vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Aug 25, 2016 21:54:10 GMT
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Thank you for the offers of help with the spacer everybody, I mentioned it to friend and he has offered to make me a pair in aluminium if I send him a template which takes almost all the hard work out of it for me. He's offered to do it for everyone's favourite price too, so I just have to crack on and make the little plinths now.
I don't know what filler I'm using, daft as it sounds. Mike buys it and I use it. Whatever it is, it's pretty nice to work with and gives a decent finish. The tin is white and blue, maybe red too... I'll try and remember to note it down when I see it next.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Aug 26, 2016 20:15:40 GMT
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Today is the day I finally finished all the welding on the passenger side of the car that needs doing. Feels good to have reached this point even with the filler work and paint ahead of me. The wing bottom I chopped off was an historic repair which needed to be repaired so I repaired it and put it back where I chopped it off.  The rear arch repair was trickier. I only really have a hammer and a vice for shaping panels and no stretcher/shrinker or fancy tools. I wanted to do it in one piece if I could and did manage that. The patch moved as I was tacking it in so it's not as flush as I'd hoped but not far off. After realigning the rear door the panel gaps aren't too bad and I don't need to reweld the bottom corner for an acceptable fit now.  I repaired the inner arch before the outer arch patch went on. I did take the wheel off to do that repair, access wasn't great otherwise. Before you say it, I know that arch edge looks bad, that's because it's not finished. I need to fold the whole arch lip under so it clears the tyres I need to put on the Lotus alloys. The arch return isn't in great condition and I'd rather do this than than spoil a repair panel.  Now there's just a lot of patient filling and sanding to do so all of this work is made presentable before the top coat of paint can go on, something I had no time to do today. I checked the car over to see where the key areas were that I needed to focus on next and with the exception of the rear panel (which is my next target because it's less fiddly and more fun) there's only a few small bits needed on the driver's side of the car. The driver's front door needs quite a lot of work, the corner is made entirely of gaffa tape and has been for a while, it's also rotted out part of the bottom of the door skin so it'll be a similar repair as that on the rear passenger door I expect.  The rear driver's door isn't as bad as I remembered it. This panel still isn't great, it's done the same thing as the back door on the other side so it'll be a good amount of work to put right. I'd forgotten that I'd already repaired the sill-arch area and got top coat on before it went outside, I just didn't finish the filling work so I'll revisit that.  The rear of the driver's side arch needs a blanking plate for the old bumper hole and a small patch letting in at the bottom of the arch, these are both really easy jobs. This panel is a bit of a state too, it needs old paint and probably filler taking out of it to sort it all out.  The bodywork is nearly sorted and I'm really happy about that, it doesn't feel so insurmountable a project as it did earlier in the year. My brother put a misleading decal on the boot lid as motivation.  N.B. I still manage to forget to check what brand of filler I'm using. I'll try and remember next visit as I'll be using it to smarten up these repairs. |
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Aug 26, 2016 21:36:57 GMT
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If its industrial filler it should be fine. I just thought you might be using some shyte stuff from halfrauds.
Where you have got the 2 skins joined in the arches I would highly recommend you buy a tube of Tiger Seal (or similar brand PU adhesive) and put a good smear over (in) all double skin joints. This will seal them forever and also bond them together as well. It can be painted over after if required.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Aug 26, 2016 22:07:20 GMT
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Arch lip will be folded neater than it is and finished crisply so we've got no sharp edges and so water and muck can't get in behind it. Then it'll be given a liberal application of sealer before being painted with stone chip, gloss top coat and undersealed. It will still rot out, Princess arches always do no matter what you do, it'll just take a lot longer than usual by which time I should have got better at welding and fabrication so the repair will be easier.
