Tuesday 9 August 2011

Tuesday 9/8/2011

Hi
Last day to work on the car before I go back to work, 0930 flight tomorrow then 3 weeks, pleased for the rest.

I have given the remaining caliper and spring a couple of coats of red and they are looking very nice.
Spring and caliper in red finery
The rest of the day has been sandblasting, boy did this take some work. I have 4 different sandblasting guns from homemade for around £20 to my £250 sand carver from the states but the biggest tip is the homemade tungsten tipped one at only 3mm so it takes a lot of effort and a lot of air. Had to stop quite a few times for coffee and to let the compressor cool down.
Sub frame almost finished.
I had taken most of the paint and rust off yesterday with the electric tools so really this was just cleaning up and getting into all of those inaccessible places, still took over 4hrs.
Once all done I gave it a good coating of primer. Once all painted I shall get a wax oil spray gun and get right into those awkward places.
Primed sub frame
I have not decided yet on the best paint to finish with, as this section (without the spoiler) will take all of the weather / stones etc so I need something really tough. Any suggestions?

Well that's all for now, be back on it in 3.

See ya

Paul

Monday 8 August 2011

Monday 8/8/2011

Hi All
It's get dirty day today, don't know why I bothered showering this morning.

First off I blasted the last wishbone and started fitting the rest of the ball joints to the suspension arms I drilled out the rivets yesterday.
I have photographed the part numbers in case anyone needs them.
Upper wishbones with new ball joints
Offside lower with new ball joint
Upper joint number
Lower joint number

Now for the dirty job, I started sandblasting the subframe but quickly realised it was to big a job for my small equipment so first I got out the grinder with wire brush end and flap disc and set to it. I then brought out the drill with different wire brush tips and then the air driven finger sander. There are so many nooks and crannies to this thing that is is virtually impossible to get at it all. I have around 90% clean and will get it in the booth tomorrow to try and get inside the hidden parts. Last day tomorrow then back to sea for 3 weeks.
Subframe mostly cleaned
I am now clean after a good scrub in the shower unfortunately the shed is in a bad state. It can wait.
See ya
Paul

Subframe removal

Hi All
Big job today, the removal of the subframe; never done this before and on my own so extra careful. First job was to re-position the stands, I put these on as far forward of the chassis nearest to the engine as I could with a good piece of timber support under each one. The jack was now positioned under the subframe hopefully to take the weight which it did after a fashion.
I first undid the locking bolt from the steering column to the rack and liberally sprayed with WD40, the upper retaining bolts came out next then the lower one's and this is where it gets tricky as the subframe is not weighted centrally as the arms for the tie rods tend to make it fall forward. A quick insertion of a screwdriver into the upper bolt hole saved the day, if ever removed again or when I replace it I shall find some method of clamping it to the jack or of course get some assistant to hold it.
Once I had stabilized everything it was a doddle I had my homemade trolley ready and got it straight on, may use this for re-fitting, just jack up the trolley. Next job was the removal of the steering rack, this is just four bolts to remove.
The MOT said that the steering was notchy and this was a failure, I have priced a new rack from my local parts supplier and have been quoted around £45 plus vat but have mentioned this to Terry Borton he reckons that it is more than likely to be the U/J's and having had a good look at them I don't doubt he is right. These will be another day job and well greased up.
Subframe
Subframe

Rusted U/J
You can see the state of the underside and the engine from this shot, lot of work there. the U/J shows the corrosion and the other one is in similar condition.

I can finally remove the wishbone, the nearside one has had the upper ball joint renewed at some point as the rivets were gone replaced by bolts, I shall still replace it and clean up the old one as a spare. Once I had drilled out the old rivets it was time for blasting again, I shall leave the subframe for later as it will be a all day job at least.
Upper wishbones
The pic shows the rivets out and new ball joint in place, will do the other one tomorrow.
that's all for one day.
See ya
Paul

Calipers

Hi All
More spares arrived today.
Brake overhaul kits and I collected the shocks I ordered.

