Replacement Battery Box

As you can imagine, a steel battery box, in a 30 year old car is a prime location for rust.  Mine was subject to this, with a few small holes right on the curve.  As with everywhere else on the car I tried to repair this, however owing to the location (on the curve) and my poor welding skills, the repair was bad to say the least!

So the decision was made to replace the battery box.  This means drilling out the spot welds (all 10,000 of them, or at least that's how it felt!) bending back the brackets and pulling out the old box

Terrible
repair visible in the middle back

One bracket free!







All ready to prise out the old box!

As you can see I previously stripped the bulkhead and lightly painted and then abandoned it, this area needs some work!







The new box, disappointingly, does not come with the connection for the drainage pipe.  My first thought was to cut the old one out and weld it in but then I had a brainwave to use a pipe insert.  I checked the size and it's fine so that's a job for the future.

Old spot welds are flatted and a dusting of weld through primer.  I spray this on so that there is no bare metal under the lip of the new box

New box welded in and the spot welds dressed flat.

You'll notice that the back edge (which has got to be bent up to meet the kick in the bulkhead) hasn't had any spot welds in.  I have done this as the box is not moving out of place and so I didn't see the need for them

More updates to come of the previous works, but these will come in nor particular order!

All Happening In The Background

So it's been a while since an update and from the outside due to lack of updates its may seem that there has been little to no progress.  But it's been happening in the background.  So over the next few days/weeks I will try to put up some updates of the various different stages the build has been through.
Stay tuned!

Brake drum adjusters refurb

I've managed to get my drive to work on the car again but among others things that have been done I thought I'd do a quick write up on how to return your red broke drum adjusters.
I found that mine would turn difficultly and also didn't feel the flt so you know how much you had adjusted it. Whilst they are one £8-9 to but why not have go at fixing your existing!

My left one was quite cruddy as you can see

So the first step to do is full wind in the adjustror from the trrar as it comes out of the front, when it gets to the point that you can no longer turn it it'll take one !pre turn with so!e need nose pliers.

After this you can simply push\pull the adjustor cone out, while we have this it's time to clear it up, put the threads on the wired wheel as remeber these are always exposed under the car so keeping them clean coated will help protect them. The cone itself just needs too be cleaned with a cloth, no abrasives and inspect it to check it still has the flats pon it to indicate adjustment.

You'll have noticed that that while taking the adjustor cone out it pushed out the shoe spacers, these can easily be pulled out but make sure you note which way they are tapered otherwise the adjustors won't work.

Shown how they are tapered is in this photo

Against while these are handy out then on the wire wheel to clean them up

Next tackle the actual adjustoer housing itself. Rather than strip and re-paint I opted to wire brush the thick of and cloth clean the insides. Its as clean as its going to get!

Now its time to put it back together and remember, Copper slip, let's not have these seazing up again! 

Copper slip the shoe spaces and re-insert, make sure they aren't pushed in top close as you still have to fit the adjustor from the front.

Finally copper slip the threads of the adjustor and re-fit, loosing back into place and you're done.

When re fitting I intend the put more copper slip in the hole as shown above, Grantred because it will be in the brake drum it will pick up some dust but my thoughts are it stops the dust getting to the spacers/pistons.

Hopefully this helps someone!

The Painting Has Begun

Well this update has been a long time coming, don't think it's because I havent done anything because I have but now that I am temporarily out of work I can spend more time on my projects.
I thought for something different today I'd tackle some painting (being as recently I'd been welding, learn by doing -more on that in future)
First I needed somewhere to paint, so after looking a I decided a nice big poly tunnel should do, it would help keep the temperature up required for painting

Next the pannel, I picked the boot lid as its small enough to practice on. After stripper all of the old paint off and lots of filler I was down to bare metal and ready to apply some etch. Pannel wipe everything to make sure it was clean and time to play with my new Apollo Spraymate toy.
Overall I'm quite happy with how it looks thought it still has to dry.

I'll get some more updates regarding the body very soon!

Big Steps - The Strip Out Begins

Well its been a long while since I've posted anything and lots has changed. After removing the carpets from the boot to find a hole (un) cleverly covered with a carrier bag so as you would expect, a lovely that patch. So whilst preparing to fix this I though I might as well look over everything else. This opened up a whole can of worms which led me to strip out the car a d the. Take the body off!
I'll update with some pics of the welding later but needless to say it gave me plenty of time to practise as I'd never welded before.
As the doors were taken off the openings were braced using some tube steel with the ends flattened and bent then bolted into existing holes.

Also if I was going to remove the body again I would certainly suggest more than 2 people as its is a lot heavier than you may think!

Bleeding The Brakes, How Hard Can It Be?

This morning I thought I would go out and do some more work on the car, beeding the rear brakes. Now this isnt my first time bleeding brakes so I expected everything to go fine, ish.

I hooked everything up and let the pumping begin, after having to fill the MC twice and still getting nowhere I thought something was wrong, lool under the car and fluid is pouring all over.

I havent connected the rear passenger side pipe to the hose!!!

Get the car back on its wheel and lift the other side and set to work on the rear passenger. I decided to replace the hose but thats not straight forward as the old ome had to be cut off as it was stuck fast. So after that and fitting the new hose I connected it up only to find the bottom pipe was leaking. New pipes needed, great. Needless to say at that point I called it a day!

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.3

Well alot has happened since I last posted including alot of things that a most likely cant remeber. The car was taken off the road about 6 months ago when the back end was stripped off and the diff seals done at Willow Triumph, I also have the rear trunions freed up. The rear U joints have been replaced and then the car was pretty much neglected and not put back together. So just before the Christmas break I managed to get some motivation and get back to work and the car was put back together and on its wheels in a matter of days. Thankfully it's been a mild winter otherwise it would still be on the axle stands. Anyway with a bit of persuasion the car roared back to life, however with no tax or MOT I cant take it for a little rise, probably a good thing as I still need to bleed the brakes.

Next to tend to are a few little holes in the boot floor and then I will have a look at pannel gaps etc.

I am however quite tempted by this kit

http://www.sammio-spyder.com/sammioncordite.html


Then comes the question; do I got for a heavy, thumping 3.5 V8 or a light revy 4AGE 1.6 (possible 20V)?