Steve's unexpected Series 3 rebuild.

[auld duffer]

Excellent thread . Great work and as others have said, great attention to detail. Im still reading thrugh the posts but the chassis save was superb.

 

[LincolnSteve]

A little more progress. This little brace thingy had to go back in.

 

[LincolnSteve]

I've started on the drivers side of the bulkhead and it is much worse than the passenger side was.

This actually isn't as bad as the other one was but again the bolt hole isn't in the right place. I've already started modifying it but you can see it's nowhere near.

It was about now that that there was a runaway hammer incident. MAN DOWN!

 

[LincolnSteve]

After the urge to faint or puke or both subsided I carried on.

That's going to need some work but the door pillar has to come off next.

The pillar is not bad further up but where the door check thingy attaches it's in a bad way.

I was going to repair one small area at a time but then I went a bit mad and thought it would be better to cut all the old rusty stuff out so I could offer in the foot, the pillar and the footwell all in one go and hopefully get the best fit. Doing the other side has given me a bit of confidence. I took more and more out and realised that the bulkhead would stay nicely in place even with the footwell and door pillar removed.

I would never have had the nerve to do this on the other side. But it's done now so I had better get some new bits put in.

 

[jamesmartin]

After the urge to faint or puke or both subsided I carried on.
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That's going to need some work but the door pillar has to come off next.
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The pillar is not bad further up but where the door check thingy attaches it's in a bad way.
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I was going to repair one small area at a time but then I went a bit mad and thought it would be better to cut all the old rusty stuff out so I could offer in the foot, the pillar and the footwell all in one go and hopefully get the best fit. Doing the other side has given me a bit of confidence. I took more and more out and realised that the bulkhead would stay nicely in place even with the footwell and door pillar removed.
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I would never have had the nerve to do this on the other side. But it's done now so I had better get some new bits put in.

that was nothing as injuries go

 

[auld duffer]

just spent the last hours reading and digesting the restoration and the effort you have put in. Excellent work . Shame about the quality of parts, Im sure they must all be made in the same place as VW camper parts and Hot rod parts, nothing ever seems to fit .. One thing that was confusing me was on the rebuild of the steering idler, how cone the spring doest fire the bushes out when the compression tool is removed and before the cap goes on ?

 

[LincolnSteve]

just spent the last hours reading and digesting the restoration and the effort you have put in. Excellent work . Shame about the quality of parts, Im sure they must all be made in the same place as VW camper parts and Hot rod parts, nothing ever seems to fit .. One thing that was confusing me was on the rebuild of the steering idler, how cone the spring doest fire the bushes out when the compression tool is removed and before the cap goes on ?

Thanks for the kind words.
The spring in the relay is a monster but because the bushes are tapered and the shaft has the opposite tapers once it's all contained in the body of the relay it can't go anywhere.

The spring ends up in the narrow centre area of the shaft and the bushes can't be forced past the wider end of the taper. So you can remove both caps without the spring shooting out but I still wouldn't open it up without care and something to contain the spring if it should happen to fly. I read about one where the previous owner had not bothered with one set of bushes so that would explode as soon as a cap was removed.
Hope that helps and makes sense. Steve.

 

[LincolnSteve]

that was nothing as injuries go

I'm a bit of big jessie when it comes to injuries. I've been lucky and not had many.

I did drop an MG Midget on myself once though.

 

[auld duffer]

perfect sense the bushes are just like a collet, you dont see that in the pics but the diagram and explanation clear that up.. Thankfully not a job that needs done on mine but interesting to see how its done . Thanks again ..

 

[LincolnSteve]

I could have done with these door pillars before I started.

 

[Colthebrummie]

Looking at all that rust makes me wonder what mine is like in all the hidden places, I'm hoping it just lasts longer than me.

Col

 

[LincolnSteve]

Morning Col.
I know what you mean. Every time I peel back a layer of metal there's rust so it must be everywhere throughout the whole bulkhead. So the only thing to do is fix it where there's a visible problem and try not to worry about the rest.

 

[Colthebrummie]

Morning Col.
I know what you mean. Every time I peel back a layer of metal there's rust so it must be everywhere throughout the whole bulkhead. So the only thing to do is fix it where there's a visible problem and try not to worry about the rest.

Well you're doing a great job. I don't mind unbolting things but when it come to welding, I'm a scaredy cat which isn't helped when I see pictures of new parts with holes in the wrong places, that must be very frustrating for you.

Col

 

[LincolnSteve]

It's properly frustrating at the moment I must say. Working from home so literally sitting in the back bedroom right above the garage all week, bored to tears wishing I could get on with it. Then get to the weekend and my wife brings out the 'to do' list. I'm not going to whinge too much about work because I know i'm lucky to be in work.

 

[LincolnSteve]

Right. Done french and geography homework, cleaned his school shoes and football boots, wife's sciatica has calmed down so she's not in agony at the moment, can't walk the neighbours dogs until 2 and the grass is too wet to cut until this afternoon.

LANDY TIME!!!!!!!!

 

[LincolnSteve]

Very little progress made lately. I have finished the heater refurb though and i've tried a little upgrade as well. Nothing too drastic as I want it to stay original looking. Also it only used stuff that I already had laying about.

Like everything else it's in a bit of a state.

I cleaned it as best I could and gave it a bath in the Bilt Hamber rust remover as there are lots of corners that you can't get to. Gave it a quick bake in the oven which stank the house out and got me another telling off.
More Bilt Hamber stuff to keep the rust away.

 

[LincolnSteve]

Improvised heater matrix pressure test device.

 

[LincolnSteve]

I thought I should try to improve the heater a bit. Mine's never going to be a daily driver or probably even go out that much in the cold and rain but even so when something is a bit rubbish you might as well try to make it better. I thought I would try to insulate it so that whatever meagre heat it develops at least stays where it ought to be. I had some thin but very good insulation left over from when we fitted some under floor heating years ago and I combined this with some of that silver stuff that you can stick on the wall behind radiators to reflect heat back into the room. All stuck together with RTV silicone. So, ingenious and cheap upgrade or total waste of time. You decide.

 

[auld duffer]

Looking sharp .. very tidy job indeed.

 

[LincolnSteve]

Another quick job was to get the arms back on the steering relay. The manual says that the angle between the two should be 81 degrees. Maybe i'm missing something but just moving the arms round by one spline causes far too big a difference to make that possible so it's as near as I can get it. There's still a bit of a stiff area in the rotation of the relay so i've tried to fit the arms with the best feeling section of the rotation right where it's needed. There's only a small part of the rotation needed. It's interesting how much easier it is to turn the relay using the bottom arm which is just a bit longer than the top. Small difference makes a big difference.