The paint has dried on the nearside caliper so now I have the kit I'll re-build it, simple job if you have never done it before.
Remove the old sealing ring from the inside and with a spray of brake cleaner ensure everything is spotless if any rust build up like I had then clean with emery soaked in brake fluid then again make sure everything is spotless.
With some new brake fluid lubricate the inner area and the new rubber seal, this then will pop nicely into its groove, ensuring you do not twist the ring.
A little more brake fluid on the inside for lubrication (remember brake fluid removes paint ), clean the pistons and push in one at a time, if you have difficulty pushing then check that they are going in centrally.
Once in the rubber boots are next, the top sealing section sits in a groove in the piston and the lower section sits in a groove on the caliper. A metal retaining ring is then slipped over and all done.
To test I placed a hammer shaft between the 2 opposing pistons so I only had limited movement and pushed compressed air through, this moved the pistons and the rubber gaiter flexed but did not come off.
Typically even with gloves on I still made a mess of the new paint, so masked up and sprayed again.

Finished caliper
Nice
I have fitted the old shoes so as not to lose the springs & pins but intend to fit new shoes.

nearside lower arm
The ball joints also arrived so to get all of these pieces out of the way I have built up the nearside lower section. 
I have realised that the mounting holes on the new shocks do not fit the studs under the arm, these need drilling out as they are a 'D' hole not a round. Not a prob just another job.

Next job was to overhaul the offside caliper, I stripped and sandblasted clean first then tried to remove the pistons.This was not as easy as the other; as the pistons where welded in with rust. Managed to do it by fully pushing the pistons down with a clamp then levering up a mil or so using a screwdriver in the piston groove then the air bottle at 8 bar and blowing. After 2 hours of this I finally managed to remove both pistons. The pistons were fine but there was bad rust inside but only above the sealing ring, a bit of soaked emery and these were cleaned up.
That's about it for today.
See ya Paul

Suspension strip

Hi All
The spares from Bruno arrived this morning so all ball joints ready for fitting.

Starting on the offside suspension, after the removal of the nearside this should go a little faster as I now know the correct procedure, the corrosion is just as bad this side as no protection has been applied for many a year.
Offside
I started the removal with the caliper which again slid off quite nicely although the connection into the caliper would not budge so had to remove from the brake pipe. The brake pipe is quite new, I did not mention that in 2007 the previous owner spent £3500 on the car unfortunately over £2500 of this was in labour charges from the garage.
This caliper needs a bit of attention 
Offside caliper

The hub came of next, and the bearing seems fine so no having to replace this, I next removed the track rod end and tie rod then ready to compress the spring.
Spring under compression
Once happy that all was safe I removed the split pins and undid the rest of the nuts and bolts which came off easily until the tie rod which had to be removed with the lower arm.

Lower arm and tie rod
All of the ball joint tappers just tapped off and all was ready for sand blasting, it took a hammer and chisel then the air gun to remove the tie rod nut, I am used to having difficult to remove bolts at work but this one was real bad.
Offside hub
Managed to spend the rest of the day sandblasting with most of the parts getting done will carry on tomorrow.
See ya Paul

Callipers

Hi All
Today is sandblasting day, I need to carry on sandblasting the rest of the nearside suspension and brake caliper.
The caliper blasted nicely, because I am going to renew the rubbers I have blasted it with the old ones in position. I know from past experience that the grit from the blasting will find its way into everything.
Before
before
After blasting
The pistons were next to come out, firsts off the rubber boots came out which reveled why the brakes were seized; a whole load of rust inside. I put the air gun down the brake pipe and gave it a blast but nothing moved so a large socket in the centre of the piston with a clamp on and jacked each piston fully down into its housing and this broke the rust seal. Tried the air again and out popped the first piston, I then cleaned this up and popped it back in with a clamp on and blew out the second. The rust was really just on the surface so I used a bit of emery paper soaked in brake fluid to give it a rub and it cleaned up quite nicely.
I had already ordered the caliper overhaul set from a supplier on ebay along with the rest of the required items to rebuild the suspension.
From Bruno
2 x Track rod ends                   £16.30
2 x Upper ball joints                 £34.06
2 x Lower ball joints                 £30.46
postage                                    £22.70

From Ebay
1 set Tie bar bushes                 £16.30
1 x Locking petrol cap             £24.99
1 set brake overhaul kit            £12
1 Sealey 12v power probe       £17.85
inc postage

From CTS (local parts store)
1 pair Front shock absorbers    £42  for cortina Mk4

I finished the rest of the blasting on the spring, tie rod, nuts & bolts..

