Unfortunately they banned Trichloroethylene 1.1.1., what a degreaser that was!!!!! I didn't get too covered in goo though. Top tips are: Plenty of disposable nitryl gloves, just keep chucking them in the bin Plenty of clean paper/rags Get a proper pair of snap-ring pliers Lob the joints in a tub of petrol overnight (if you havent got a parts washer), just a bit of a brush off in some clean solvent the next day and clean as a whistle The Febi kits seem pretty good and were decent value IMHO, I have ordered some new M8 Schnorr washers as these weren't in the kit though, only about £3 off eBay
Good afternoon spent in the workshop today Small jobs first. I've been struggling to find a seal for the alternator to tinware, so made one from a window scraper seal... Welded up the clutch cable bracket which had the beginnings of a crack in it (must be common, I have 2 of these - both cracked?) Then I deleted the diagnostic socket... CHOP... I needed to do this to pull the wiring loom out from the engine bay, to repair the area where it passes through. I chopped out the air filter stand - don't need that for twin Dell's, vroooom! I also needed to pull the firewall out and remove the tank to fit some seatbelt mounts... Plenty of rust in here! Fortunately, the structural bits are all sound, just a bit of patching required. More next weekend! Cracking on now!
Spot of preventive (hopefully) maintenance on the 'new' gearbox Bellhousing off to replace input shaft seal Quick butchers inside to: 1) Have a look at the crownwheel and pinion to see if they are serviceable, phew OK 2) Count the CW+P teeth to verify ratio, phew again! New gasket and bellhousing back on Nosecone off, new hockey stick ball fitted and bearings re-lubricated. New seal for good measure too and a new boot to finish it off. Smart!
'Rent' due, so some more MG action - 1/4 panel repair fitted, filled and primed. Front wing part panel repair too. Back to my van... Fuel tank wire wheeled, rust treated and in primer: All iffy welds ground out on the towbar and re-welded (no pics, sorry!). Then a bit of faffing around fitting sime rivnuts to the firewall for the alternator voltage regulator and banks of fuses/relays for various things when it goes back together. Thinking ahead - not like me... Rear bumper filled and primed, but not happy so i'll be doing it again :-(
So, last weekend I brought this home... 2.0 CU from a T25, runs sweet and has DRLAs on. Off with the tinware... Gave it a good clean up and replaced the rear crank seal and oil cooler seals to save heartache later Dual sender for pressure gauge fitted and some exhaust wrap to seal it against the tinware. I needed to enlarge the hole by about 3mm all around to do this Of course, I need oil temp too! So weld a 1/2 nut onto the plate below the dipstick as-per Porsche 914 A lick of paint later... More to follow...
Fan shroud on... After some procrastination and measuring I decided to keep the T25 dipstick, thus I can avoid the leaking dipstck bellows issue Alternator harness was wrong, so made a new one - nice ;-) Coming together now! Ta-dah! Just spotted a drip from one of the pushrod tubes . Will sort that no probs though. Just [] need to repair the heat exchanger tins and then ready for a bench test!
Lots of scratching around in the tank and engine bay of late, found the chassis number intact under lots of red lead and other paint! A bit of chopping and general de-rustification... Patched the corroded sections under the tank
Allowed myself to crawl out from the black hole of Calcutta to make some things shiny! Firewall... Under tray... Fuel tank... Nice! Also made a nice engine wiring loom (incorporating extra cables for oil temp/pressure senders) and tidied the vacuum hose. I'm planning on fitting multi-plugs so the engine can be disconnected in a heartbeat!
Shiny new air filters arrived in the post, great lets get them fitted... Oh. No thread in one of the mounting holes on the RHS carb and one of the others has minimal thread left Luckily I have some M6 wire thread inserts, so a wee bit of rectification required. Strip the top from the carb, then drill and tap - Fit insert - Rebuild carb, plenty of thread-lock! Yay shiny!!!! I just need to finish fixing the HX's and sort out the crankcase breather, then it will be time for the exciting bench test!
HX's done! Took bloomin' ages!! Currently the paint is curing in front of the stove Also got some Paul Weeding type 4 GRP under tins, quick trial fit says very nice! Temp sender fitted in the 'taco' plate Plates for the rear seat belts fitted and strengtheners welded in behind them. Looking forward to bench testing the engine this weekend
Yet more great progress... looking good! Bit of paint inside the noisy cupboard and I guess you're about ready to refit everything back in?
Exchangers and exhaust fitted, breathers for crankcase and fuel tank plumbed up. I just need three mates to help me lift it off the bench, put the gearbox and starter on then fire her up! Now, who can I bribe with some beer??
Hmm. Not quite Nearly there in the 'noisy cupboard' actually (I've not heard that phrase before, but I like it). I'll be glad to be finished working in the engine/tank bay, I must have hit my head/shoulder/back about 1000 times and my knees, oh my knees! Then just 2/3 of the van to fill, prime, re-fill, flat, etc. Then use my [not at all] honed painting skills to make it blue in a not very clean environment!! I'm not quite going to make it to Eskdale, which I'm hacked off about, maybe do a day trip in the T4
Thanks @MorkC68 and @midmusq - words of encouragement help my occasionally flagging morale no end! Well, it's on the deck. Cheers! There's two left if you're passing...
