Windscreen removal

Hi

Well I've had my marching orders and am off on Monday morning 0605 flight to Schipol then a helicopter out to the ship for 2 weeks then the reverse journey, even after 35 years at sea I am still looking forward to it, guess I really am a sad B!"**;D.

Back on the other seat today and got that finished, much the same as the first but a lot easier as I new what to do this time.

This one is a little worse than yesterdays but nothing that can't be fixed.

I stripped of all of the clips and removed the springs, straight off now I know how to whack them.

The frame is a lot rustier than the other, but again a good clean then acid etch primer and a couple of coats off satin black and it looked as new.

Something I missed when I first got the seats is that the plastic cover is missing, you can see the centre screw and where the cover is broken off.

The other one is there but this is a little cracked.

Nothing that a little fibre glass can't repair, I shall clean it up and give it a spray. I shall make a one out of wood or steel for the other side.

While the paint was drying I carried on with the saddle soap and gave the leather a good clean then put everything back together again.

After I finished yesterday I had a look on YouTube for lessons on leather dyeing and straight away I found a video from a local firm www.furnitureclinic.co.uk who supply all of the kit to do it yourself, wish I had of known earlier as the colour match would have been perfect. Any one wishing to see this video check out this link it is in two parts and other training videos are available.

I also managed to get a few other jobs done starting with the bonnet hinges, I had already cleaned these up by soaking them in rust remover and had them primmed so they just required a couple of coats of paint.

I also thought it was about time the windscreen came off and got put away somewhere safe until I can work on it, its a pretty straight forward job to remove it.

The first bolts I removed where from the centre hold down rod, there are 2 bolts on the dash and behind the mirror there are rivets. It probably would have been easier to drill out the rivets but as I had spent all of that effort getting the footwells cleaned and painted I didn't want bits of swarf all over. I then moved onto the end bolts and started to remove them until I realised that the bolts would not come out until the dash end plates had been removed so I had to drill out these rivets.

You can see the 3 rivets and the bolts, a simple job after that; just remove the bolts and lift.

Well the car looks even sadder now that the screen has been removed.

I have also removed the wipers, these have seen better days along with the sun shades so I think they are destined for the bin.

Well that's all I managed today, I never got my tuition on body work but plenty of time for that although the owner of the paintshop where the car is being re-sprayed came around and we agreed on a colour scheme and a price. The body is going to be a deep red candy and the wings are to be pearlescent cream. I haven't quite decided on the bonnet yet, wether to keep it candy or to match the wings, either way it will look pretty good.

A lot more work before then.

see ya Paul

Seat's

Hi

Thought I had best get the TVR Griffith seats fitted today but never got that far as the frames caught my attention so I got stuck into them.

Firstly I thought I would see what kind of fit they are,

Not to bad, the seat has lots of clearance, so getting at the handle will be easy but the back is an inch or so wider than the originals and rubs against the side frame, but look good.

I am still deciding whether or not to use the original Panther runners as these are in better condition than the TVR runners, although nothing that a little sanding and spraying won't fix but will decide tomorrow.

You can see what 20 years worth of wear is like but the bolts came out easy enough to remove the runners, I pulled the clips to see what had to be removed to release the under frame for painting.

Just a simple matter of removing the springs, I think not, it took a bit of working out, as there is a lot of tension on them, but as always it came down to a hammer and chisel; well a long screwdriver anyway. I turned the frame on its side then placed the screwdriver where the spring hooks into the frame and whacked it, easy. It was then just the removal of the clips and the frame came out.

It wasn't in to bad a condition, just a matter of rubbing down to key and remove the rust, then a coat of primer and a couple of coats of Satin black.

I also sprayed the exposed frame parts on the seat back after masking off the seat.

While the frame was drying I got on with cleaning the leather, I had a tin of saddle soap for the job and the grime came straight off.

This is a shot before the cleaning.

When the frame was dry I then had a bit of a job fitting it back into seat, again it was the springs causing the problem and after a search of the workshop I decided on the the hook end of the oil seal removal tool. This hooked onto the spring and with a lot of pulling I was able to slip the end into hole of the frame, the leather was then stretched back for the clips to be replaced. I have refitted the seat together for the time being as it still needs to come apart again for re-colouring .