The caliper inner piston space was now stuffed with paper towels and the boots replaced to start on the spraying of the spring and the caliper..
Red of course


Well that's today's work done just have to wait for it all to dry.
See ya Paul

Sunday 7 August 2011

Front Brakes and Suspension removal

Hi All
Started on the suspension and brake removal on the nearside of the car, and was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to remove the nuts and bolts. I recently finished stripping out the 4 corners on my Mk2 MX5 Icon for a sandblast, bush & shock change and believe me at only 12 years old it was a pig to get apart.
First off was figuring the best jacking points on the car, there is a good position under the chassis but I settled for the front suspension sub frame as a good safe area.
The brake caliper came next and the caliper slide off the disc as there was minimal lip, I could not remove the pipe from the caliper with out I suspect damaging it, so I had to break it at the hose coupling and drain out the brake fluid. The caliper was heavily rusted and I know from the MOT that it is seized.
Nearside suspension
Caliper
Next to come of was the wheel hub, I have read about this type of wheel bearings in that the torque is minimal but was very surprised when after removing the split pin I managed to undo it by hand, the book says to do it up to 27Ib ft then undo 90deg which will give the required end float. Seems to be correct as I checked for free play before removing and all was tight.

Stub shaft after hub removal
Its hard to believe the quality of the steel on the disc, its been sitting around for years, minimal driving to put it on a trailer and the disc is pristine. The wheel bearing is either a Timkin if stamped with a 'T' or Skefco if stamped with a 'S' so the book says.

I undid the steering track rod end next, just a few taps and the tapper came free; hope the top and bottom are the same, they where (starting to like Ford). Then removed the disc protector and the Tie bar, the bushes were in a bad way.
Needed to compress the spring next, luckily I have 3 different sets of compressors as it is such a tight area to get them in that I had to mix match the hooks, I could have jacked up the lower side of the wishbone and undo all of the bolts and gently bring it down but I am a scaredy cat, so play safe.
Spring compressed I undid the shocks and the upper and lower suspension arms, needed a bit of jacking to ease the weight but a few taps and things started to come undone
.
Spring compression offside
Tie rod bushes
Shock
The first out was the stub axle which then allowed the lower suspension arm to drop and the spring and shock could then be wiggled free, the lower suspension arm can now be removed. Unfortunately it is impossible to remove the upper arm as the bolt is approx 9in long with 2ins of space before hitting the chassis frame, not so much of a problem for me as I plan on removing the sub frame for cleaning but for changing the upper ball joint it could be a bit of a job. This is because; as I found out the upper ball joint is riveted on not bolted, I guess it could be drilled out easy enough but a bit off a job, also bad if the upper bush required replacing. Once everything is out it was just a matter of sand blasting.
Lower arm and damaged ball joint
Hub with bearing
Damaged lower ball joint
After blasting
Blasted and vactan applied

I am replacing all ball joints, track rod ends, tie rod bushes and shocks, I also need to check all of the bushes in the suspension arms but they seem to be heavy rubber and OK. That's all for today start on the caliper and the rest of the blasting tomorrow.
See ya Paul

Battery box

Hi All
First job is to get started on the battery box, the rust has nicely dried out so a bit of chipping to get the heavy out  then sandblast in my booth. I am fortunate enough to have a blasting shed in the back garden, this is supplied with air from a 3 horse compressor to a home made pressure pot. My hobby before starting this project was sand carving / etching on glass so I have all of the gear on hand. One of my pieces below.

Peacock deep etched and filled with vitrail paint

Once I had blasted the box I painted it with vactan, this is my favourite rust protector and everything I do gets a good coating of this stuff, its used on the rigs, the RN and onboard nearly every ship I have sailed on check it out on http://www.paco-systems.co.uk/pdfs/vactan.pdf
I buy mine on ebay at around £15 a litre. a spray of black paint and its ready to fit.


Need to buy a new battery, I took my old battery down as a sample for size and had it tested. After 3 days charging and one start it was down to 0.82 amps, so new battery bought along with some other essentials.
Battery Lucas LUC038        £41.28
Black waxoil                        £21.50
Engine flush                          £3.90
Silver high temp paint           £6.40
Brake cleaner                      £3.60

The offside holding bracket for the bonnet was all bent so straightened this out and started cleaning the battery box and fuse holder area.
Not much time today to do much more as had an appointment at the docs.
Start again tomorrow
See ya paul

Checking it out

Hi All

Back from a weekend away in Keswick and can finally get a good look at the car, anyone out they never been to the Lake district then you are missing out on some wonderful walks. We climbed Catsbell this time and here are a couple of photos to prove we made it to the top and didn't give up when we hit the false plateau.