The filler comes from our local motor factors, it's in one of those generic trade type tins. It's probably not the best but it's also not the worst and I've not had any problems with it to date.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Aug 29, 2016 18:30:38 GMT
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I have no history for a cambelt change with the Rover, as previously mentioned, and it has done many, many miles. I therefore determined that while I had the pennies to do it I really ought to and Mike and I set to this weekend to do just that. I'd ordered a Gates timing belt and tensioner on the recommendation of a friend that rebuilds K Series engines, a Draper cam locking tool, a waterpump and a thermostat (neither of which I can remember the brand of) and aforementioned friend sent me two replacement inlet manifold gaskets. I've never done this job before so I was entrusting most of it to Mike as he has, on the MG TF no less so this should be much easier to do given that access is better on the 400. First job was dropping the coolant out, something that I'm getting to be a dab hand at given how many times I've done this to flush the system. Easiest location I've found is the bottom hose where it joins the rail under the radiator.  Then the expansion bottle needs removing and the power steering reservoir moving out of the way but not removing from the car (I want to change the fluid at some point, I just don't have any in stock). The hoses that attach to the reservoir are gungy and have been since I got the car, the back of the power steering pump is also gungy. I don't know if this is down to a leak or something historic that's since been fixed so this was mostly cleaned up to see what new appears.  Next was to remove the cam cover to see what we'd got. No obvious markings on the belt in this position which we would later learn is a Gates belt, so it's had a timing belt at least once in its life which is something.  The car was jacked up, the driver's side front wheel removed, the partial undertray partially unfastened from the car and then the auxilliary belts were removed. The power steering belt looked fairly new with minimal wear.  The alternator belt, however, was in very poor condition. I will be replacing this when I next get paid.  With the lower cambelt cover removed you can see and get access to the crank pulley. It's not too messy under here, there's some oil on the sump but it's unclear if it's coming from a historic leak further up or is the sump seal itself.  Before removing the old belt by cutting through it, the camshafts were correctly positioned and the locking tool applied.  New and old cambelts, the new one is the darker one. The belt didn't have any obvious damage other than the teeth being worn compared to the new one so it likely still had some life in it. I really wish I knew when it was done so I could have said whether or not it was due.  Inlet manifold next which had started leaking again. The reason for it leaking was quite simply that the gasket that was bought new from Rimmers last year had shrunk and was no longer sealing properly. This would explain a few minor issues the car was having that I could never really pinpoint.   A new one was fitted which is much more snug.  Before that could go back on the car there were some other items to attend to. We got the old tensioner off and found it had some surface rust and made a shushing noise on rotation very similar to the one I kept hearing when driving the car and could never pinpoint.  The old waterpump seemed in good fettle. We fitted the new one because I'd bought it and it seems to be common practice to fit a new pump when you do the cambelt.  The thermostat was also changed. This looks to be the original thermostat for the car and has no jiggle pin like the new one. Also, the seal on it was deformed (and I have suspected a leak from this area for a while), one side was covered in K-Seal glitter and one side was just a bit gungy. It's good to know this is now replaced really.   As we carried on with the job it was getting darker and later and eventually colder.  |
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Last Edit: Aug 29, 2016 18:31:08 GMT by vulgalour
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Aug 29, 2016 18:31:24 GMT
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Before fitting the new cambelt, the waterpump was put on with its new O ring and a bit of sealant.  The tensioner was also fitted, just not fully tightened so we could adjust it properly. Â The spring was particularly fiddly and difficult to locate, an important component for the manual tensioner as fitted to this car.   With a slight jiggle of things Mike got the belt around the crank pulley and all was running quite smoothly.  Now that everything on the cambelt side was located, the tensioner was fully tightened and everything checked as much as it could be. Â We then moved on to the back of the engine to refit the thermostat and housing. Â You can see where the inlet manifold has been leaking too. Â The thermostat housing is the black-ish lump at the end of the rusty coolant pipe.  The inlet manifold was cleaned of as much of the gunge as it could be, the mating surfaces of it and the block thoroughly cleaned and after this picture was taken, a smear of suitable sealant used over the green gasket to hopefully prevent it from leaking again.  