Lift 'em Up!

The gas struts for the gull wings doors arrived in the mail today along with the 3 inch lift kit.  First, I'll talk about  the gas struts.  Needless to say, the old ones didn't work.  Only one of the four did and that was because it had a plastic piece that, upon being extended, would act as a door stop and hold the strut to it's fully extended position.

I found the reference on what to buy at Bradley GT.com.  This took about 10 minutes to install and viola! I have gull wings doors that open and stay open.  Not too mention they open a whole lot easier. 

This reminded me that on several of the Bradleys I looked at on the internet, the back window was also supposed to open.  I looked at mine and there were no struts at all.  Since there is no handle to open the window, I had to wedge it open with a folding camping stool - how's that for out of the box thinking?!  This lead to me asking the question, will the old gull wing door struts work?  The hardware for two gas struts is still there...  And sure enough they did.  Once again this Bradley has regained some of its cool points. Let's face it, this car rocks because of the gull wing doors.  I've ever heard it referred to as a Spy Car.  (the theme music for James Bond should be playing in the background right now.)

Moving right along to the 3 inch lift kit.  It doesn't matter where I bought it, what matters is the process and problem solving to make the thing work.  In addition to the kit, I ordered the gasket kit as well to seal the chasis against water.  The kit came with bolts and washers but no nuts. Hmmmm.

So the first thing I do is seek guidance.  There is some info out there in Cyberspace but no real photo step by step approach.  The first I saw that shocked me was a small reference that stated the steering column would have to be modified with an extender.  This got me to thinking about the 3 inch gap and how do I close that up without having the steering column stay at the same angle.  I mean I looked everywhere for this mysterious column extender.  There were references to buying a whole new steering column with tilt steering but that's $400!  One possible solution is welding the shaft with u joints from a Super Beetle to this column.  That cost is about $75 -- much better.  I need to continue to work this issue.  Next, I went to see just what else would be affected by the lift and what else needs to be disconnected.  I have a butt sag bar in the back, that's going to need to be filled in maybe with some lumber.  Other items that need to be disconnected include the brake reservoir, the seats, the front bumper assembly and the 25 bolts that hold the body to the frame. This is going to take some time....