Before I went away I put the battery on trickle charge as the garage had to use a booster to get it started, stupidly I thought this was because it had discharged over a long period of sitting idle. I started my inspection by giving the engine a run  (checked oil OK) quite frankly I was amazed that the car started on first attempt and ran OK for a few seconds then stalled, OK lets give it another go; not a chance just a whine from the starter motor. 3 days charging and 1 start not good. Getting the battery out was not to difficult just a tight space, on lifting the battery I saw the problem straight away, just a soggy mess in the battery box. I put a meter on the battery and it read 12.4 volts  but still of course needed replacing.


Getting the battery box out was a lot more difficult than getting out the battery, I undid all of the screw around the top and levered up to break the mastic seal but no way would it come up. On investigation inside the car I found that the rear of the parcel shelf is riveted to the box so these got drilled out after removing the speaker and out came the battery box. As you can see from the photos the acid did its work. I found 2 pieces of wood in the bottom of the box, maybe from build or an after though to stop any vibration noise.

After washing out the acid and drying the box I could see the damage was not to bad as it did not penetrate the steel. Clean up job for tomorrow.

Start next with a full inspection.
Where to begin, 
Surprisingly the hood is in excellent condition, just needs some vinyl clean until I get round to buying a mohair.

The seats are shot which is not a problem as they were always going to be re-covered in leather. Just need to get a pair of headrests, spoke to Bruno and he can get  a pair with out much problem. The seats are made by Cobra who have recently stopped production of them so only a few pair for sale and Bruno has them.

The door capping veneer has cracked; maybe it just the varnish, will sand down and a coating of Rustin's or Envirotex Lite will give them back their finish.
The carpets are good and just need steam cleaning.
The door cards ain't to bad but again I want to match these in leather like the seats.
In general there is nothing that can't be fixed, although the dash walnut looks and feels like it is a vinyl replacement as it is very flimsy and does not match the door veneer.
Next to inspect is the bodywork, I had full intentions before the purchase of having a full wings off re-spray as it was advertised as being cosmetically challenged and in a few places that's quite true. A dint on the bonnet that can't be knocked up without cutting a section of the underside heat shield out, the false air intake being slightly deformed which with a bit of persuasion and patience can be straightened. The paint work is blistering in places, mostly where the wings meet the main body but this can be sorted when the wings are off. I have seen the rubber separator that Frosts supply for these jobs that leave a rubber quadrant on the meeting of the 2 pieces and a rubber separator between the join. It is similar to the quadrant used when tiling around internal walls.

The chrome work will need re-working which will of course be farmed out.
The doors are a bit rusted under the capping's where water has been allowed to gather after wet driving. Something to check if you own a Kallista; and the passenger door does not close properly.
Moved on to the engine and this is a bit of a mess. No spoiler on here which I reckon may well prevent a lot of water and road soil from building up. This car ain't seen a lot of love in a long time, everything is rusting from the sump to the engine mounts; all need to be removed for sandblasting and rust prevention.
The engine is leaking oil maybe / hopefully its just from the rocker covers but no doubt with my luck it will be the head.

It may be best to remove the engine for a full sand blast and paint job, I am seriously considering having a un-leaded conversion done so this may well sort out the engine leak. Either way I reckon an engine removal is the only way to get the engine and the bay back to sound condition Anyone out there experienced in engine removal I have access to a engine hoist?
The underside front is in a pretty bad way (ain't got to the rear yet), this is again rust. The lower ball joint gaiters are both split  and I know from the MOT that the brake calipers are seized so it will all have to come apart from the brakes to the sub frame.

                                                                        Offside

                                                                      Nearside





On the good side, the exhaust looks good; I thought that the V6 had a twin exhaust from the silencer. This car has a long transverse silencer 2 pipes going in and 1 pipe coming out anyone know if this is correct.
Well looks like I have my work cut out for me. GREAT

See ya Paul