Thursday 30 June 2011

First parcel and wire wheels


It's Christmas time!!!!  I love it, arriving home and finding such a huge parcel waiting for me! ja ja



It's my first order from Moss. It has all the parts to rebuild completely the braking system, the suspension, maintenance, and plenty of small parts to rebuild the car. There is also a stainless steel exhaust system. Sadly, there are some important parts such as front brake disks on back order, and I wont receive them until 2 weeks time more or less. That means that I have to wait until then to take the car to the mechanic.


Finally I decided to order a new brake master cylinder. Using the original one was too risky due to the poor state of the bore walls, and I really wanted to have the best braking system the car may have. I made several phone call to different providers, and found that Moss had the correct 3/4 bore master cylinder I needed (front drum cars will use 7/8 bore, and front brake disk cars will use 3/4 bore), at a very competitive pricer. And specially, as I still have some parts from my order in back order, they will send it to me at no extra shipping cost, great!


I also received the 4 wire wheels after sending them to professionally sand blast. The result is extraordinary! After sand blasting and removing all the paint and every trace of rust, they gave 2 coats of phosphate primer. The work was done by the company Kira Klaus in Burgos-Spain, which specializes in all kind of professional sand blasting (from small parts to industrial machinery). Their tel is 646768576 if someone is interested. Now I still have to sand the wheels with some 400 grit sand paper before painting them. I will be using a silver wheel paint made by DupliColor, which has a very good quality based on my readings in several international forums.

Original condition of two of the wire wheels

Wire wheels after sand blasting and phosphate primer




Looking forward to work this weekend, where hopefully I will do the following:

-use the grinder to remove all the paint and rust from the outside of the fuel tank plus painting using Por15

-sand and paint the 4 wheels

Monday 27 June 2011

Master Cylinder overhaul

Most important thing for security and MOT test, is having a strong a perfect brake system. So I have ordered most of it's components new from Moss: hoses, slave cylinders, drums, pads, disks, etc.... except for the brake master cylinder, which is a little bit special, as it has a dual function actuating as brake and clutch system. This master cyl is very expensive item when new, about 250 eur, so I ordered a rebuild kit with all the rubber parts and seals. Yesterday I completely dismantled the cyl, and found plenty of an ugly and gummy brown brake fluid, which said nothing good about it's situation.



After cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning, I covered all the intakes with some painters tape so I could scratch the outer surface, to finally paint it with por-15.



And now comes the problem: after a close examination of the two bores, the internal surface is in a very poor situation, pitted and rusted. Therefore I am terribly worried about what to do. Inserting new rubber parts may solve the situation for some time, but I am sure that the poor state of the internal surface will finally damage again rubber parts finding my self with a broken master cylinder in a short period of time. Apart from that, my personal safety (and copilots safety) is priority, and I dont feel comfortable in this situation.








I have been gloogling a little bit and found a USA company called Sierra Specialty Automotive, that will re-bore and fit a new sleeve, thus making a complete new cylinder. After reading some blogs and personal pages, they have a very good reputation. Problem is cost, at nearly $200 is not cheap, and not only that, sending a master cyl to the States can cost up to 30-35 eur, and way back. Yes, shipping costs from Spain to the resto of the world is incredible expensive. It costs more to send a letter from Spain to Spain, than ordering a part from the UK to Spain.... So I need to make some numbers, and search for new ones if possible in Europe. First call in the morning tomorrow monday will be to Moss, and hopefully if they have not yet send my parcel, y can add a new cyl and combine shipping costs. That's of course if they have new cylinders and at a reasonable price.....

Friday 24 June 2011

Fuel tank cleaning and wheels restoration

Progress is slow....

Some days ago, I removed the 4 wheels and went to the wheel shop that will be fitting new tyres and tubes. Finding in Madrid a wheel shop that has previously worked with wire wheels has not been an easy task. Looks like it´s a black art nowadays. Plenty of phone calls, until a friend told me to call a shop outside Madrid. I called the manager Pedro, who confirmed that they had all the necessary equipment and special cones to correctly balance wire wheels. They have several customers with wire wheel classic cars. The company name if anyone is interested is Aguilera e Hijos.

Original wire wheels looked to be in good condition, so we removed the original 145 Michelin radial tyres, dated 1998. Once the tyres and tubes where removed, I found that most of the spoke heads where rusted, so then realized that the best option would be to professionally sand blast them, as using my hobby cabinet would be slow and I will really destroy most of my blast material, which is so expensive. So I gave them a quick clean, and gave them to a person who will in theory tomorrow, sand blast them. He will also apply a primer, and I will paint them with a special rim silver spray paint.


I am concerned, that when the tubes where removed, I only found a protection band in the center spoke head circle, but not on the lateral ones. The only image I have found on internet of a wire wheel with the protection band, will show two of them. I need to verify is only one is necessary, or I need two.

Two days ago, I made a huge parts order to Moss Europe. Mostly all the necessary part to completely rebuild brakes, suspension, filter, hoses, lights, and plenty of new gaskets, grommets, seals, bolts and nuts, to pass the MOT and make the engine run again. I was aware of the existence of the company MOSS, but I had never made an order from them. After verifying they have a vast stock of parts (even the last bolt), reading good references, and verifying the prices where good or better that others, I made the first of my future orders. The huge parcel should be arriving next week, i'm so excited about it!!!!