I have ordered a 250ml Dye kit for £40 to re-dye the leather, the eBay add was for a 65ml kit but on talking to the guy I upped the order to the 250ml set, the colour is 92 Griffith Magnolia.

I also found out that they use an airbrush to apply the dye, it just so happens that I have a couple of airbrushes and an airbrush compressor sitting unused in the loft, better dust it of.

I shall get on with the next seat tomorrow, it should go a lot faster now I know how to strip them, I also found out from the guy I bought the kit from that it would be around £250 for them restore the seats plus the courier both ways, so over £300. Think I'll give it ago.

I also got the paint roller out and painted the inside of the cockpit, hopefully I'll be able to start on the seat fitting mods tomorrow.

It is all going to be covered in soundproofing and carpet but it should last longer than me now that its well protected.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a visitor coming round, he is a friend of my Brother in Law and has been a Paint sprayer / car body man since leaving school and is now retired from that but has over 30 years of knowledge of which I hope to get out of him.

See ya Paul

Carpet Removal

Hi

Back at it again.

I spent all of last week down at Teeside airport, one of the best fire training establishments is based there and I had been put on a 6 day Fire emergency fast response team and Heli emergency course, so I can guess what my emergency station in my new job will be. Great course, put lots of fires out and had a great time.

Did a bit more on the engine before starting on the body work, seems I made yet another mistake which I have rectified. The first time I follow the instructions in the user manual and I get it wrong. 

I had used 15w40 oil for the flushing oil but thought for the general running I would use what the manual says and that is 20w50 WRONG! I have been reliably informed by Terry B that 20W50 is to heavy and that 15W40 is the correct one to use. So it now has yet another filter and is topped up with Castrol GTX.

I have also made a video of the timing which after looking at does not show the timing marks very well but what the hell it still sounds nice.

The last few days has been spent stripping the rest of the car and getting together the materials for preparing the bodywork.

Plenty of bits required
Flat blocking pad and different grades of paper from 40 to 800
DA Sander, still waiting for the 6" pad
100 6" discs in 4 different grades 120 220 380 and 500 for the DA
Box of tack rags
2Kg tin Aluminium filler
Onion board for mixing filler
Pack of 10 filler mixing/applicators
Tin of black spray for checking high/low spots for when rubbing down
Tin of 2 pack primer filler
5 Lt tin paint prep
No doubt this will not be the end as I am bound to have missed something.

Before starting the bodywork I needed to remove the other door, seat belts and the hood, these came of easy just nuts and bolts. I shall strip the door and the get the frame off the hood later.

I have spent the best part of today trying to remove the rest of the soundproofing and carpet then cleaning the residue; and what a job it is. Both the soundproofing and carpet are glued down, I started with a chisel to scrape underneath until I remembered I had a multitool then it went a lot easier.

It still took a bit of work.

I new from working under the car that the footwell was not holed but was pleased to see just how good it was, there was a light coating of rust on the surface but that soon disappeared once I attacked it with the wire wheel on the grinder.

When it was all cleaned and vacuumed I decided to prime the footwell but as always I got a bit carried away.

  I have used Zinc oxide primer and shall paint it black tomorrow.

Well a bit more progress done, more tomorrow.

see ya Paul

Doors

Hi
Not as much done yesterday as I was hoping for, to many things happening but I did manage to get stage 2 finished and today got onto stage 3 of the restoration.

I started yesterday by getting the engine warmed up for an oil change, I gave the engine a good run yesterday even driving it backwards and forwards in the drive to get both the engine oil warmed up and the gearbox, diff oil circulating. I let it cool down a bit before draining and changing the filter, I had added a tin of Wynn's oil flush to the oil to reach the oil ways that I hadn't been able to clean. On draining the oil I was very pleased at how clean it came out, pretty spotless, in fact; it cost over £25 in oil, a filter and the Wynn's to give it a flush but better safe than sorry. It would have been another £20 for the replacement oil except my Brother in law has a couple of MG's he is restoring and had bought his oil in bulk 25Lts of Comma 20W50 in 5 Lt tins for the price of 2 tins and he very kindly let me have one of the tins.

