Bond Equipe GT4S, now awaiting the estate completion

Today I received a lovely letter from the DVLA, saying they have received my application for a V5c it will be processed next week and will be issuing it to me and to please allow 5 days for delivery, well I doubt the delivery time but at least it's on its way.
In other news I am off in to hospital on Wednesday, so they can have another crack at fixing my back, as part of that I had to have a PCR test on Sunday morning and self-isolate until Wednesday. Within hrs, I got a bit bored, I thought about doing some housework went and then went outside to have a look at the bond engine.

It's got a dolomite 1300 engine, and is a totally unknown quantity, the oil is very black but still oily, so I figured the best thing to do was to get it running. One of the things I love about my Bond is its starter solenoid which a push button, and considering the total lack of anything connected to the wiring loom that is pretty useful.
It went a little something like this, plugs out and squirt some oil down the bores, whip off the rocker cover only to be greeted by a layer of carbonized black guck, thinking about it, it looked like a thin layer not like it had been driven like that for a very long time, but I forgot to take a pic for you to comment on. (ill try to get some tomorrow)
Then I pressed the button, and it turned over on the starter (for the first time in my ownership), which had trouble remembering how to engage its teeth with the flywheel, once it got the idea, I kept turning it over till I saw some signs of oil from the rocker shafts, the champion plugs looked OK and were chucked back in, a known good dizzy and coil were fitted. The fuel pump didn't, and the carb did not look great, so as there were no tins of start u illegitimate child, a few squirts of brake cleaner were substituted, which got a cough but not much more, then as per drops of water started to fall from the sky, I whipped the carb off and relocated to the garage.

Then suddenly I remembered I had a camera and took some pics.
The dolly 1300 has a HS4 carb just like this







Not too nasty but some stale petrol will take the oily stuff off before it goes for a nice relaxing sonic bath, oh and only one broken bit which is for the throttle linkage so not required at the mo.




after their bath, they looked so much better




I dug this out the bottom of the float bowl, mmmm, nice.




The HS range of carbs have one major downside the Waxstat, a clever idea that never fails to cause odd running issues, it's a wax capsule fitted to the bottom of the jet that adjusts the mixture according to temperature, so I now delete them on sight, there are 2 ways of doing it, one is to fit a fixed jet assembly usually around £20, or and this is my preferred method, do a 2p conversion which literally costs 2p a carb.

First take the jet assembly and 2 1 pence pieces


Ease back, (being careful to not over bend them) 2 of the 3 retaining clips that hold the baseplate on and rotate it to take the last one off using the cutout and separate the parts


Pull the steel pin out from the top of the Waxstat.







Give the parts a quick clean in stale petrol, next comes the tricky bit, holding it upside down in one hand pull the jet against the spring with the other and hold it fully compressed, place the steel pin in the recess, and 2 1p coins on top and refit the baseplate, fitting the 1 unbent clip first in the cutout and clocking it back in to its original position, (if you find this doesn't work for you use a bench vice) this holds it all together while it's turned over and pressed firmly on to the bench and bend the rest of the clips back, making sure there just like a German lass, good n tight.
The jet will need to be re-adjusted.

The only way to see this has been done afterwards is by looking at the bottom of the jet




rebuild the carb and it looks like this



Tomorrow ill see if it wants to run.
Dan

Thank you.

Just a quickie, some weeks ago I happened to see a Bristol 402 on YouTube,



today I was stood in front of a VW T4,



I was looking at the lower front lower Grill, see what I'm thinking?
I'll wave a tape measure over one next weekend.
Dan

Should still run with those compressions.

I once acquired a Herald 13/60 engine that had been lying outdoors in a bramble patch for some years covered only with a sheet of corrugated iron. It turned freely enough, which was moderately amazing given the storage conditions. Anyway, I only wanted the crank to replace the busted one on my otherwise healthy and highly-tuned small crank GE. However this one turned out to be a large crank GK, so I slung it in complete as a temporary measure.

Turning it over sounded like the plugs were out….. but they weren’t. Compressions all in the 20 - 30 psi range. Whipped the rocker cover off to check the valves were moving freely, and they were. So just put a few CC’s of oil in each pot popped the plugs back in and tried it again with a whiff of carb cleaner. It fired right up…… but……. Needed about 1/2 throttle just to run unloaded at 1000rpm, and chuffed a solid jet of smoke from the breather. At this point I was feeling I’d wasted a lot of effort. Then, a miracle. As it warmed up, the revs started to climb and the heavy breathing diminished. After about 20 minutes it was idling sweetly on the stop and almost nothing from the breather. Quick oil/filter change and it was absolutely fine, if very much down on power compared to the tuned one. Did a couple of thousand miles with it and sold it on when the original went back in….

So just might be worth persisting with yours.

Nick

If you could, that would be great, ill pm you.





I was intending to give it one last chance, just before it comes out, but ill move the trailer out the way and bring a running car to supply a few extra pixies to the starter.




I was given a cheap USB endoscope off eBay, it was very useful, but it won’t run on my new phone's type C connector.

Dan

Today the cover had blown off in the wind as I was putting it back on I noticed how solid the top corner of the windscreen frame looked.


That's because it's rust coloured filler.

Can't remember if I showed what is hiding under the skin of fiberglass on the bulkhead, can you guess?




More rust.

Oh Lordy…. Lordy…..

You might be able to polish the rusty mark out, try metal polish (Brasso works) baking soda (mix with water to a thick paste) or even toothpaste, use a cloth with a circular motion, takes a while but does work, I've polished scratches out of watch glasses with Brasso

Thanks chaps, Ill look in to the iron removing cleaner, altho I'm wondering if some bathroom Viakal acid cleaner might work as the steel has gone it's just the rusty mark left.
Dan