At Last

Hi

Got back late afternoon on Wednesday from Denmark but had the good news on Tuesday that the car had passed its MOT and was dropped of on Tuesday night. Now the work begins.

To say I was lucky to find Tony the owner of the garage is an understatement as there are not many garage owners that would take a car in for a month and go over it in his spare time with a fine tooth comb to sort out any problems and fix them. I gave him a list of things I wanted checking extra to what would be normal for an MOT certificate with the permission to fix anything he found and to treat the car as if he was going to be driving it and one of the biggest things he found was the steering column.

He initially identified a problem with the indicators as they would not automatically switch off after a turn was complete and the steering lock did not work, on removing the steering wheel he found a bit of play in the column and thought it was the bearing that was gone.

He removed the steering column from the car and found a couple of things wrong; thankfully none of the problems found where caused by me as I had not removed the column from the car only the knuckles in the engine bay.
He identified the problem causing the movement as the spring being in backwards, it is a tapered spring and needs to be fitted the correct way around to give the tension on the column. This was put right and a new bearing fitted, looks like its been removed in the past. 

He also found that the wheel did not engage far enough down the shaft and that the whole of the frame was in the wrong position, once he explained the problem to me I realised that the difficulty I had removing the screw from the top binnacle cover was caused by this as it was set partially under the dash and was hell to get in and out.

The frame then came out and was marked to re-position it setting everything a little more forward and drilled.

I don't propose to understand quite what the problem was but everything went back together and the indicators now automatically stop and the steering lock works. Also the screw to remove the binnacle top cover that I had such a difficult time removing is now in its correct position and easy to access.

I now have another problem which he did not realise until the car was being driven to my house and that is the wheel is a few degrees out of centre, this was not caused by Tony as I had thought for a long time that when I replaced the steering column to the rack it was in the wrong position I could not really tell as the wheel alignment was so far out, now it is set up correctly it is pretty obvious. So one of my jobs is to move the rack out a little and re-adjust the spline where it enters the rack to centre the wheel.

The tracking and geometry is fully set up for KPI, Caster and Camber.

Again this is something I am not trained in but Tony had all of the gear to do the job which he said was twice as old as the car but still worked just fine.

I would love to be able to explain what was going on with each picture but I am just a thicky.

The KPI (King pin Indication) is 2 3/4" on both sides which is unadjustable and is set by the upper bearing.

The Castor is set to 2 deg's

The Camber is at 1.5 deg's

The front wheel bearings were set up correctly, I had them set up Ok but just a little on the loose side, they have to have play to allow for the expansion of the bearing due to the heat generated and I had them a little to loose.

The brakes where tested and the rear brake shoes also got looked at and although they have auto tensioners on them a few adjustments where made.

He has also found a couple of other things that I shall have put right although one of them could have been done when up on the ramp and that is a small oil leak from the speedo cable where it enters the gearbox. I had fitted a new rubber seal in there but he thinks it just needs repositioning as it may not be in far enough, there is also a shaking on the speedo dial until it reaches 40mph where it settles. He said he remembers this was problem on the Cortina and there was a fix at the time which will be looked at in the future.

I was also missing the lock nuts for the flexi brake pipes where they are fixed onto the brackets, he has replaced them.

The Carb has also been adjusted for the emissions and it ticks over and runs lovely.

The clutch was checked and I had set it up correctly also the timing was spot on at 9 degrees and the tappets were good so at least I got some things right.

The modification I had made to the cooling system works well, this was fitting the expansion tank as suggested by Terry B and also the electric fan works great. I have had the car out most of the afternoon and the temperature has held steady, think it was around the 170 deg F mark but will check.

Another mod that I should have done before was the fan belt tensioner, I realised when I had the problem with the alternator cabling that it was to close to the rocker covers and needed a longer belt but hadn't got round to it. The problem was caused by the fitting of the new ally rocker covers as the old covers are shaped to allow the alternator to fit. 

You can see just how tight it is.

And even tighter round the back.

I made a longer tension bar, unfortunately I was working from memory as I only had the length dimensions with me and got the angled cut out on the wrong side but this turned out to be no problem when fitted.

The new belt is a 1175mm x 10mm

The extra distance brings the alternator out much further away from the rocker covers.

Much easier to change the belt now.

I took it of SORN this morning and bought 6 months road tax as it will get laid up for the winter and I shall SORN it again then but lots of jobs to do.

The dash needs a little work as removing the light cluster to get to the wiring and to remove the 24v lamps that had been fitted caused a bit of damage to the veneer, I shall have to think of a fix for this. I have also booked it in with Ant at the paint shop for the 4th August where the paint finish will get a machine polish and any more paint damage will get fixed but other than that it drives great and I only stalled it 3 times while out.

See ya Paul

Chips Away

Hi

Been a bit busy lately so not much done and the weather has been great so what time I had available was used to get the car outside and start on the paintwork repairs, I am a total amateur at this in fact it is my first time at chip repair but I have a fall back plan of taking it back to Ant's paint shop and getting my mess sorted.

