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Sunday, 26 August 2012
Back from the machine shop
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The block, head and crank came back from the machine shop last week looking lovely.
I was initially a little shocked at the $5000 bill, made up of $1500 on the head, $1000 for top hat liners, another $1500 on the block itself and around $1000 for the crank, rods and balancing. However when I looked through the invoice I really have got a lot for my money. Everything is clean, straight, balanced and back to proper tolerances.
I decided early on to replace everything else, and I've spent around $2000 on new parts. Around $2500 in labour and I have a $10000 engine.
All things being equal though I should never have to touch the engine again.
Monday, 13 August 2012
Hibernation and reflections on plating.
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Well as with all unicorns, Carl turned out to be mostly a mythical creature.
The quality of the zinc plating was substandard but was as expensive as the good platers. And, some of the more difficult to replace bolts were lost. Happily though I did get some extra parts that weren't from my car at all, so that was maybe compensation.
I ended up getting all the zinc replated elsewhere, and it now looks good.
The powder coating was good, however there was a "misunderstanding" with the original quote. When I said "that's for everything?" I understood it to mean that the quote included all of the chrome and zinc plating and the powder coating. Sadly it seems the quote I was given was for the chrome alone, making it the total about 30% more than expected.
The final nail in the coffin though was when I went to pick up the chrome to discover that the holes in the overriders for the Amco bars hadn't been welded up as discussed.
I asked them to give me a call when they had fixed this. As the chroming has taken the best part of 2 months I won't be looking for them much before Christmas..
Here is the reassembled front suspension in all its glory. Now if it would only warm up enough to enable me to paint I could start putting the car back together.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Happy Anniversary!
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Tomorrow marks one year to the day since I bought this car.
To celebrate, I have removed even more from under the bonnet. Well, actually I have now removed everything from under the bonnet.
I sanded back the tops of the engine frames; they feel nice and flat. A bit more painting to be done and reassembly can commence.
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
More plating
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Did I mention that I love freshly plated parts? Can't actually do much with these until I put the engine back in though.
Sunday, 24 June 2012
and they said you couldn't spray at 11*C
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Done and dusted.....well, undercoated.
More prep
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The more I look at the paint on the frames, the worse it looks. Some clown has blown acrylic over the tops of the frames and the firewall without preparing the paint below. Result? Areas of loose paint that peel off. So I've sanded the offending areas back to sound paint. I'll have to undercoat some of these areas first before I paint them.
Below is the result of a couple of hours of sand/blow/degrease/mask off.
Laughably, it's been too cold and rainy to actually spray the paint this week, but hopefully I'll get it done in the next few days. Blowing a couple of coats of 2K undercoat/filler on will probably only take 20 minutes or so.
Then it can sit for a couple of weeks, I'll give it a light hand sand and then remask and blow the colour on.
Monday, 18 June 2012
Oh dear...
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I seem to have bought another E Type.
Series 1 3.8l OTS, LHD.
More pics here: www.flickr.com/photos/71499700@N08/sets/72157629836555661/
Sunday, 17 June 2012
Paint it black
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In preparation for blowing some colour over the frames I've put some new sound deadener in the tunnel and on the underside of the guards.
In the past I've used the bitumen based schutz, but this time I'm trying a water-based schutz. It was really easy to spray, and best of all, cleans up in water! I put on a good thick coat.
The weather is against me however; it's cold and drizzly so after spraying it yesterday it's still wet in spots this morning. Not to be defeated I've put a fan heater under the car to encourage it to go off. I'm not painting it with top coat til next weekend anyway so it should be OK.
Monday, 11 June 2012
Spring cleaning
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Well it's actually Winter here, but after 4 hours with degreaser and a scrubbing brush, I have the cleanest engine frames in Christendom.
Next stop, Paint Supplies.
Sunday, 10 June 2012
A worsening of Shipwright's Disease
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I finally bit the bullet today and started to clean up the engine frames. I am determined not to remove them from the car, but I will put some effort into getting as much grime as possible off them and then give them a spruce up with some paint where needed.
So off came the steering rack. It's interesting really as it's the part that started it all.
The grime is really baked on, and only scrubbing with neat degreaser shifts it. I reckon if I give it a really good go I'll get most of it finished tomorrow.
I'm still very reluctant to take out the brake pedals though. I'm hoping to be able to work around them.
We'll see...