I checked in the handbook and this is the recommended grade of oil for the Cologne engine although it has a very strange leaf green colour, never seen that in an oil before, lots of reds but never green.

Next I set up my timing strobe gun to check the the timing but even with this I could just get a ballpark setting, it sounds good and looks to be around 10 degs but the scale is so wide and a little difficult to see.

Well that was stage 2 finished, I image there will still be a fair bit to do in the engine bay latter on but for now that's that.

Stage 3 

Getting the body work / wings rubbed down and filled where needed.

The doors removed / stripped and de-rusted.

The cockpit stripped of the carpets and soundproofing then painted.

The hood removed and the frame cleaned and painted.

The windscreen removed and stripped then new seal fitted.

The windscreen framework either polished by myself or professionally done.

The new seats temp fitted and the runner modifications done.

The seat belt mods done.

Re-fit the wings and manufacture new step frames.

Bend the stainless plate to fit over the step.

New soundproofing fitted.

Carpets bought and center section fitted.

Heater fitted.

Respray.

Well that's the basics, so where to start.

I already have a lot of the carpets removed and I have ordered the soundproofing from ebay, there is a whole mountain of soundproofing to choose from but I have stuck to thick Jute that was originally fitted to the car. It cost £25 for 2m x 1.37 which may be enough to complete the inside, if not I shall get some more. 

I had planned to start with removing the rest of the carpets and soundproofing but the door kept getting in the way so change of plans and off with the door.

I never new that there were so many parts to a door, not including the screws and bolts there must be around 20 parts to remove, so I started with the capping then the handle, trim and winder before removing the door card. This is kept on with a series of push studs around the edge and then it is pushed up as there is a fold over that fits between the window and the door.

The plastic sheet is stuck to the inner side which was easily removed in one piece reveling all of the inners.

I was very pleased at just how rust free it was after all of these years, many thanks to the builders for the wax oil treatment on the inner skin.

The hinges and door swing stop came next, these have had a rougher time of it but nothing that a sandblast can't cure, I may pull the pins and have them powder coated with the next batch, the door is quite heavy so a little care required when the last bolt is removed.

I now had to figure out how to strip the door apart, it took a couple of hours but mostly that was because a number of the screws had rusted to badly.

The wing mirror was one of these, they is a screw at the rear that must be removed to remove the mirror section to get access to the screws in the door, typically it was not stainless, so I ended up drilling this one out. I plan on replacing the mirrors so any damage does not really matter.

I started the strip with the hinges first then I removed all of the bolts for the window winder mechanism, the side light is held on with 3 nuts and these where also removed and 2 bolts on the bottom bracket which must be removed to allow the side window to slide out I wound the window down and then wiggled it out.

Side window bottom bracket

The window glass can now be slide out on its runner.

The winder mechanism is now wiggled out.

Then the opposite slide runner, the inner runner is part of the side light.

The door handle mechanism was a bit fiddly to get out but once again it was just a matter of working out where the eclips and pins had to be removed, I took a shot of the interior first .

With the bolts removed I wiggled it thorough the hole and removed the clips.

All that was left now was the lock which out of all of the parts caused the most trouble, the locking plate is kept in position with 2 very thin allen bolts which are accessible through 2 small holes but unfortunately none of my whole collection of imperial and metric allen keys would fit. You can see the thin bolts on the interior shot I took, I tried grinding down a key to fit but ended up cutting through them with a air hacksaw then at last the lock dropped out.

That was the door stripped and a whole lot of parts go together to make a door.

After a good clean and rub down with spirit the only rust problem appears to be from the leading edge of the sidelight where it is exposed and meets most of the weather.

I lifted the flaps of the rusted section and cleaned out all of the rust before applying rust cure to the area, I then mixed some A+B molecular metal putty and filled the hole.

It is fast curing but I have left it overnight and shall sand it down tomorrow then acid etch prime, I have also cleaned out all of the interior using spirit and when the paint job is done I shall re-apply the waxoil.