Today I made a small weekend project, and removed the fuel tank. As the car was with jack stands because I have removed the 4 wheels, I had a great opportunity to do so, and the access to the fuel tank was fantastic. I first used my trusty Kartcher to clean it and the surrounding to have a better handling. First unbolted the fuel line (yes, it is bolted as if it was a brake line into a brake cylinder). Then removed the 6 nuts that hold the tank to the underbody, and finally removed the fuel neck inside the boot. What I found was an original fuel tank, with plenty of surface rust, and some areas with the original paint. 


I cleaned the fuel tank with the Kartcher, and then removed the fuel sender units, total of 6 small bolts. The inside of the tank looks to be in very good condition, some small rust pitting, and some deposits of years of use. My technique to clean fuel tanks is always the same: I filled the tanks with about 1 kg of very small tones, like the ones used in fish tanks for home use, and then with high pressure water I move them inside the tank. Today I have used the Kartcher with the 90º angle tip, that makes the stones scratch all the inside surface. Others have used chains from a chain saw, with some water and shake for some minutes. I´m sure it's a good option also. I know many people would just buy a new fuel tank, as they are cheap, but I believe to try maintain most of the original parts when it´s possible and restore them. Buying new parts is always possible and easy, you only need money. But restoring a car for me is not buying all new parts, the funny thing is to restore as much as possible. For me a classic car made out of all new parts, has nothing special.








Next week I will use a wire wheel to clean all the surface, and paint it. I will use POR-15 black paint which should give a great shine and paint durability.

This weekend I will be cleaning some parts with the sand blast machine and paint them. Will post some updates then.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Work starts


Yes, work starts, and what a better way to start working than making a great barbecue with the family?


I started with the left floor pan. The metal is in great condition, but had several surface rust spots. Also, the floor pan was covered with anti chip material that in most places was starting to peel off. I think the paint and anti chip was original, as the metal was covered with a red primer that I can see all over the car, then a layer of antichip, and then all painted Riviera Blue.



In this photo you can appreciate the original state of the floor pan. As I said, the metal was very sound, but I thought a little bit of cosmetical work would be nice.




Next I scrapped all the paint and antichip with a spatula, and finally used a very coarse grinding paper. I removed the hole plugs. After cleaning the metal with some solvent, I gave the fist of two layers of primer. Once again I have been using the Dupli-Color primer which should give a good result. 


Once the primer was dry, I was ready to apply the Riviera Blue colour, that my paint shop prepared specially for me in a spray can. All of the paint materials I buy them at Gosan in Madrid, a shop where auto specialists use to buy. The spray paint they prepared, is top quality. This special spray cans are specially made for cars, because the nozzle has a special patern and will make a fine horizontal spray, rather than a circular spray patern found in common spray cans. I gave two coats of colour.

Final result was superb, but had to go home so could not see final result once completely dry. But so far, so good!

Next week end, I plant to paint the right hand floor pan. But the interesting thing is that I am planing to use POR-15 as a base coat and apply it over the bare metal. Then I would sand it, apply the primer, and then the blue colour. I have a POR15 can that I got from Holden & Vintage when they used to come to the Retromobile anual show at Madrid, so I was not paying the shipping cost. I am seriously thinking in applying POR15 to many parts, as the more I read and see YouTube videos about it, I am more convinced about it's great quality to treat and prevent rust. I need to search for local shops where I can buy it to reduce shipping costs.

I have seen at YouTube a video of Chris from VW Classic Bugs where he has completely covered the underside of the care just with POR15 and the job looked superb! But first I have to finish all the mechanical side of the car, pass the MOT test and lots of other important jobs.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Imperial nuts!!!

Well, some days ago, I was removing some nuts and bolts from the pedal box assembly, and thought the bolt was a 11 size spanner. But looked to be small, so used a 12 size spanner, and it was big..... hummmm, there's something strange..... aha!! the bolts are in imperial size!!! so I had a huge problem, as all my tool box is from the normal size of the world ;-)

So I ended up making a quick search on ebay and found quite few spanner sets. Some where very expensive, and as I am on a budget, I got a Draper set (seller name: mccormick tools UK) and Silverline set (seller name: spanner2hammer.co.uk)

Fortunately the sets where cheap at £16 the Drapper set and £3 for the silverline set. I am sure the quality is not the same as those £100 sets i've seen, but should be ok, I hope....

Now I can remove all the bolts without worrying about damaging the bolts heads.

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Finally I only had the time to sand blast one of the parts. It's really amazing how easy and the results I can obtain with that machine. How can I have been so many years without a sand blasting machine? It´s not too big, but the size I wanted cost about twice. I think it could handle even a 10 inch Mini rim. Although my compressor has a small tank, the work was fast, I think it took me about 20 minutes to make it. The result is a nice metal part, with no corrosion or paint and a perfect surface that should give a good key for the primer.



I cleaned the surface with a rag and alcohol to remove any dirt or dust, as I didn't have any special liquid like the ones used in professional paint workshops. I sprayed two coats of primer, giving about 20 minutes between each coat. The primer I am using is made by dupli-color. As these kind of parts I'm painting them in the kitchen (shhh, dont tell my wife!), I'm unable to use a 2 pack epoxy primer. I really wish I had the space to do it, as that kind of primer is the best one I could ever use. But in my situation I needed to find a good primer on a spray can. The paint shop told me the dupli-color primer was the best one I could get. Also they told me that I always need to put the best primer I can get, and then I can use the same or a lower quality paint. But never a low quality primer + good quality paint as the paint will always tend to remove the primer. I will possibly buy the dupli-color sating black for the top coat of paint.