Topic

Sensible precaution.

Sunday 2nd March
Having spent the most of the day at the MG and Triumph show at Stoneleigh, I only had a couple of hours of tinkering time, so I decided to sort out the bent bumper mounts on the crash cans.

The protruding thread was cut off with a hacksaw, and a suitable piece of wood (23mm by 48) and soft faced mallet was used to straighten the bracket.

The centre was marked up with a punch and a pilot hole drilled.

A few more drills were run though up to the size required for taping (8.5mm). I’d got this spot on which tends to cause the bit to snag. Some of the original thread is visible in this pic.

Then the rust was cleaned off

And some Zinc primer applied.

Monday 3rd March
I found a couple of hours after work to make up the strengthening pieces.
Having measured the width of the bracket (??mm), the height from the body of the crash can (26mm), and the depth of the captive nut (10mm). I cut out a couple of pieces of sheet steel and proceeded to bend them in the vice.

And checked for size

Then removed a couple of mm from each side of one end so it would locate in the bracket.
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34897869/tf/RearEnd20140302/8-FilledToSlotIn.jpg[img] And checked the fit. [img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34897869/tf/RearEnd20140302/9-TestingFit.jpg[/img]
And finally straightened the bracket some more


Sunday 9th March
Having spent a lovely weekend away with friends in Derby, we dropped in on my uncle who had kindly agreed to give me a welding lesson.
We drilled a couple of holes in the “foot” of the bracket I’d made, and the existing brackets, with the intention of plug welding.
The feed was playing up on the welder , so not suitable for me to learn with, and in the event it was so bad my uncle was struggling (and swearing) . We made a temporary repair to it, which enabled us to finish the job. I might have been the prettiest weld, but sufficiently strong.

Tuesday 11th March
Cleaned up the welds

And zinc primed some more.

Friday 14th March
I had booked a day off to spend some time with the missus, but she still had her part time job to go to for just over 4 hours, so I got stuck into cleaning up the rust.
I started by removing the vacuum parts for the stock exhaust and taped over the holes.
Then I set too with the drills and wire brushes. The N/S sill end wasn’t so bad looking at first sight.

But the off side one was very crusty, the metal was so thin in one place that a hole appeared.

And underneath 2 more holes appeared.

So out came the Dremel type tool with some cutting disks and the thinnest metal was cut out.

I then turned my attention to the inside

And the bottom of the “shelf” which was a crusty in my first post.

Then on to the near side sill…

…but I couldn’t fully clean the “shelf” as there was not enough room…

So I applied some rust converter and the then a coat of Zinc primer


To end the day I put a top coat on the crush can mounting area.

It's coming along very nicely and you are doing a fantastic job, the only thing is you will now have to do the front subframe! A job for next winter I think?

Nice images but I think you have the lower link arms (the long rod with the rose joint and ball joint) that adjust the rear toe on the wrong way around, the bias for the link from the offset ball joint should be downwards (swap O/S for N/S) otherwise when the suspension travels upwards the link arm will touch the subframe.

Looks like the engine will be going back in soon.

Badger wrote: wrote:

It's coming along very nicely and you are doing a fantastic job, the only thing is you will now have to do the front subframe! A job for next winter I think?

Thanks Badger. I did the front one first. So next winters project will be some subtle interior improvements.

Badger wrote: wrote:

Nice images but I think you have the lower link arms (the long rod with the rose joint and ball joint) that adjust the rear toe on the wrong way around, the bias for the link from the offset ball joint should be downwards (swap O/S for N/S) otherwise when the suspension travels upwards the link arm will touch the subframe.

I remember prevaricating over that and looking a pictures. But now that you've pointed it out, I've had a look back at some of my early pictures, and your quite right. Will rectify ASAP!

Badger wrote: wrote:

Looks like the engine will be going back in soon.

Coming weekend I hope


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Saturday 15th
Started by putting a coat of stone chip to the ends of the sills, and a further undercoat everywhere else.

Whilst that was drying I fitting the cleaned up clutch slave…

...damaged the paint.

Then I moved on to changing the gear cable ends and replacing the gaiters that were falling to bits. I marked the position of the lock nuts with masking tape before removing the gaiter. Note the diameter of end of the gaiter which fits snuggly on the cable end.

When the old and new gaiters were compared, there was a considerable difference in length.

Which looked worse when it was fitted…

…as did the not so snug fit. I rectified both with a small cable tie.
.
Another little surprise was that one of ends I had taken off was longer than the newer ones.

So I measured the difference, and adjusted the lock nut position accordingly.

Next I checked the measurements of Triumph bump stops. They were close to perfect . The only differences were that that they were a cone shape instead of a dome, and the thread was imperial rather than metric. A quick dig in my box of mini bits and hey presto 2 suitable nuts were found.
I had to undo the damper units in order to be able to lift the arms enough to fit them.


Final job for the day was to repair the exhaust heat shield. Having measured the remaining bracket I cut out a length of aluminium (because I had some and it’s light so will make the car go faster ) but double the width, then marked up the holes.

With all the holes drilled, and cleaned up it was bent to shape and compared.

Then fitted with pop rivets.
.
Job done!

Time for with Barry and the girls.