A lot to do over the coming months and a new job so looks like I shall be rather busy.

see ya Paul

Emissions hose to K&N Air Filter

Hi

As I have said in the past, there are good days and bad days and it's about time I had one of the good one's and today was it.

Everything I had planned went mostly Ok with only one or two glitches. 

I started out finishing off the hoses, only one left and this was the thermostatic control pickup, so just a couple of worm clips to tighten and then the pickup to fit. I also had a bit of wiring to complete so a trip to Halfords to pick up a roll of 8 amp and a pack of shrink fit tubes, first to connect was the starter motor and to plug in the oil pressure alarm and distributor plug. I can't find the wire to plug in the cooling water high temp alarm which may be on the old carb loom, I will check tomorrow and if it is I will have to run a new wire to the alarm light.

I had positioned the new oil pressure sender around to the other side of the engine and this was wired up next as having moved it meant that a new wire had to be run through the dash and onto the gauge.

The radiator was filled and a new pot of cooling flush was added then topped up with approx 7 Lt of water, then the fan belt was fitted.

The carb, throttle linkage and choke cable went on and all of the hoses plugged in.

I had made a mistake on the fuel pipes last time I fitted the engine so no mistakes this time. Filter to pump, out of the pump and into the pressure regulator, out of the reg and into the carb. The regulator return back to the tank, just ensure that everything goes in line with the arrows on the pump and regulator.

Not the best photo's but it worked

Once all of these were connected it was time for a dry run before I fitted the plugs and leads, I needed to turn on the starter motor for 2 main reasons, firstly this is how I found the problems last time I tried it by seeing the water in the radiator being pressurised and also to see if the oil pressure rises on the new gauge.

Once I was happy that I had oil pressure it was time to fit the plugs and the leads, the Haynes manual gave the plug gap at 0.6mm so a quick check and re-sett.

Would you believe it the engine started first time, a little bit of choke was required and the first problem was found and it was a bit of a stupid mistake, when fitting the exhaust manifold I has misaligned one of the gaskets which caused an exhaust leak. Easy to fix just slacken off the bolts, removing one and slipping the gasket fully in place.

This video was shot after the engine had been run a number of times so the revving was just for the camera. It still needed a little choke to keep it running so an adjustment to the idle screw and set it up to tick over at 1000rpm and started up first time and ran great.

I'm not to sure about the thermo control for the fan so I set it around midway and it cut in nicely, will have to work that out.

So it is running very nicely, no tapperty sounds and all cylinders seem to be firing in the right order so the order is correct. I shall put the timing strobe on it tomorrow to get it at around 10 deg but it sounds great; which if I hadn't made the mistake of dropping a spring washer into the air intake would have been running around 2 months ago and I would be writing about the bodywork or some other part of the car.

When I was happy with it I followed the instructions in the Haynes manual and removed the rocker covers and checked the head torque only to find that 2 of the head bolts are pretty inaccessible because of the rocker arm tube restricting access. On checking the others I soon realised that they were fine so I will assume that the ones I can't check are Ok.

I had bought a new K&N filter to fit but as I mentioned a while ago I still had the emissions hose to find a place for, the guy selling the filter said that the hose could be left dangling which I was not happy with as I had also been told that this could be an MOT failure. After I mentioned my concerns I received a comment from Brian about the adapter he made to fit the hose into his filter. I had a look on the K&N site and they have them for sale at around £15 for a bit of molded plastic which I thought was a bit hefty so I made my own. They is also a small hose attached from the carb to the filter so I also made an adapter to fit this.

I dismantled the filter and fitted the base plate to the carb to get an idea of where the adapters should go then drilled the holes and fitted the adapters.

I then fitted the hoses and bolted down the base plate.

The filter is new but I was unsure if they come pre-oiled so as I have a oiling kit for my MX5 I gave it a good spraying and fitted the chrome top section.

Well that's that, I finally have a running engine, just the timing to check and I still have to track down a new fan belt as this one has no numbers on it but I do have the workshop manual which has some info in it and I shall track one down.

Still lots to do before this stage is finished and I move onto stage 3.

Well happy

see ya Paul