Hood and Door Card

Hi

Last day at home as off to work tomorrow for a month, not as much done this time home and some of what was done has had to be rectified as every Kallista owner reading this blog would have known that I had made a complete arse of fitting the rear of the hood. I had never seen one folded before so did not realise the  importance of the snap studs and the fitting of the studs, I thought it was a normal fold down hood oops! 

So many thanks (yet again) to Terry B for putting me straight.

I fixed the mistake by removing the fancy bolts and replacing with the studs only this time following Terry's direction I riveted the rear 5 male studs on top of the material pulling the hood (with the steel bar inserted) flat onto the body. Whereas before I had riveted the male studs to the body so that the hood was popped onto the body, this is why the steel was lifting the hood off the body.

The male studs on the sides were riveted directly to the body and the female half of the studs where fitted back on the hood, I had to buy new female studs for this as I did not have enough of the original set left, only a couple of pounds but I have had to wait a few days for them to arrive.

Not as perfect as I would have liked it and somehow I have managed to get a little glue on the rear screen which I am very annoyed about, I could have easily removed it with a little thinners but am worried it may haze the plastic of the screen so will have a go on the original hood screen before testing it on one of the corner panels.

The seats have gone to a upholsterer, I found one only around 10 miles away near Durham called Station upholsterers, just a small messy place with the owner of around 70 years old but the pair of Austin Healey seats he was working on proved how good he is. He also does all of the work for Northumberland police and looks after the vehicles of Lord Lampton the Earl of Durham, so a bit of a find.

Not much else done due to the weather being fine and Lynne wanting to go out and when it was raining we stayed home but I could not get the car out of the garage to work on the drivers side.
I have found a little time to fit one of the door cards.

I have refit the original door membrane, I was going to renew it but could not find any heavy duty plastic sheet and as the original was Ok I glued it back in place.

I fitted the 2 screws for the door handle so as to locate the holes once the card was on.

The door card already had new attachment fittings in place so it was just a job of hooking it over the window and popping them into the holes in the door.

The door capping has to be in exactly the right position otherwise it will either prevent the door from closing or hit against the edge of the dash, so to get it correct I got inside and closed the door then offered it up before drilling new holes for the self tapping screws. I did try to find the original holes, I had taken accurate measurements but no way could I get the screws to find the holes so I drilled new ones.

I had tried to find chrome surrounds for the door furniture but without much joy, Terry put me onto the chrome surrounds for the door lock which came from a Mini, which I bought, but the door opener surrounds are a but more difficult to find. The surrounds from the Austin Allegro 2 and possibly the Vanden Plas model are chrome but I could only find one so I am not bothering with the chrome and just keeping to the black.

The door opener surround went on first.

I have tried to fit the door lock surround but one of the holes won't line up and I do not as yet have a small enough drill for a new self tapper to go in so it will have to wait till I get one.

I next cut the vinyl around the window winder and fit that.

Then pressing on the card I felt for the screws on the door handle and very carefully cut to expose these holes and screwed on the handle.

I have also added an extra screw in the centre of the capping as it was bowing out slightly and fitted chrome screw covers.

Back to the hood.

I thought I would have a go at folding the hood; correctly this time, the directions for folding where printed in the January February issue of the club magazine, I must have read them then but old age is setting in and I still messed it up.

I started by lowering the windows and un-popping the sides.

I then folded back the hood helping the rear window to fold back over the rear of the car and made sure the catches were in the closed position.

I then pushed the frame flat and folded the rear screen back over the frame into the car.

I could then neatly fold the side screens over to the middle.

I straightened everything up.

I have a nice new black mohair hood cover made by Ray but have not fitted the studs yet so I have retrieved the original cover and cleaned it up a little and it matches the paint finish very well, in fact out of the whole original car this is the only piece that is still in good condition.

You can still see a little of the bottom of the hood as the studs on the hood are fitted in the centre of the seam whereas the covers studs are near the bottom of the seam, still it won't matter when I fit the studs on the new cover and I might remove these studs and slightly reposition them so as to cover the black line when fitted as the red looks good.

The original cover has elasticated straps that hook under the frame to pull the cover in position, not fitted to the new cover and the elastic is a little perished so I shall buy some new and sew on.

Not as much done as I had hoped but the seats should be finished when I return so its just the drivers side to complete and all the small fittings then fix the scratches and chips before a good cleaning, polishing and waxing before getting ready for the MOT.

see ya (in a month) Paul