With everything buttoned up, new plain water put in and then we attempted to start the car. Â Then the key fob decided it didn't want to work which these are prone to whenever the battery is disconnected. Â Random pressing of the keyfob buttons eventually saw it spring back to life and we could start the car. Â A little bit of cranking to get a full head of fuel and then... it ran. Â No drama, no fuss. Â Much quieter than before with some of the unidentifiable little noises now gone which makes me think something on the cambelt side of things was on the way out. Â Then I heard what seemed like a ticking, which steadily became a dripping and then started to just be water pouring out of the thermostat housing. I was not a happy bunny about that. Â Still, the important job was done and Mike has volunteered to remove the thermostat housing and coolant pipe, clean it all up and refit it so that it seals properly and keeps the water in. Â Happy that the dangerous bit went smoothly enough, the car was given a wash which it was due for and since Mike was doing the carpets in the Supra, I got him to do my boot carpet too which came up fairly well.  Best of all, I managed to get the roof aerial to go from this, where it's been stuck for the past year with me regularly dosing it with WD40...  ...to this!  It's still a bit stiff to operate but getting better with use. Â Having the aerial retractable means I don't have to fit the new one I bought which, if I'm honest, is a massive relief as I as dreading that job. Â That's your lot for this Rover update, I'll let you all know when it's watertight and I'm using it again. |
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Rich
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,327 
Club RR Member Number: 160
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Aug 29, 2016 19:20:46 GMT
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I notice that you didn't remove the ball bearing from the inlet manifold.. But at least you have replaced a lot of otherwise problematic parts and you ain't the 'average' car owner when it comes to maintenance so I'm more than confident it'll be reet.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Aug 29, 2016 19:43:31 GMT
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We did consider doing the ball bearing but since it's caused no problems we left it alone for now. It might get removed in the future. There's not much on the list to do really, it's all just general maintenance. Annual oil change is due and once we've cured the water leaks it'll get some new coolant too. I'd like to get a pair of new tyres on the back so they match the front and I've got a backbox to fit at some point. Need to get a new catalytic converter too as mine is shot and then maybe over the winter I'll tackle a few some more of the paintwork issues I've not got around to this year. I'm enjoying owning this car quite a lot, it's fairly easy to look after compared to my usual choices.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Aug 29, 2016 22:16:47 GMT
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Fancy a shorthand version of my diary epics? Well now you can with Vulgaloria: vulgalouria.tumblr.com/I wanted a dump for few of the pictures I've taken over the years of my adventures in terrible cars, it's more for my own satisfaction than anything else. Perhaps you'll enjoy it too. No words, just pictures and a moderately regular update schedule at least until I get caught up. There's at least four years of dross for me to work through, it should keep the thing fed well for a while. |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Aug 31, 2016 18:22:21 GMT
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Minor issues after everything was buttoned together in that the thermostat housing was leaking. That meant removing it so Mike repainted the scabby coolant pipe and degreased the plastic thermostat housing. It's a bit of a fiddle to refit.  Once refitted the housing leaked again so it had to come off, be resealed and put back on the car. This time it didn't leak, happily, and the car gets up to temperature quickly enough. Heaters are lovely and hot too. It's another job that's not so easy, especially getting the bolt in that goes through the housing and dipstick holder into the block.  All was good, we ran the car up to temperature, made sure there were no air locks anywhere and no leaks and then I took it for a drive around the block. Drove incredibly smoothly which was unexpected. Put the car away for the night ready to use it tomorrow. Picked up my new spark leads to replace the broken ones (that were fairly new, but of rubbish quality even though I didn't pay for rubbish quality) and the alternator belt while out in the Applause. Got the new leads fitted, turned the key and was greeted with a fountain of fuel in the engine bay. Turns out that when the fuel rail was plugged back in the O ring got snagged. Why it chose to leak today and not yesterday I can't guess, but this is what came off.  Luckily, my brother had the injectors from a breaker Picasso which had identical O rings and that solved the problem for free. Now all the fluids stay where they should, the car runs and drives smoothly and I'm looking forward to the next few small jobs to get things in even better shape. It's looking much smarter under the bonnet and as things have been de-grimed it's a lot nicer to work under there.  Next up is going to be an oil change and putting bio-degreaser through the coolant to get the last of the grime out before coolant goes in. Once I manage to get the new front strut split down properly I can get those on, I've got a backbox to go on too so that I can replace the blowing one. Then I want to get a new pair of tyres to match the front and a new catalytic converter once I know the inlet manifold gasket is doing its job properly so I don't poison a new catalytic converter. It's all niggly service things now which is nice, and quite a bit of cosmetic stuff to make it as nice as I want it to be. |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 4, 2016 20:42:54 GMT
