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The following will hopefully appear in Monstro, but is set out here for everyone to see!
Having stripped the shell of all interior trim and the wiring harnesses, the rolling shell was collected by the repair company early in April, so that they could get on with repairing or replacing all the body corrosion points. The original indications were rear quarters, both outer sills and a considerable area around the tailgate and sparewheel well. If what I have been told is correct, then this car had quite an horrendous early life with a number of major body panels having been replaced, albeit not correctly! The full story will no doubt be chronicled in Part 4, once it is returned in pristine condition.
Once the engine components had been returned from the engineering company and the piston rings had undergone a final, and careful, clean; it was time to start the re-assembly process. The first issue was locating the spring rings that retain the gudgeon pin in place, in their respective grooves. Research tended to show that they could be pressed into place just by thumb pressure. Now, either I have lost all the strength in my thumbs or no-one has attempted to put these particular rings in, using that method! Providing mechanical assistance or levers was fraught with the possibility of damaging the piston, but eventually I managed to get them all back in place, after a bit of judicious pre-compression of the rings before assembly! Then the piston rings were gapped and located in their grooves with correct spacing around the circumference. The crank, rods, pulley, flywheel and clutch had been balanced and additionally the flywheel had been drilled to accept a larger clutch – one of the few “standard” mods this car will have. The crank was fitted to the block with new bearing shells. The pistons were fitted in the bores and con-rods connected to the crank with new big end shells. The flywheel and clutch assembly were fitted to the crank, and all rotated with little effort. So far, so good.
The cylinder head had a broken manifold stud that required engineering shop removal and the thread needed to be helicoiled. Once that was returned, it was a case of removing the valves and checking their condition. Ideally stem oil seals would have been changed, but the correct ones – like a lot of things on these cars – are no longer available. So I will have to make do with those already fitted. Having purchased a head gasket set and finding that it didn’t have the correct gaskets for this engine, meant I needed the correct specification head gasket and manifold gasket. Thankfully, these are still around, even if they are recorded as being used on other engines! Once the head was fitted, the tappet clearances needed checking. In this engine, the overhead camshaft runs directly on bearing surfaces in the cylinder head and the cam cover. So, tappet clearances need a special tool to clamp the camshaft in position. Yet again these fall in to the “no longer available” category, so a bit of work on three pieces of angle iron were able to provide an excellent substitute. All the clearances were found to be just on the top side of the specified settings, but acceptable. Replacing the special tool with the cam cover completed the major component assembly. Then it was a case of re-installing the minor components on to the engine block, ensuring that all bolts were correctly torqued as I went along.
The turbocharger had given an indication that the bearings were worn and an overhaul was needed. Stripping the turbo down to its components was moderately straightforward and overhaul kits are available with all parts necessary to make it just like new again.
While there were pauses in the engine and turbo work, I turned my attention to the wiring harness. There were a number of bodges or faults that required attention to get it back to correct specification. These included the radio wires needing to be fully and correctly connected, wires to the ignition switch and ECU needed to be reinstated correctly, including remaking a plug connection to the main crankshaft position sensor and wrong, bodge wires removed. A number of harness runs also needed to be taped up again as the original harness tape had either gone brittle and broken off, or had been opened to make changes to the wires. At least now, the wiring throughout the car will be correct and bound and clipped as it was when new. While the car was at the repairers, the empty garage floor space was ideal to lay the harness out in the same basic shape it would be in the car. It certainly made locating wires a lot easier, knowing first where they were in the car and then confirming the correct ones by the colour code.
The other job undertaken, while waiting for the shell to be finished was to deal with the headlining. As we all know this is made up of a compressed cardboard former, covered with a nylon cloth.
The previous owner had, presumably, encountered the sagging problem and had solved it by stapling the cloth to the biscuit, over quite a large area! He had also dealt with the detached edges by sticking them back in place with ordinary paper masking tape.
The only way I could deal with this was to remove all the old material, the remnants of the glued foam off the former and then start all over again. Thankfully, the staples had only been pushed through and were not crimped behind. There were only about 5 splits around the edges, and a broken front corner which I initially thought I would have to make up afresh, but was found in the folds of the old cloth and so only required re-attaching and making good. A few places where a layer of the pressed cardboard had come away with the old glue also needed careful filling, so that the new cloth would have as smooth a surface to adhere to as possible.
