Not Welding

In my last post I said that I would be welding next, but I didn't, I decided to have a different type of day.

There are still some mechanical parts that need attention, as my cunning plan is to get these items reconditioned / repaired while the body repairs are ongoing so I don't have to wait at the end of the body rebuild.

So first off were the disks from the fwd hubs, I have found a company in Oldbury who will make new ones

Then it was strip the struts, so the springs can be powder coated and the dampers replaced.

Had a small problem here, the uncompressed length of the springs was so large I couldn't remove my coil spring compressors, and had to get another set. Is it normal for 2000 springs to be so long, or was this a suspension modification?

I also need to compare the struts to my Stag ones and see if they are of similar length, spring mount height, and piston travel. if they are its some Koni inserts, if not I need to investigate alternatives.

Next front drive shafts, upon Adrian Turners advice I persuaded the CV joints to split from the front diff with a large hammer

These are going to Dave Mac Propshaft Services in Coventry.

Next project was the engine, I needed to get it built up to protect the machined faces from rust, so I intended a dry build before additional machining, here crank shells fitted

And crank in place checking end float - measured at 4 thou, which is the lower edge of the tolerance.

Crank turns freely by hand, no tight spots so onto the pistons, first check ring clearance, using rings off each piston in its bore, I set them to a "level" height using the piston.

All gaps were between 15 and 18thou, spot on for a Stag engine.

So pistons in

I had intended to deck height the block, to get the pistons level with the top of the block, but no need, unusually all the pistons were either level with the deck, or within 1 or 2 thou, so thats one job saved.

I shall do a little more work on the lower end, and then it will be oiled, wrapped in cling film and put away, until I am ready to fit the heads.

hours worked now 420 - 9 today
money spent now £8381 - £50 on powder coating.

Powder Coating

A short blog today, collected my recent batch of powder coating.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that the studs are still in the trailing arms and also powder coated. I tend to leave the old ones in and replace them later, as it protects the threads in the holes, which are feeble enough as it is, with out needing to tap them again to remove powder coat.

The rectangular backet with the large hole is the servo solenoid mount.

I have had some luck on ebay recently and sourced some nice parts such as:-

3 nos interior door handles
2 nos A Pillar repeater indicator lenses
4 nos headlamps complete.

plus other parts I was after, such as a nice clean powder coated Air Filter, 2 Cam Covers powder coated, and the sill chrome trims I was missing. I must say saloon parts don't carry the premium that TR5 parts do.

more welding next.

The Estate has turned Turtle.

I started today continuing with the roof welds. I got very sick of molten weld splatter down my arms, and it was almost impossible to see what you are doing when grinding the welds back, so, as I have a spit I decided to roll the car upside down. At least now the roof is on, there is enough weight to balance it and do this, before I couldn't get it more than 90 degress.

This was a good plan except for 2 issues:-

1). I hadn't removed all the rubbish from the interior, so what didn't fall out as it rotated ended up in the roof
and
2). I hadn't taken the doors off the passengerside, so it wasn't exactly balanced, and the doors are not easy to remove upside down!

While rotating it I spotted other jobs that I kept forgetting to do, so ground off the weld penetration on the rear valance, boot floor join

  and seam welded the reat of the passenger sill - it was only tacked in bits

and finished welding the outrigger on the passenger side

Then the roof / gutter rails, easy now and painless! So the roof is now completely welded on apart from a few spotwelds on the passenger side windscreen pillar, which can wait until its the rightway up again. Its easy to show the before and after here, the grove between the cant rail and gutter normally has a flexible joint filler in it, and is spot welded higher up befoer the roof goes on.

I am welding in the V of the joint

Thats it, I am now going to work on the underside of the car, front to back and try and complete the work underneath.

