Rover P5B Coupe - MGB V8

The daily P5B passed the MOT test. The tester found the rear direction indicator glasses not amber enough (a bit too white). Luckily he had 2 orange bulbs which were fitted and everything was oke.
I was very happy because it is wintertime now and last week and this weekend i checked the car outside but now its a bit too cold to work outside 



It really is amazing how well this car behaves. Very reliable and hardly ever needs repairs although it living outside

Peter

Was on holiday for 1 week and received a parcel from Auto electrical spares with a oil pressure sender, a lot of bulbs and some fog lights

some bulbs were not easy to find locally and AES had the Original Lucas code mentioned on their site which matched with the work shop manual and althought packed in Lucas boxes all had low prices.

Also ordered a spare distributor cap and some 5 and 10 A fuses which were gone out of my box of fuses whilst installing and checking  checking the electrical system.

One of the bulbs not easy to find was the underbonnet bulbs which are in a plastic housing and therefore have 2 contacts underneath



The bulbs were fitted and i adjusted the switch and the lights are working



Some festoon bulbs also were in the package and after finding 4 unmarked housings which were cleaned and the 8 replated parkers were found



and all 4 were fitted insode the SS trim with a bit of Tectyl



Also found some piggy back connectors which i had never seen. These can be very usefull with roadside repairs to do temporary instelments or for testing purposes



One of my front fog lights is not working. It is a Lucas sealed beam unit  and its not easy to get a replacement. Used replacement go for Euro 30,- to 60,- with the remark "function not checked"
 so it could easily  be not working also. AES had a a Wipac 5,5" light set for Euro 35,- which makes more sense. These are not special fog lights but have normal halogen bulbs and they can be removed from their housing and fit into the Rover ring



I like the Original glass better then the wipac one but do not want to pay silly money for a used example



Found out that the electric fuel pump is still leaking a small bit. I have ordered a new one so fitting this will be the next and one of the last jobs

Peter

These are Lucas FT6 sealed beams and the largest diameter is 144mm

Peter

Would be nice if you could have a look and i am willing to pay for it. Trust someone fron the RR forum much more then someone from Ebay.
Have thought about interchanging glasses but the sealed beam is an entire glass unit so no metal reflector and a glued lens to it like the Wipac one.
I do have 3 sealed beams that do not work so will have a try replacing the lenses

Peter

Cheers Strikey for the idea of the diamond cutting disc. In the plastic storage box of the grinder, i found an unused diamond cutting disc and managed to cut the "reflector" os the sealed beam. It is a cutting dic with cut outs which did not make a very smooth surface but it was good enough.



Used a good safety glass and a breath mask as chunks of glass come off.
Used a diamond covered stift in the Dremel to clean up the edge of the lens



Have an old small electric kitchen oven and used this to heat up the Wipac light unit to split the metal reflector from the glass lens which went well



Had to cut a small piece of the Wipac reflector and then it fitted well in the Lucas lens.
Glued the Wipac reflector into the Lucas lens with 2K glue and fitted the lens /reflector to the ring with some clips after putting some Tectyl on it.



Next job was to fit a Facet solid state fuel pump. I had ordered it with a straight output and this was not handy so had to order a 90 deg ones



Made some brackets of SS sheet so the pump can be fitted underneath the car without drilling additional holes



It is pretty crowded there as the Rover has a cable opered reserve tap for the petrol.

Next job is to paint the aluminum plate black on the boot which holds the number plate and the  jack but i want some higher temperatur for that.



Thats it for now

Peter

Not much done on the Rover. The hobby time was used to clean up the parts shed. As the Rover is nearing completion, a lot of spares have to go. As these cars are mechanically very solid, there is not a huge demand for spares and in Holland there are not that many cars so a fair bit of parts were "sold" as scrap metal. The shed is rented and it does not make sense to rent it only for a bunch of spares




I had approx 20 crates filled with  smaller parts and after sourting, 5 are left  filled with spares and 15 empty ones



Also have 3 sets of rims. The daily Rover has Jensen alloys which i like very much so i also have a set of these alloys for the project Rover and also have 2 sets of the Original Rostyles in decent condition which i will keep.
The Jensen alloys for the project Rover need some work but are in pretty decent condition but require some polishing and black paint



I started working on the steering wheel of the project Rover. There is an Original one fitted but this has a diameter of 40cm and as i am 2.00 meter tall, on long journeys, i would prefer a smaller one.
The large diameter was usefull on the early 6 cilinder models where PAS was an option but on the V8 models PAS is standard. There are no aftermarket steering wheels for the Rover and i would like to retain the horn ring which has a beautifull Rover sigh on it.
The idea is to use the Original centerpiece , shorten the arms, make a new steel rim and cover this with walnut veneer.
First step was to remove the plastic or bakalite from the steering wheel and grind of the rim



Figured out that reducing the diameter with 6cm would make the situation much more comfortabel so i cut a piece of the rim and tacked the rim on the shortened arms.

Underneath a picture of the bare wheel on top of an Original steering wheel



And trial fitted the modified steering wheel to my daily Rover



It still looks right and improves comfort a lot so i will stick to the 6cm diameter reduction.
Thats it for now
Peter

Did some more work on the steering wheel. The Original steel base of the rim is made of round steel but this is not suitable to glue the veneer on. So i wanted to make the rim base out of f 10 x 10mm steel. Making this round is not so easy so thought about making it out of 5 pieces of 2mm thick  steel plate. The disadvantage of this option was that i had to buy  a whole sheet of 2 x 1 m.
Another option was to make a walsh. Had a few old bearing, some steel and a bearing puller and made a walsh.



It works very well and soon i had a neat round piece of 10 x 10mm



Welded the 2 ends together and made a 45 deg edge to the inner rim



Made a jig for welding the spokes to the rim



and welded



The veneer is 0,6mm thick and very fragile so i glued 2 sheets together which also reduces the cutting and number of gluing steps from 50 to 25

Made some cutting jigs out of 4mm aluminum and started cutting pieces. The pieces are wider and the overlap is sanded of after glueing



Some gluing pictures. The first layer of veneer is glued with epoxy glue to the steel and then white wood glue is used








And the steering wheel after  each edge has been covered with a layer of veneer



Thats it for now

Peter

Exactly the word I was repeating in my head as reading.


Brilliant work, you make it look too easy.

Amazing!