All articles
Saturday, 03 November 2012
Off to the Beauty Parlour
- Article Details
With 300 miles on the clock I've decided to give her to Ross, the paint man, for a bit of a tidy up.
I don't want a respray. Rather I want to get the little dings and scratches sympathetically touched up and get a nice polish to tart the old girl up a bit. From the beginning I intended to have a drivable car, not a trailer queen.
Watch this space.
Read moreSunday, 28 October 2012
Warming up
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Well to be honest, this project is pretty much finished.
Today I re installed the air box and set the indicator cancellation.
Not much else to do.
But..I was up at Chris's on Friday and got stuck into stripping a Series 1 4.2 OTS.
Once this one's done it's time to start my Series 1 3.8l OTS! I plan to have it stripped by the end of November. Body shop reckons they'll have it back to me by July 2013, so by then I plan to have the IRS and engine rebuilt, along with all the other bits. I'm particualrly looking forward to locking horns with the Kelsey Hayes servo.
Watch this space!
Read moreMonday, 22 October 2012
Running in
- Article Details
250 miles on the clock now and it has only broken down twice.
Well 3 times.
Actually 4. No. 5 if you count frying the rubbish SimonBBC dizzy as well, although that only took 30 seconds and the car was stationary in the shed at the time.
Problems so far include:
1. Pertronics Ignitor fried, probably by faulty coil from SimonBBC
2. SimonBBC distributor and electronic coil fried by its own coil
3. Missing and backfiring; fuel starvation due to a combination of fuel filter blockage with crap from "cleaned" tank and fuel line compression by spare wheel.
4. Alternator failure; car ran bravely until battery was completely exhausted.
5. I still have to get to the bottom of the alternator problem; I suspect the alternator control relay as replacing the alternator with a different one made no difference. Although it might be the "new" battery too...
Roll on Mr Lucas; I say!
Ineterestingly; the picture below shows the battery gauge, and the battery is charging...hmmm.
Read moreFriday, 19 October 2012
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Newer is not necessarily better
- Article Details
Points, condenser. New coil, dizzy cap, rotor arm.
Turned the key and VROOM.
12 miles driven. Initial impression is positive.
Needs a wheel alignment and balance (Friday).
Ron is going to pick up my bumpers from Carl the Idiot tomorrow. Only took him 4 1/2 months.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
Back together...but..
- Article Details
Having reinstalled the seats yesterday only putting the speedo in and the bonnet back on remained for today.
After an initial successful start of the engine I put the speedo back in. Took a little while to work out which light was which, but it all went easily.
However after this the engine just woundn't start. Dead as.
There was a good 12v at the coil but absolutely no spark. Eventually I put in another distributor; started straight away. Somehow I've managed to fry the brand new Pertronics Ignitor. I've never even driven the car with this one in..
Now, of course, despite the timing being spot on, the bloody thing won't idle. Bitch. I suspect that the "El Crappo" electronic ignition in that dizzy has been damaged too.
Thoroughly annoyed, I have put the bonnet back on, given her a quick wash and put her back in the shed, in disgrace. Tomorrow I'm going to get a standard coil and a set of points and put the old (good) Lucas dizzy back in.
Thursday, 11 October 2012
and the engine...just starts!
- Article Details
Chris Alan and Martin came over to start the engine today.
Martin checked that I'd put all the wiring back correctly. Alan checked everything else. Chris just looked bored.
Martin insisted on Start Ya Bastard. Mostly because he likes ether.
After preflight checks I turned the key and after about 5 seconds it just started.
Anticlimax.
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Tuesday, 09 October 2012
Please be seated
- Article Details
Got the seats back from Alan the trimmer today. They look fantastic.
Hopefully I'll get them back in on the weekend.
Read more
Monday, 08 October 2012
Sunday, 07 October 2012
Pop the carbs back on, Sir?
- Article Details
Daylight savings started today, so I was already an hour behind the 8 ball when I got into the shed. Plan today was to finish the strapping for the wiring, put the carbs back on, reinstall the radiator and fill it.
The wiring was easy, but when I got the carbs down off the shelf I realized that I hadn't bothered to remove the remnants of gasket from the manifold. It quickly became apparent thet they weren't going to peel off easily either.
Eventually it took me about an hour with scrapers, razor blades and a soft wire brush to get the manifold clean, but in the process a lot of crap had found its way into the airways. Realising that I had to get it all out it became obvious that I'd have to separate the manifold from the carbs and blow it out with compressed air. Which I did. After all there's only 12 nuts holding it all together. 5 minutes work.
That done, and remembering that the bottom row of 9 manifold to head nuts are tricky to get on, I decided to take advantage of the extra space and bolt the manifold on first, then bolt the carbs to that.
See? Here's the manifold bolted on. Isn't it pretty? Took 5 mins.
The next step was to mount the carbs on those 12 studs, and fit one spring washer and one nut on each. Plus the return spring brackets on the front 2 carbs. Now the top nuts are a doddle, as is the front one at the bottom.
BUT. A BIG but. The other 5 are almost completely inaccessable and the rearmost one is also impossible to see and nearly impossible to get a spanner to. It took another 2, maybe 3 hours to get those 5 nuts on. I had to magnetize a variety of screwdrivers, cut a spanner in half to tighten the rearmost nut, and I simply couldn't get washers on 2 of the studs at all.
Moral of the story? Yes putting the carbs and manifold on in one piece is a little tricky and last time took me around 30 minutes. BUT it's much easier than trying it this way!
