When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Pretty cool Chuck, there are loads of little hand marks on these cars, much cooler than bar codes and stickers.
What Jon said. That's part of why we love these cars, right? The little personal touches. The shop that is doing my work I'm going to encourage them to put their own "flourishes" in unobvious locations. Cheers!
What Jon said. That's part of why we love these cars, right? The little personal touches. The shop that is doing my work I'm going to encourage them to put their own "flourishes" in unobvious locations. Cheers!
Nice idea, I may mark the underside of the dash with the restoration date. A little piece of history for someone else hopefully in another 50 years.
When I had the wood out of my car, all the pieces had a number marked on the back in some sort of crayon. The numbers all matched. I was quite pleased to think one of my ancient mates may have handled it when it was made. I lived in Coventry in the sixties and worked for Humber, some mates worked at Jaguar, others Standard Triumph. It was motor city at that time!
When I had the wood out of my car, all the pieces had a number marked on the back in some sort of crayon. The numbers all matched. I was quite pleased to think one of my ancient mates may have handled it when it was made. I lived in Coventry in the sixties and worked for Humber, some mates worked at Jaguar, others Standard Triumph. It was motor city at that time!
They can't be that ancient, it was Crayon and not charcoal !
It's great to see these marks, adds a whole bunch of "personal" to the cars.
Today was a bonanza of parts- got the rebuilt brakes, steering box, generator, transmission, and engine back.
Question- The machine shop suggested that I use a slightly thicker head gasket to compensate for planing the head and the engine case. If I understood them correctly- the standard metal gasket is something like 20 thousands and there is a 49 thousands fiber gasket available that they recommend. Does this make sense?
Payen head gaskets do do an extra thick gasket, it is +20 thou, do you know how much they skimmed off the head and block, the standard gasket will slightly raise the compression ratio, but it will depend how much they skimmed as to whether this is relevant Chuck
It was a bonanza for me too today, had a package arrive from the US, it was address to John Reynolds ! Not sure who he is, but it was very gratefully received by me, thanks Chuck.
I found that SNG Barratt sells s fiber gasket that is slightly thicker than the one in the upper end gasket set they sell. They also said it is a superior gasket, so I️ ordered it, and that should work fine.
I have a question about the clutch hydraulic cylinder.
Clutch cylinder
It says in the manual that
So is it supposed to have the spring or not? I am assuming that it needs the spring which goes from a clip on the mounting bolt to the pin that connects the shift fork to the clutch cylinder shaft. Is that right?
Still working on body work. Pulled out the old boot lid and it is worse than i thought. More than I want to tackle right now so I will use the spare lid I was saving for another car. It is rust free.
Nice pics of the original car, as you say good to see how far you have got and inspire you to carry on, sanity is subjective, just don't try and explain it to someone in a white coat !
Re Slave cylinder, the later slaves didn't use the spring, what slave do you have, have you overhauled the original, or purchased a new one ? What part No. is it ?
Ah that's pretty shot not sure new seal would cure that !
The new cylinder you have did not use the return spring.
Is that a new adjusting rod , the slaves had different rod depending which was used, there just seems like a lot of thread sticking out, doesn't look like there would be a lot of thread going into the end coupling.
Started week three of working on the doors. What a pain, but good learning experience. The front doors were pretty good. One needed nothing other than some cleaning up and the other one just a few small patches. The back doors are another story. I proceeded to replace the door skin on the left rear door. In addition to the skin, the bottom of the door was also rusted out and I had to cut it off and recreate it in several parts. It was a lot of measuring and welding, but came out nicely. I then attached the door skin to the prepared frame and welded it on. What I neglected to do was test fit it all on the car before I welded it on. Bad move! It was almost an inch short on the bottom which is not something that can be fixed by working the edges. Fortunately I had a spare door that I was saving for another car, so I decided to cut my losss and use the good door. I’ll save my mistake door for parts for the next car.
The other rear door did not seem as bad, and I wasn’t feeling motivated to tackle another door skin, so I cut out the bad metal and but welded in new metal patches. This welding caused some distortion in the door panel, which I attempted to smooth out with a hammer and dolly, lead and bondo.
As I was applying my third layer of bondo, my conscience got the better of me and I decided to just do it right and replace the door skin.
Here is a picture. Of what. It looked like inside the door on emoving the skin. This, mind you is after I had tried to clean out the inside of the door and remove the surface rust.
Inside Old door
My less than awesome body work that I cut off
Only with the skin off was I really able to clean out the. Inside of the door and the door skin seams. I patched a few rusty areas and epoxied the inside. I got the skin cut to fit, used a seamer to create an under lap for the new skin and screwed it to the shell so I could test fit it to the car. This one fits very well and after checking it twice, I am now ready to attach the new skin. Hopefully this week I will get the doors epoxied and caught up with the rest of the body work on the car. I can then start working the multiple coats of high build primer.
In my spare time, I am making progress on the engine with the lower end done and timing gear reinstalled.
Looks like you are getting there Chuck, a bit late now, but it is easier to leave the skin full height and just cut lower than the door handle, by welding it on the curve rather than the flat you get less distortion.
Anyhow, tip before you weld up, make a template from the B post profile vertically, and make sure that you have close to that shape before you weld, remember you will get some shrinking from the heat, so try and allow a little for that too, other wise you will be beating for ages to get the shape back.
2nd tip, tack weld every 2 inches checking the shape with the template above, (this does change as you get toward the rear arch obviously but it is a good start), let the door cool completely, then another set 2 inches apart (so you are now at 1 inch spacings) allow to cool, keep repeating this and DO NOT get carried away and start infilling between the welds, if you do you will be filling and beating, it is very easy to get carried away, please trust me and resist the temptation !
Well I finished the doors for now. I still have to mount them and test fit all the gaps. The door with the new skin came out nice. Gaps were a little more than I wanted on the b pillar edge so I added some lead along he edge to make it tighter. Easy enough to file off on the final fitting if it is too tight. I also leaded the seam where the two panels meet so it is all solid and water tight. Some seam sealer on the inside will help too as well as the multiple layers of epoxy and primer. I did as tillyjon suggested and didn’t go too crazy with the welding and only had minimal distortion to deal with. I am definitely a fan of rescinding doors if for no other reason it is the only way to get them truly rust free inside and out.
I have now applied over two quarts of epoxy and over a gallon of primer. Everything has at least one coat of primer, and most parts have two. It will probably be a gallon and a half before I am done. I am working on 5e final prep before paint with 400 grit sandpaper but continue to find minor imperfections to deal with. It seems like a lot now, but I will find and fix them all eventually. If you ever wonder why it costs $10-20k for a paint job it is because it is very time consuming to get it right.
Tillyjon’s suggestion to use a primer a different color from the epoxy so you can see how it is covering or you don’t sand through the epoxy was very, very helpful.