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I've been a busy bee this weekend with the welder and the grinder and playing with sharp bits of metal and the Princess. My first duty was to get the car level so that the work I was about to undertake would also be level. Jacking the car up with a tiny spirit level on the roof is much easier than trying to sort out the suspension right now.  Then I got the cake tins and the marker pen out, marked up the back panel for the three light buckets I had yet to install and got busy. I forgot to take any photographs of progress. Compared to the first one I installed, these were for the most part quite easy. There's definitely a knack to it. This was yesterday when I didn't have a huge amount of time, just enough to do this stage.  Today, I had much more time so I'd determined I'd get everything welded in, including the back plates to hold the lights. If I had enough time I'd make a start on the number plate recess too. It went remarkably well! But first, here's the one problem I did encounter. I knew where I wanted the number plate to sit in the rear valance and had made a good guess for location for what to cut out on the back panel. What I hadn't banked on was there being a big structural piece behind the outer skin that I have to work with.  It's okay though, I can still locate the number plate close to where I wanted it, just a little lower. Wiring and location for the new number plate light should be quite easy to achieve too, there's good access inside the boot and enough depth to the panel to make that relatively straight forward. I now have to finish my cardboard template for the piece of metal I need to cut, fold and weld to fill the hole. Then there's just lots of trim and bumper holes to fill in to smooth it all out properly. You can imagine I was quite pleased to get to this point tonight.   In the photographs it looks wonky, I know this will get pointed out. You'll have to take my word for it that it isn't and that it's the fisheye effect of the lens on my camera which makes the lights look like they're not lined up or pointing the right way. Because I've used loose bottomed cake tins as my template for the buckets, the back of them has a nice round rolled edge with the light clusters sitting slightly recessed in them and leaving no sharp edges at all in the boot. The BMW outer lights are rotated 90 degrees, this means that both my running/brake lights are in the top half of the light clusters and the reflectors are to the outer corners which seemed more sensible and the large clear reversing lens is less obvious like this. I'm very excited about getting it all finished off and wired up so I can see the car come to life with its new lights. There's just a few holes to fill that the original bumper and wiring have left behind and the recess for the number plate to weld to finish off all the MoT required welding now. |
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Davenger
Club Retro Rides Member
It's only metal
Posts: 7,272
Club RR Member Number: 140
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Sept 4, 2016 21:55:08 GMT
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Looking good dude
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Sept 4, 2016 22:15:26 GMT
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lol they certainly look very googly-eyed
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VIP
South East
Posts: 8,296
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Sept 5, 2016 10:02:39 GMT
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lol they certainly look very googly-eyed  |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 5, 2016 10:40:21 GMT
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Looks like I'll have to get some big old woogly eyes to stick on the headlights for the maiden voyage so the front matches the back  |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 5, 2016 23:27:28 GMT
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Well... tonight a thing happened. I intended to just pop into the unit and tidy up a bit, show my brother what I'd got up to with the rear end. The boot was all cleaned out and tidied up.  A view of the back of the buckets, showing how user friendly and not-sharp they are. Just the wiring and a little bit of metal tidying on the back panel to do here.  Then we sort of got talking about the suspension yet again and my brother asked why I didn't just patch it for now so we could at least move the car around. Worst case scenario is that it wouldn't work. So we repaired the broken hydragas pipe by cutting the broken ends off smooth with a pipe cutter from the pipe fixed to the car, and the spare incomplete pipe, then sleeved it with some suitable rubber hosing and four jubilee clips. THIS IS NOT A PERMANENT FIX. Anyway, there's no photograph of that. What there is a photograph of is our offering to the patron saint of bodging, Heath Robinson. It turns out the schrader valve connector on my hydragas dalek is broken and I didn't have a replacement. What I did have is a spare air line and a tyre inflating fitting.  