When sorting thru my bills for the agreed valuation I came across a Panther brooch I bought quite a bit ago while combing thru eBay I also found the bill for it which was £37 wow a bit expensive I think now but it is very well made and looks great on the grill. I had to modify it a little by cutting of the brooch locking pin and gluing on a bolt.

I have around 6 repairs to do to the paint work and thought I would start in the most inconspicuous place in the door jamb, the damage was caused when I was trying to lift the door in position, just me and Lynne and it touched the paint.

I arranged all of the gear 

which is quite a bit.

You need a-

Pot of water for you paper grades I worked with 600 800 and 1500 grits and kept them wet all of the time. 

High build 2k primer, I have found early on that when using a tin of spray primer then using a solvent paint causes problems where the edges lift off which does not happen with a 2k primer. 

Solvent for thinning and paint prep for cleaning plus a tack rag for the dusting off.

Your paint coded for the car.

Small mixing pots which I get from Asda and are disposable shot glasses.

2K Lacquer and hardener, I used the same hardener used for the primer.

Filler 

Air brush with fine spray pattern, I have a number of air brushes from the Badger type bottle suction to the 2 stage top feed, this is the preferred one as it gives a very fine spray and is fully adjustable.

Polish machine and cutting compounds.

Masking tape & paper

The damage to the door jamb was around 8mm wide and was just the top coat but once I rubbed it down it still required a little primer.

First job was to mask up rub it down with a piece of 800 to feather the edges.

I then mixed up a small amount of primer and air brushed it on.

Then cut back with the 800 and carefully rubbed it smooth and level.

Then I mixed up the base coat with thinners and airbrushed, extending the area a little.

Then the lacquer was air brush  on.

Once dry I rubbed it down with 1500 and polished

So for a first attempt I was rather pleased

Just below this one on the rear wing was a deep chip, no idea how this happened but with things so tight in the garage I am very surprised I have a paint job left.

I rubbed out the sharpness and feathered the edges.

Instead of using filler I thought I would try a few coats of high build.

I rubbed down between each coat until happy with the level.

Then airbrushed on the base coat.

You can see the edges of the paint so I rubbed this down with 800 and give it another coat but this time allowing the pattern to go a little wider.

I then lacquered and rubbed and polished.

The worst chip was a deep one right on the front of the wing, I remember this one as the wing was next to the work bench and a tool or nut or something rolled off and hit it.

This one needed a little filler, so I cleaned with thinners and filled.

I used 600 to rub this down and primed.

Next was the base coat and lacquer.

This photo is before I polished but you can see the line of lacquer at the top so this one is going to be done again, the chip is invisible but the finish is poor.

Another failure is in front of the wind screen mount, this happened when fitting the screen by myself and it went a little astray.

Again I rubbed it down to feather the edges .

Then a coat of primer.

Then the base coat.

And lastly the lacquer.

It was all going so well until I got a little impatient and started sanding before it was fully cured which made a little bit of a mess, its really just a colour shade difference but will need re-doing.

Not to bad for a beginner but once on the road I shall take it to the paint shop and have them go through it checking and polishing.

When buying the front registration plate I asked the guy there about a reliable mechanic who would be more interested in the car than making a quick buck and he put me onto the guy across the road, so of I went and could not believe my luck. He knew Panthers from old and Cologne engines and was more than happy to take the car in and go over it with me. Time is not a problem as he will keep the car when I am away and go through all of the requirements for the MOT and set up every thing I want doing.

One job we got onto straight away was the inability of the battery to charge, I knew I was having problems but not to sure what it was so I bought a new alternator and fit that thinking this was the problem, but I still had no charging readings.

I had the car picked up on Tuesday and on Wednesday we got started and straight away found that the  lamp on the battery indicator was out and also it was a 24volt we changed the lamp to complete the circuit and still had a problem in that it would charge then stop when something was moved. The problem was traced to the blue wire from the alternator to the lamp so I disconnected this wire and ran a new one and the problem was instantly solved. I have also found a 24 volt lamp in the headlight indicator so all 24 volt have been replaced with 12 volt.

We also got set up on the headlight angle machine and found that I had mixed up the drivers side wiring from Low and high beam, I got on and changed the wires around then did a test and tightened into position all perfect.

The owner of the garage Tony positioning the lamp.

So I shall be going down to the garage trying to learn a little more but more than likely it will be done when I am away as it is a very busy place.

I have also been a bit of a bad boy again and spent some of my time car hunting.

I fell in love with the BMW Z4 Sdrive when I first saw one a couple of years ago so I pick mine up on Saturday, its a 2013 plate only 10 months old with 3120 miles on the clock in Orange with a fantastic black and orange leather interior. It's the 1.8i M sport with 19" alloys I was going to go for the 2.0i but age, low miles and 2 years warranty won me over to the 1.8

Might seem a strange colour but it looks fantastic, can't wait till Saturday.

See ya Paul