Front beam gets some love

Moving on in a non-linear fashion, I turned my focus to stripping and cleaning the front beam (truth be told; most of the sequence below has occurred at random intervals over the last few years and this is my attempt at tying everything together with my current progress)

Firsty, I removed the spring leaves from the front beam. The beam has sway away adjusters installed and I had to wind the centre screws back in order to draw the leaves out. Before removal I added a few cable ties to the end to keep everything together:

Then it was just a case of withdrawing them with a suitably sized pair of mole grips:

Rather than cleaning the old grease off at this point, I simply wrapped them in cling film:

I then sealed up the ends of the beam to prevent dirt and crap getting in their as I wire wheeled the outside:

Nothing magical to show here, just takes time. Lots of time:

I tidied the sides of the beam by cutting flush the remnants of the old bump stops. These stubs are the result of the bump stops being crudely cut sometime in the car's past when Gretchen was lowered;

Used the power file to smooth things off perfectly level:

Now that the worst of the crud has been removed and those stubs addressed, I can switch to the shot blast gun to ensure the cleanest possible finish and a decent key for laying fresh paint on. Time to fire up the compressor...