Friday 30 September 2011

Hurray!!! back on its wheels

Hurray!! It´s back on its wheels!!! I cleaned with an old tooth brush and some clean fuel, all the wheel hubs, as there was old grease and dirt. The spindles have some light surface rust, that shows there was no grease there. I used some fine sand paper to clean the mating surfaces between the wheel and the hub, and applied liberally amounts of lithium grease.




Now the car has 4 lovely restores wire wheels with new tyres. Have to say, that 3 out of 4 wire wheels had  some important wobble at the outer rim, with about 4-5mm off-set. Normal value should be 1-2mm so let´s see what happens. Sending them to a specialist to center them would cost a fortune, specially because in Spain now there’s no tradition for it, and I have new wire wheels on the UK for as little as 110 pounds. So I will use them, and If I really feel I need to change them, I will do it. But for now, they will make the job.



Although the main electrical harness is correct, some of the outer sleeve has gone in some portions. Reproducing the cotton sleeve is not possible for me, and I just could not stand using black pvc tape…. That´s what any normal mechanic would use when he’s just repairing a car and not restoring a car. So I used some cloth tape I ordered from autosparks. It really gives a nice finish, more period style than normal pvc tape…



Lastly, I painted yellow the fan blades of the water pump plus the pulley. I did not have the correct yellow to match the original paint, and the one I had was too yellow. The original paint, at least on my car, is just the same as what airplane enthusiast now as Piper Yellow. I know an RC plane hobby store that can order me a small can of piper yellow for RC use, so if in the future I need to remove the radiator, I will take the opportunity and paint the blades with the correct colour.



Now the engine bay is looking much, much better: removed a lot of rust, new blue paint, most of the accessories have been removed, and restored, etc. Not it looks neat and tidy. I still have some work with small parts like the washed bottle, new washer plastic tube, clips, brake line (which has been already cleaned and silver painted), etc…



Ahhh, I forgot, As said at the begging of the project, both bonnet hinges where almost gone… very rusty and with no possibility to repair them. I found on ebay a NOS hinge, made by Unipart at a good price  of about 10 pounds, so I ordered it. But I needed one more, do ordered one from MOSS. They sell heritage made hinges, and sadly found when I had both side to side, that holes did not match, and the chances to adapt them where little. So I ended ordering another from Moss, so I had exactly the same two. Having different ones on each side, could make the bonnet not to open/close correctly damaging for example new paint! I sanded a little bit the surface, gave two coats of primer, and a coat of the blue colour.

After checking that the original hinges where mostly rusted on the inside of the hinge, that tells me  it was due to water being trapped there. The new ones have a draining hole on the lowest position, but I will coat them with a thick layer of cavity wax, just to prevent any future rust.

Just one comment on the heritage hinges: it´s extraordinary to see what these people do at the Heritage workshop, taking care of all the original tooling and making new repair panels or even complete body shells, to keep alive their british classic car tradition. Take a look at this awesome article on their work. I really wish other countries had the same level... 

Next Monday I will tow the car to the mechanic to fit the brake parts and suspension. Hopefully in one or two weeks time, I should be able to pass the MOT and then get the insurance to drive it. Looking forward!!!!

Monday 19 September 2011

Engine bay painting and cooling system

I have made some progress in the last few weeks, especially concerning some light body work….

Engine bay was looking ugly….. rust here and there, blue paint chipping and fading…. My problem is that I have not removed the engine as I don’t have the possibility, so had to manage the situation with it in place.

With an angle grinder and the wire brush cup attachment, y removed all the rust on the surrounding panels of the pedal assembly and the battery tray. The surroundings of the pedal assembly have rust because of brake fluid I suppose, and the battery tray because of the acids… Rust on the battery tray was severe, and I really don’t understand why and the rest of the car is ok with only surface rust. After removing most of the rust scale, the tray had still force so I decided not to change it, as that will need soldering new plate. I used some por-15 paint to neutralize rust and encapsulate it.



Other parts of the engine bay had no rust, but paint was in terrible situation, so removed it, and just left the original red primer which in most cases was in very good condition. After using a coarse sanding sponge over the red primer and the dry por-15, I gave all the surface 2 coats of TitanYate two pack epoxy primer. It´s made by the Spanish paint company Titan, and it´s an epoxy primer for maritime and very hard environments, and with a cost of 35eur the liter, it´s a great deal. Maybe it´s not cosmetically perfect as a PPG 150 eur primer, but I am sure it is hard enough.



