1973 Volvo P1800ES on MX5 chassis with Ford 5L V8 conversion

As mentioned, I am going down a checklist of things that need to be done on the car to make it a more refined project; little stuff that does not seem to matter as much when you are wanting to just drive the car at the first "end" of the project.

Today's task was the wipers. I bought a system that works much the same as a lot of British cars: a flexible cable that drives a pinion at the wiper post position. It is a universal system that works in principle.


The general principle is a crank-wheel that drives a push-rod that pulls and pushes on the cable so it mores inside of a  rigid guide tube that is anchored at both ends by tube flairs in a slot. Simple enough.

Where it falls apart is that the black lid is also holding the connecting rod and the end of the rigid tube's flair. The problem is that it clamped down on the connecting rod and did not clamp down on the tube flair. So if adjusted so that the connecting rod can move, the flared end of the tube would come out of the slot. 

This was fixed by cutting a hole in the lid in the shape of the drive mechanism to make overhead clearance and adding a 1/8" strip of flat bar to the inside  of the lid over the flair locating slot so it is trapped when the lid is tight  Fortunately the required overhead clearance was just under the thickness of the lid so a piece of tin welded over the hole does a good job of holding the push-rod.

In hindsight, I might have been ahead to try and adapt one of the MGB  systems that I had laying around, The one thing this offered was an adjustable sweep angle so it can be tailored to different applications. What is does not have is a park function.

I imagine it will be, but compared to not having any wipers at all, this is a step forward. Now I wont have to think twice about the weather before I take the car out.

They are supposed to have park function, but as wired they do not seem to work. It took a bit of effort to make the wiper motor speeds work with the Miata wiring because the motor wants positive signals from the colums stalk. The Miata sends ground signals. I used relays to get two of the speeds to work. No intermitent function so that also sucks.


It would not be terribly difficult to use the Miata wiper motor as the basis for replicating the cable drive; just some flat steel plates  and a plastic guide. Then it would be plug and play.Next year, moved on to AC and that should keep me busy for some time and budget.

What motor are you using? If it's anything like the Mini motors over here the wiring is a bit odd until you realise how it works - I can post a diagram if needed.

Thank you for the kind words. It has been a fun challenge all along.

As for updates, the car has been "done" for a couple of years. But that just means that there is a developing laundry list of task that need to be attended to. Some of those items are because I was lazy, broke,  eager to drive or just did not know how to deal with them at the time. A good example of the "lazy and eager to drive " is the door-limit straps. Finicky things so will do it later. Then I found out that the door needs to come off to install and it took a lot of time to get door aligned. "Lets put it off till later" So it is now "later" and I am determined to chew through a 48 item list of stuff like that.  ( 27 items done)



An example of "not sure how to do it "is the AC. Lucky for me, the Miata wiring harness that I used includes wiring for the AC.  What I learned is that the button does not turn on the AC relay, it sends a message to the computer to turn on the AC if all conditions are met.  Well, this car does not have the Miata computer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ All that the switch does is turn on a light to tell you the AC is on.  Solution turned out to be simple once I  saw it.

While I still need to sort a lot of the mechanical install of the AC I did not want to rip the dash apart again to sort the controls, so the question of how to turn on the compressor got sorted yesterday and now I just need to learn how to make a Mustang compressor work with  Miata AC components and build hoses. How hard can that be? 




Below is the full laundry list of stuff to be done. While it is quite long, it is pretty typical of a big project car where  a lot of learning has been done along the way and stuff gets swept under the carpet in the rush to drive the car.   If you follow build threads, this is a phase of the project that seldom gets documented either because it is not that interesting or because in hindsight, it make the builder look like he did not know what he was doing in the first place ( often guilty of the former) but it is all stuff that needs to be done if the project is to match expectations. In my case the car was built for the wife-unit and she expects it to perform like a factory build.

PS outside mirror DONE
Sun Visor Install DONE
Finish plastic trim at C post inside with funky pieces on hand  DONE
attach B post plastic trim DONE
oil pan gasket DONE
battery cable under car inspect DONE
Finish windshield post trim paint black DONE
Mudguards at rear DONE
Reverse lights DONE(ish)
Rebuild and install transmission DONE
exhaust rebuild on PS DONE
Exhaust realign on DS DONE
Install  new O2 sensor DONE
Source closing panel for under steering column DONE
Interior dome light of some sort DONE
door rattle passenger side DONE
new carb of some sort or Fitech back on DONE(ish)
Do a firewall test in dark to check for voids DONE
air filter DONE
missing trim blanks around console DONE
door panel DS is loose DONE
Missing chrome trim around rear windows DONE
clutch pedal cotter pin DONE
Wipers re-engineer DONE
door open lever DS DONE
windshield squirters DONE(ish)
Radio /tunes DONE
AC controls and install DONE
Door stays
Overflow from Radiator
Hood latch of some sort re-design
fuel gauge  to sender mismatch need 0-100 ohm
trim pieces at sill/carpet
square holes in front valance
Front windshield chrome
big brake option
toe-trim at bottom of A- post
filler piece for front of dash to cover wiper boxes
under hood mount for hood prop
Loom wires as needed
color match dash
Trim piece to tie in cabin bulkhead carpet to deck carpe

Thanks for the link to the AC stuff, shall have a look.

Edit: They do seem to have what I need, now just a case of making a list.

Pete

Normally it's annoying when you can't find the lid for the Tupperware, but that looks alright without it!

What's the plan?

Well, as often happens, plans change and in this case I think it is for the better.

The Old School BBC 427 is not going to happen. The owner realized that at $20/gallon for race fuel, it wont be much fun to drive a 5 mpg Hot Rod. So cookie-cutter LS 5.3 it is going to be. I myself think it will be a win-win situation. Have never done an LS swap and with a Mockup engine in place it seemed like a good place to get stuck-in.

That looks like a full bowl of colored spaghetti!

So I cut out a bunch of tin from the floors in order to expose the outriggers. They most certainly needed replacement.


Dare say the original outrigger had seen better days,





All 4 outriggers replaces. Even went so far as to weld the outboard bits to the sills; something the previous restoration expert did not bother doing. Notice also how the rear outrigger has the spring mount incorporated. It of course needed to be modified to accept the spring eye,  being a pattern part.








Next step will be to do some repairs on the top of the frame.

Thanks you. It really is a never ending journey with these project cars. Hopefully the world will settle down a bit this year and we can all get back to driving.

In the meantime, the shop seems to keep busy with fun cars  and characters that find their way into the place.  Kind of like the real-life version of this forum!


Pete