Winch rebuild finished, cubby box mods, generally winning at life.
Winch rebuild is done and dusted, it is all reassembled and freshly greased (this happened last week, but my updates here are slow).
Here is the winch drum following on from rust conversion and painting. Turned out pretty darn good I think. It was amazing what a few years of soggy dyneema will do to metal. It wasn't bad, but it would only have got worse with time.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...016/10/602.jpg
The paint product I've been using is Dulux metalshield. Colour is flat black- because it's maaaaad. Metalshield is a tough epoxy enamel, and seems to be nice and hard wearing. I've also used the same paint in conjunction with an etch primer for painting aluminium parts (and I'm led to believe it will also work well on galvanised materials).
I'll get some decent pics of the winch when I can. It's not super pretty on the outside, but the rule of thumb for ugly things is 'it's what's on the inside that counts' :angel:
Centre console mods
I've done some mods to the centre console box (AKA cubby box). The initial plan was to do a 5-minute mod with one of the cubby box trays from mud stuff.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...016/10/603.jpg
Unfortunately, the way the aftermarket sub woofer was installed by the previous owner, meant that the tray wouldn't fit.
The sub was actually held on with pergola angle.
Freaking.
PERGOLA.
Angle.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...016/10/604.jpg
Oh, and did I mention the M8 thread BOLTS?
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...016/10/605.jpg
Yep, it was a bit cobbled together and rough and ready, BUT it was strong. Main problem was it A) looked like crap, and B) meant my new little tray wouldn't fit. A better solution was to be found.
The initial plan was to find some 50x50 aluminium angle, and lop off one side to 20mm or so, allowing a row of wood screws to be sunk into the side of the cubby box at a depth that wouldn't cause an issue with teh tray.
It was actually a bit more difficult that I first thought to find the right material I needed, and on a ditch effort, I picked up some aluminium angle which was intended for use as non-slip capping on the corners of stairs. At least it would be a step-up from pergola angle, amiright?
The profile of this material, after a quick knock-up with the hack-saw, showed it to be not wide enough to fully capture the bolt holes I had available, and caused the sub to be loose on it's mounts. So that idea was ditched.
I ended up scrounging thru the offcut pile for some 20mmx2mm aluminium flat bar which worked well, but in another design. The strips were painted and mounted as such, with new-fangled nut-serts used on the sub itself (nuts and bolts are a pain to deal with, IMO).
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...016/10/606.jpg
So the tray now fits, and all this crap:
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...016/10/607.jpg
...as well as all the small crap which sunk to the bottom of the centre console...
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...016/10/608.jpg
...will hopefully all have a place now. If you are wondering where all the bolts came from in the above pic, I call it LR 'over engineering'. (You know they put 20% more fasateners in a car than they need, right? :p ).
I will also need to shorten this abortion of a wiring mess as well...
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...016/10/609.jpg
There is a crimping tool that will allow me to shorten this 5m length of cord to a neat little 10cm piece that will fit between the sub, and the sub bass balance remote dial.
I'll get some nice pics when I can. Stay tuned!