1965 Series 2a Station Wagon in Holland

...ah a bit more on the wheels - forgot to say





To cover the sand blasted steel I'm using Hammerite No1 rust beater primer! It is a bit of a weird dodgy 1970s prosthetic limb colour.

Hammerite has a surprisingly bad name in some parts of the world even though it seems to be globally available. May be because it is blinking everywhere - I don't know. Anyway I have used this undercoat / primer before, and it seems to perform as well as anything else (often more expensive) I've tried.

You don't have to take my word for it, however, there's a been a test done by some chap in Holland which is quite a nice example of what works and what doesn't.

It is in Dutch but the pictures are more than clear enough =>

http://www.oldtimerautosite.nl/roest_test.htm

Hammerite No1 rust beater undercoat works well so long as the top coat is good.

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In other news - that effing fiddly replacement air filter assembly has finally been finished and has been packed away in a box before it gets scratched again!

Just when I thought "right that's it - no more painting until May when it gets warm enough again" it was warm enough today!

I'd even dismantled the green house spray booth and was ready to dig out the sewing machine to start on the cushions...



...casing on the left is for a Mercedes so ignore that - tomorrow (if it stays warm enough) I'll coat them both in Eastwood's chassis black.

Quick quick it is warm enough (just!)

Degreasing and de-rusting



In case you haven't discovered it yet - U-POL slow degreaser is quite a nice product for mucky stuff. I find you need to get the surface cleaner before painting though as the U-POL hangs about a bit. After using it I give the surface a blast of brake cleaner and today ('cos I was thinking ahead - shock horror sometimes it happens!) I then finished off with the Eastwood pre-painting solvent.

Say in the style of Homer Simpson opening the fridge =>

Mmmmmmmmm - masking =>



Then the first coat of the engine blue went on





I'm going to have to flip it upside down and give it a second coat (bound to have missed a few spots)

It will probably have three coats in total

Bit of a gay colour - still 'tis original and correct...

I really like the colour. I must be getting in touch with my feminine side.

LincolnSteve said:

I really like the colour. I must be getting in touch with my feminine side.

Click to expand...

I hope you're right about the colour - may be it will look good in the engine bay with the Bronze Green. Still from what I've read about series engines it'll be covered in black oil before too long!

Well today it came.

Oh yes

All the nasty things I've heard about Lucas 'Lectrics will hopefully be a thing of the past...

...not cheap but will be one of the few upgrades I'll be doing as it will not be on show.



As you can see the modern box of electrickery is going to fit easily in the original Lucas regulator box.

I had to buy a "custom" version because I wanted the 25 Amp upgrade that was made to the original charging system in about 1962 (don't quote me on the year - look it up in the James Taylor book - or perhaps ask me to do so if this is really important to you)



The original box has 5 connectors on it

This new electronic regulator only has four wires - me thinks I'll have to take that a bit slow and figure out what is going on. There will undoubtedly be a load of ball scratching and head scratching going on as electrickery ain't my strong suit at all. Failing that I'll be ringing up me mate who's an electronics engineer for a good dose of sarcasm...



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Any way the point of this is to hide the witch craft in the original box so it looks nice and lush and old and I keep the dynamo (no alternators for me!) and the original positive earth system with two 6V batteries wired in series to give me the 12 V system...

...should be good - should keep the lights working and the batteries in good health (which when you've got two of them you kind of want to help them both survive as replacement costs are gonna be at least double)

New toy arrived today =>



<= if I can find a spare Dutch plug I'm gonna be playing in me sand pit tomorrow!

"if I can find a spare Dutch plug I'm gonna be playing in me sand pit tomorrow!"

Is this a euphemism for some strange activity? lol

LordOWar said:

"if I can find a spare Dutch plug I'm gonna be playing in me sand pit tomorrow!"

Is this a euphemism for some strange activity? lol

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Ooooo er missus I didn't think of that (he says coyly pointing his right big toe in the sand dragging it round in a circle...)


It is a mobile sand pit that vibrates


(Could this get any worse?)

I didn't have much time to play to day which was a shame.

Still - just in case there's a bit of confusion I thought I'd make the following clear:

Drain plug (series 2 differential) =>



English plug (cut off the wire that came with the vibratory tumbler)



Dutch plug (now fitted to make vibratory tumbler work)



Butt plug (found on the internet)



Don't mix them up.

I'm using walnut shells in the tumbler first to get an idea of how this is going to perform.

