a while, which is pleasing.
Ironically, the power steering works perfectly and does not groan, whine or anything. The only noise is occasionally the loose steering box itself. I'm hoping once I fix that issue the steering will be quite decent overall, though it remains to be seen whether there's any other damage to the box itself. Will only know once I actually fix the bolt situation.
Anyway, thus far I'm pretty chuffed for how the car could come up, considering I paid a grand total of $0 for it. As is probably obvious in the pics, there's still quite a bit of years-old sap on the car but I'll just have to keep at that.