Sunday 16th
Only had the afternoon to get some bits done.
Started by putting a top coat on in the engine bay, but ran out half way through, and as Halfords don’t stock Le Mans Green I couldn’t get any more.
So I fitted the brakes.

And started the refurb of the engine bay fan.

Monday 17th to Friday 21st
Armed with 2 can of Holts colour matched HFN Le Mans paint mixed up at Motorserv, I spent 30 minutes each night painting the rusty panel bits until they looked like this…







My final Friday night job was the re-assembly of the engine bay fan. The fastening that holds the fan onto the motor has rusted so much it was impossible to tell what it was when I took it all to bits. So after a lot of research I settle on an e-clip for the reassembly. 10 minutes later it look like this…


Saturday 22nd
Started early as I planned to put the car together this weekend.
First up was the engine bay fan and brake pipe back in on the off side.

I put the heat shield in also, but despite 20 minutes+ of searching , I could not find the special nuts that hold it in. So I decided to crack on with other stuff hoping I’d come across them later on.

The fuel/air filter bracket went back in, along with the brake pipe.

I was busy with this when BarryD arrived. I’d asked him to come over as I couldn’t remember how the exhaust heat shield fitted. Whilst looking I noticed that his exhaust strap had failed due to rusting through at the point where it is bolted to the catalyst. Oh dear . A short while later he was off to do his chores, and I got back to work.

Next, the engine & sub-frame was wheeled into place, and the body was slowly lowered on to them. Getting the mounts to correctly align was a time consuming business. I could not get it right. In the end I decide to just go ahead and put bolts in where possible, and continued to jiggle everything around until eventually the remaining bolt holes aligned.
Finally it looked like this…

The rest of the day was spent connecting everything back up, but in no particular order, I just worked on one area at a time. In the midst of all this I manage to trip over the exhaust heat shield and broke the old rusty mount off, so I’ll have to make another up.
First the brakes, then the gear cables, the electrics, the flexi section of exhaust, the coolant system, the clutch hose (braided), and ended with trying to fit the ARB, which went OK until I got to the drop links where I found the brake disks were in the way . By then it was 5:30 PM and I was knackered, so I decided to quit for the day. I had one last fruitless look for the missing heat shield fittings before packing up, and going in for dinner .

That is coming along very nicely.

There is a certain amount of satisfaction when you complete a job like this especially considering all that you've done.

Its a credit to you well done, good job.


Tone

Superb job.. Looking fab

Allan

Sunday 23rd March
I decided to start the day by installing the crash cans, whilst my hands were clean. I climbed into the garage loft to measure the distance between the mount bolt slots on the bumper to be sure I put the crash can on the right way around, and ended up with dirty hands.

Having measured up on the car, I decided to apply silicon sealant to the mounting flanges before installing the cans so that there would be no way moisture could get behind. After 5 minutes of searching and not finding the sealant gun, I concluded that I must have put it back in the shed with the rest of the decorating kit. I wandered to the end of the back garden, to find the she locked, then stomped back to the house accompanied by some expletives, and got shed key and tried again. No silicon or gun. Back to the garage, for another search, and I found it exactly where I had been looking previously. The day was not starting off well!
With some silicon applied, I prepped the stainless nut and bolts, and then installed both crash cans…


Next were the ARB drop links. The disks came off with the minimum of effort because the brakes had not been used since I fitted them. I simply undid the bolts holding the carrier to the hub, and pulled the complete callipers off the disks and hung them out of the way, then undid the securing screws and removed disks.
With the drop links bolted to the trailing arm, the ARB had to be jiggled about a bit as it was too far over to the off-side. Once aligned and bolted to the drop links, the bolts that hold ARB to the rear sub frame mounts were done up. None of these bolts could be fully tighten until the suspension was under load, and I had come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t be able to reach most of the bolts with the wheels on. So I got both jacks out and with a couple of blocks of wood under each hub I pumped up the jacks until the car lifted from the axel stands. The from the rear of the car checked that both sides were level as I figured the weight needed to be applied evenly.


All the ARB and drop link bolts were torqued up, as were the damper to upper arm bolts and lower arm to hub bolts. I should have done the lower arm to sub-frame bolts also.
Next up bleeding of the brakes and clutch, both were annoying slow jobs, with a lot of to-ing a fro-ing to top the master cylinder reservoirs, but with a little persuasion the wife was drafted in to help. With that done, it was time for a spot of lunch!
After lunch my farther in law who had turned up for an impromptu visit, and got roped into helping me fill and bleed the coolant.
As I’d made such good progress I decided I’d fit the Daytona, without the heat shield, in the hope that I could add that later.


I was then itching to hear what it sounded like. So on went the air box, and on went the battery negative. Tense with anticipation I turned the key to the second position and the fuel pump fired up, and ran for a quite few seconds, once it stopped I turned the key to the 3rd position the starter buzzed and almost immediately she fire up. YES! After 6 months in bits she lives again!


On a high I decide to complete one more job before packing up, so I cleaned up and install the alternator side cover and the two rear wheel arch panels.

Excellent work as ever. Nice tea and biscuits as well. Amazed at your patience and mechanical skills! I'll just keep hitting the crinkle cut nails with a bigger hammer until something breaks.

Next winter time to strip out the interior - you've done the front and back LOL