The walnut shells are used for polishing and are meant to be gentle. I've put in those dynamo terminals to see how they clean up.

From the outset I can see I need to buy some more walnut shells - not enough in the tumbler to do a good a job =>



(Well thank you for making that clear Frosts! So bit of a delay again)

Anyone here got vibratory tumbler experience?

I know I'm always whinging on about progress but today I only had time to do this =>



Yep I just about managed to tie-wrap most of the old loom onto a bit of board.

The plan is to make up my own wiring loom on another board that will be positioned next to this one.

First step is to work out the wire thicknesses and sheaf colours required. This means figuring out which bits are not original and where it all goes...

...hmmmmm - electrickery - what this space (!) - not my strong suit...

Mini update for the tumbler.

The walnut shells are working but really really slowly - after about an hour in the machine the following bits look quite nice though



I'm going to stop the process now for these parts as they still look like they've got some age to them (which is the result I want)

When (if) I get my Mercedes back in one piece again I'll be able to go and get some different grit - I have some glass sand that might work well too...

Stretch said:

I know I'm always whinging on about progress but today I only had time to do this =>

View attachment 109475

Yep I just about managed to tie-wrap most of the old loom onto a bit of board.

The plan is to make up my own wiring loom on another board that will be positioned next to this one.

First step is to work out the wire thicknesses and sheaf colours required. This means figuring out which bits are not original and where it all goes...

...hmmmmm - electrickery - what this space (!) - not my strong suit...

Click to expand...

Flipping heck this wiring is a pain.

In the Green Book there's what looks like a decent wiring diagram but this seems to bear absolutely no relationship with the wiring I took out.

Has anyone here redone / replaced series 2a wiring before?

Well this takes me back!



Been some time since I was wire locking. At least this time I wasn't working above my head with hydraulic oil dripping in my face and down my arms - or sitting on top of a rotor head in the wind and rain unable to feel my fingers! Oh those were the days...

...this wire isn't crucial as the bolts are pretty tight in the casing - it is only there to help stop the bolt undoing whilst you are trying to tighten the nuts on the differential during fitment. So my wire locking should "do a trip" (even though I'm a little out of practice these days)

Not particularly Land Rover related but was a bit of fun - one of the Land Rover's fellow tenants moved out today



Fork lift and pallets were used as a brake because the mini tractor was to light to stop it from rolling out of the out ramp in the warehouse



This is a river going boat that was built in about 19 - 0 - something

Nice thing...

...not that several fellow road users were thinking that when we stopped the traffic for about an hour...

Good progress!

See your Upol residue issue... You are using slow degreaser, as you should be, to do the main job as it evaporates very slowly (hence the name) to give you plenty of working time. You would then follow this up with fast degreaser to clean up the residue which will be formulated to work with and remove the slow, as the name suggests it evaporates far quicker. I have often found that some aerosol brake cleaners and similar don't work well to remove the degreaser. Perhaps you have found a combination that works well, but if you feel there is room for improvement, now you know

Clearly a labour of love, just keep wishing i had some unit space to do the same! Looks like it's coming along nicely. Showing my ignorance I'd never seen anything to do with wirelocking before. And some good info on the products from both of you which I'm going to put to good use when I get a moment! Thanks.

Nick666 said:

Clearly a labour of love, just keep wishing i had some unit space to do the same! Looks like it's coming along nicely. Showing my ignorance I'd never seen anything to do with wirelocking before. And some good info on the products from both of you which I'm going to put to good use when I get a moment! Thanks.

Click to expand...

Finding a space for the project was crucial. Finding the space where I could work on cars took about a year. Most land lords don't like "car folk" because a lot of people leave loads of crap behind and are sometimes not so reliable paying the rent. I'm not abusing the situation and put a lot of effort into making sure the land lord is happy with my presence. This is (pretty) necessary as at the moment I don't even have a driveway at the moment where I can carry on with what I have started...

...you might be surprised to know that I have little intention of keeping the vehicle once it is done. I doubt very much if I can fit behind the steering wheel! For me the fun in owning a vehicle is the taking it to bits and putting it back together.

Today - balmy Indian summer weather - couldn't believe it. Whilst everyone else was out sitting on a terrace I took advantage of the 15 degree C temperature and (importantly) under 60% humidity to squirt on a bit of this =>



Who'd have thought it eh? Safely painting outside on the 30th of October!