Once dry, and with a light sanding, I could finally apply the Riviera Blue (BU44 code) 2 pack paint. Results?? Well, considering I had no possibility to use a spray gun, and that I used a sponge brush, have to say it´s quite nice. Let’s be realistic, it´s only the engine bay, and for the outside, I will of course take the car to a professional workshop. Why did I only paint half engine bay? Because I have no time to do more, and because I did not want to spend time restoring the heater, wiper, pedal assembly, and fit them on a poor surface. I will make the rest of the engine bay in the near future, once I have passed MOT and the car is drivable.

Before taking the car to the mechanic for brake and suspension work, I wanted to completely restore the cooling system. That means removing the radiator for cleaning and flushing, fitting new thermostat, water pump and all the rubber hoses.

Radiator removal is easy, only 4 bolts attaches it to the frame. It was more difficult to remove those hard rubber hoses, they where rock solid after so many years, so just broke them…

I first used high pressure water to clean the outside of the radiator, and ended attaching a garden hose first to the top to flush all the dirt and scale. On the next small video you can see all the dirt coming out of the radiator… could not catch the first seconds, where water was completely brown.



Always put pressure water on both directions. After some shaking, and plenty of pressure water, the radiator was clean. Finally, some light sanding and after a small satin black can paint, the result was great. Don’t bother using high temp black paint. Radiator will never go beyond 120º, and high temp paint are not cheap. A good black mat enamel paint will do the job.





BTW, while removing the bottom drain plug, the small metal plate had broken, so I had to solder it again. I used some silver soldering (5% silver), and I am very satisfied with the result.






The thermostat housing gave me some headache. Two of the stud had a lot of corrosion or debris, and the housing won’t come off…. After nearly 40 minutes, plenty of wd40 and swearing, I could remove it. Uhhggg the thermostat situation was nasty….



The water pump was easy to remove, and just needed to sand the surface to remove all traces of the old gasket. The new pump is aluminum cast, whether the old one is iron cast. I have read several times, that the original ones are much better, so I was thinking in sending it to a specialist to service it, but only if the price is correct. Any idea where to send it???



Last week I finally received the new master cylinder, so I fitted it to the pedal assembly, which I had previously cleaned, and sand blasted. It was in terrible condition with no traces of the original paint due to the brake fluid leaks… I used plenty of grease in all the pivots and big screws. The final result of the pedal assembly painted, with the new MC, new bolts, and the clean and shinny engine bay if great.









Next weekend I will be fitting the painted fan, belt, radiator and fill with coolant, and much, much more….

So far, so good...

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Lucas 9H horn restoration

Last week I removed the front grill, because I wanted to inspect the panels, searching for rust or other problems.

After not finding any special problems, I thought the horn would benefit from some TLC, so I removed it along with its brackets.



The horn is an original Lucas 9H model, fitted in most British cars of the 60’s. It was in working condition. Half of the horn is made out of steel, and the other half is dye cast. Of course the steel part had rust, and paint on the cast side was horrible.

9H horns are difficult to open, as they have steel rivets, so they are not very user friendly…. As it was in working condition, I did not want to mess and try to open it, just some new paint would do the job.

I fitted a cap at the horn trumpet so when I cleaned the unit, nothing should get inside.

I have received several comments on why I am so excited with my new sand blast machine, from people that have never seen one in action…. So I took the opportunity, to make a video of the machine in action, where you can see how fast is to work with the sand blast, and specially, how easy it is…. It only took me 5 minutes to clean the horn, with a surface finish that no other mechanical procedure will make: wire wheel angel grinder, hand sanding, etc…

Hope you like the video



Just a quick note, I needed some normal paint brushes to apply paint to mechanical parts, because I wanted to use the sponge brushes for parts where I needed a perfect finish. I found some very cheap brushes, that had nylon or plastic threads, and at 0.60 eur wanted to give a try. I used it for the horn, and it really gives a much better result and finish than normal brushes. See the end of the video for a quick impression.


Just another weekend project!