Having stripped the shell of all interior trim and the wiring harnesses, the rolling shell was collected by the repair company early in April, so that they could get on with repairing or replacing all the body corrosion points. The original indications were rear quarters, both outer sills and a considerable area around the tailgate and sparewheel well. If what I have been told is correct, then this car had quite an horrendous early life with a number of major body panels having been replaced, albeit not correctly! The full story will no doubt be chronicled in Part 4, once it is returned in pristine condition.
Once the engine components had been returned from the engineering company and the piston rings had undergone a final, and careful, clean; it was time to start the re-assembly process. The first issue was locating the spring rings that retain the gudgeon pin in place, in their respective grooves. Research tended to show that they could be pressed into place just by thumb pressure. Now, either I have lost all the strength in my thumbs or no-one has attempted to put these particular rings in, using that method! Providing mechanical assistance or levers was fraught with the possibility of damaging the piston, but eventually I managed to get them all back in place, after a bit of judicious pre-compression of the rings before assembly! Then the piston rings were gapped and located in their grooves with correct spacing around the circumference. The crank, rods, pulley, flywheel and clutch had been balanced and additionally the flywheel had been drilled to accept a larger clutch – one of the few “standard” mods this car will have. The crank was fitted to the block with new bearing shells. The pistons were fitted in the bores and con-rods connected to the crank with new big end shells. The flywheel and clutch assembly were fitted to the crank, and all rotated with little effort. So far, so good.
The cylinder head had a broken manifold stud that required engineering shop removal and the thread needed to be helicoiled. Once that was returned, it was a case of removing the valves and checking their condition. Ideally stem oil seals would have been changed, but the correct ones – like a lot of things on these cars – are no longer available. So I will have to make do with those already fitted. Having purchased a head gasket set and finding that it didn’t have the correct gaskets for this engine, meant I needed the correct specification head gasket and manifold gasket. Thankfully, these are still around, even if they are recorded as being used on other engines! Once the head was fitted, the tappet clearances needed checking. In this engine, the overhead camshaft runs directly on bearing surfaces in the cylinder head and the cam cover. So, tappet clearances need a special tool to clamp the camshaft in position. Yet again these fall in to the “no longer available” category, so a bit of work on three pieces of angle iron were able to provide an excellent substitute. All the clearances were found to be just on the top side of the specified settings, but acceptable. Replacing the special tool with the cam cover completed the major component assembly. Then it was a case of re-installing the minor components on to the engine block, ensuring that all bolts were correctly torqued as I went along.
The turbocharger had given an indication that the bearings were worn and an overhaul was needed. Stripping the turbo down to its components was moderately straightforward and overhaul kits are available with all parts necessary to make it just like new again.
While there were pauses in the engine and turbo work, I turned my attention to the wiring harness. There were a number of bodges or faults that required attention to get it back to correct specification. These included the radio wires needing to be fully and correctly connected, wires to the ignition switch and ECU needed to be reinstated correctly, including remaking a plug connection to the main crankshaft position sensor and wrong, bodge wires removed. A number of harness runs also needed to be taped up again as the original harness tape had either gone brittle and broken off, or had been opened to make changes to the wires. At least now, the wiring throughout the car will be correct and bound and clipped as it was when new. While the car was at the repairers, the empty garage floor space was ideal to lay the harness out in the same basic shape it would be in the car. It certainly made locating wires a lot easier, knowing first where they were in the car and then confirming the correct ones by the colour code.
The other job undertaken, while waiting for the shell to be finished was to deal with the headlining. As we all know this is made up of a compressed cardboard former, covered with a nylon cloth.
The previous owner had, presumably, encountered the sagging problem and had solved it by stapling the cloth to the biscuit, over quite a large area! He had also dealt with the detached edges by sticking them back in place with ordinary paper masking tape.
The only way I could deal with this was to remove all the old material, the remnants of the glued foam off the former and then start all over again. Thankfully, the staples had only been pushed through and were not crimped behind. There were only about 5 splits around the edges, and a broken front corner which I initially thought I would have to make up afresh, but was found in the folds of the old cloth and so only required re-attaching and making good. A few places where a layer of the pressed cardboard had come away with the old glue also needed careful filling, so that the new cloth would have as smooth a surface to adhere to as possible.
Attached Files
Going to start on mine next week bare metal Respray managed to get 4 new doors, new hatch, new wings, new bonnet, all new door mouldings the price stupidly high, passion = money
The only outstanding purchases, I think, are replacement front wings. Everything else were good second-hand, or new. As for what I have - and will spend - I'll only check that once I finished! I think if I look earlier, my retirement will be very short-lived!!
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