It was a little tricky, you have to hold the schrader fitting on at a particular angle and the trigger leaks a bit. You also have to have one of you holding the inflation fitting and the other pumping the pump. I would not recommend this method, it is appalling. The important thing is that it worked and that I'll be getting the pump refurbished so I can do it properly next time.  We took things steady, partly because we had to, partly because we didn't want to risk breaking anything. The main reason for doing things this way is to find out if the new displacer works (it does, yay!) and to make it so the car could be driven around the unit easier. We got it all up to the requisite pressure but couldn't get it to sit level, no matter how much we jiggled the car. Not wanting to risk overloading it we decided to leave it slightly wonky.  A bit disappointed, but still really happy to see the car off its bumpstops for the first time in a long while, I decided to just roll it back and forth to check it would still run and the brakes hadn't got stuck on. Then the wonkiness went away! Because of course you're supposed to do this with the handbrake off and I'd forgotten.   All level  It's good enough until I get the pipe replaced and it'll allow me to see whether or not the displacers are any good. So far, no leaks, not even on the pipe bodge. It's a big step closer to getting everything sorted. |
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What size pipe is it? You could use the small compression joints from microbore central heating to join the pipes safely.
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Sept 6, 2016 10:44:30 GMT
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There are also a range of repair fittings meant for A/C systems available which could do the job.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 6, 2016 10:54:49 GMT
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I gather it's not easy to flare steel pipe (that's what the original pipes are made of) to fit them, that's part of the reason it was done this way for now. The plan is to get a whole new pipe made using the old one as a template, it shouldn't be too expensive. I do have another length of hydragas pipe with connectors on it that can probably be used to find out what size fitting I'd need to link the existing pieces, they may even be good enough to be reused for this application which would effectively be a safe free repair. I'll just have to dig the pipe out of the garage stores.
This is a job that will be put right properly before it sees the road at any rate. The current method is just for ease of moving it around in the yard and for leak testing the new displacer, there's absolutely no way I'd risk taking this on public roads with the bodge we've done.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,280
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 6, 2016 15:29:18 GMT
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Popped into the unit at lunch to fettle a bit with the car, get some fresh air, that sort of thing. I'd got pretty fed up of the knackered tyres constantly deflating so took the Lotus alloys with me which still have air in the tyres even though they've been sat around for a couple of years unused. Topped them all up and they were ready to go. I love how these wheels look on the car, they just fit so well. I've also decided I'm running the suspension at this height rather than factory because it looks 'right' even though it's slightly lower than stock and is a little bit more squidgy. Squidgy is good, we like squidgy in this car.   The tyres on the alloys are nicely meaty for the rear end and visually it needs it to pull everything together. It all just looks 'right' to me.  At the front I figured out what the fitment issue was with the central bar and corrected that with hammers and gentle manipulation of the top return lip. Then I fitted my only good grille and the headlight trims along with the new MG B sidelight/indicator units. I was going to get the headlights in too but I'm missing the bits that the brackets screw into, I can't remember if they were square plastic lugs or metal clips, either way I need to get some fresh fittings to get those in. I love how the front end is looking. I might even leave it on the standard plastic trims rather than fitting the full width hideaway grille.  And here, for those of you that love accidents looking for a place to happen, is the pipe bodge that shouldn't work but does.  The last thing to report is a parts hunt. This is the schrader fitting from my dalek pump that needs replacing. We think it's missing the bit that pushes the pin in on the valve so you can get enough fluid in. It also doesn't lock in place particularly well. I have no idea what that tap bit is about either.   If anyone knows what that part might be called and/or where I can find one, I'd appreciate it. |
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It's good enough until I get the pipe replaced and it'll allow me to see whether or not the displacers are any good. So far, no leaks, not even on the pipe bodge. It's a big step closer to getting everything sorted.