Hours worked 411 - 8 today

Fettling and Welding

I thought getting the roof on the car was the easy bit. I spent the first 3 hours of today adjusting the fit, grinding off metal on the C posts, and bits of the windscreen pillars. Then I still couldn't get the gutter rails to sit at the correct heights on the A, B and C posts, Nothing in the way, it was all about 10mm proud, with gaps between the cant rails and the rain channels, so the problem was how to pull or push the roof down, you could do it by hand, proving it would fit, but there was no way to weld it and hold it down at the same time. Weights on the roof would probably have dented it, and I didn't have any mole grips that would fit. So a trip to my local ironmonger, where I purchased 6 turnbuckles, the hooks on these fitted into the gutter, and the other end was attached via rope to the lower part of the birdcage. Rotate the buckles, and pull the roof down. Simples!

Good fit too

So started to tack weld it in place, not easy upside down! - and then a continuous seam weld

And when its ground back it looks like this (A pillar)

Plug welded the windscreen surround - I didn't use my spot welder because there are 3 layers of metal here, and there was no way of cleaning the existing layers before welding the top part on, which could have left weak welds.

And good penetration on the welds too

 With the rest of the welding and grinding to be done on the roof I think it will take 2 more days to complete, before I move on to anything else.

I will be able to remove the birdcage soon, once I finish the roof and complete some of the seam welding on the sills. I need to get the cage out, so that I can weld up the joint in the cant rails, and also the roof reinforcing bars. With the extra bits of cage that I have added as the project has gone on, I can barely get in the car now.

I will be making a trip to the powder coating firm tomorrow to drop more parts off.

Hours worked now 403
costs £8331 - turnbuckles and some shackles £20

The Estate has a roof !

Started off today by preparing the other side of the roof.

 

Then started to prepare the car by removing the rain gutters and parts of the A post

drivers side

I then cut off the rear section of roof frame on the car upto the passenger doors, but leaving the C post

3 of us, then lifted the new roof on

 

It fits pretty well, but won't align until I "fettle" the metal at the top of the C posts - as its the join, I intentionally left spare metal to ensure a good joint.

 

Once this is done all the remaining gaps will close up, and it can be seam welded under the gutter, spot welded round the windscreen etc etc

Don't worry about the gap in the A post in the following picture - I still have the original metal that I cut out

 

 

  

  

I am really pleased with the result, the job wasn't as bad as I had feared. There is probably another 2 days work to finish the roof off, with the welds and grinding, so I won't be in a hurry to do another one.

How long to the RBRR?

I might make it at this rate.

Hours worked now 395 - 9 today

Cant Rails and other bits and pieces

A mixed day today, cut the roof off the blue estate and loaded it on to a trailer. The engine still ran, so I have now driven a convertable 2000 estate!

The rear lamp housings are still attached to the roof, as I need some panels from them, and I wanted to carefully separate them from the roof.

 

No rust in the roof either, and only a little surface rust in the A posts

 

The plan for this roof is to cut out the cant rails forward of the "estate" modifications, leaving the rear hatch and window rails in place on the roof, reverse this process on the car, and then marry the two together. Sounds easy.....

Started cutting out the cant rails on the new roof, the cut is up to the gutter (rainchannel), leaving this attached to the roof, so I won't have to fabricate the parts that hold the trim strip on.

Cant rail removal

 

and now all gone, leaving the front of the A pillar - windscreen surround.

 

Next windscreen header rail removal

 

It just remains to repeat this on the other side.

While I was doing this, and waitng for the trailer to collect the old car, I also dismantled the rear trailing arms.

I got the bushes out with my favourite method - a blow torch, easy, if a little smelly and smoky and no risk of damage

Strangely on inspection one of the trailing arm spring mounts has a rusty metal spacer fitted, which was under the rubber spring mount. Both springs seem to be the same length, I intend to remove it and see if the car lists to one side upon the rebuild. The trailing arms, and other parts will now go for blasting, and powder coating where required.

If its dry tomorrow I intend to continue with the other side of the roof, and then start preparing the roof on the car.

Hours worked 386 (9 today)
Money Spent £8311 (engine work cost £750)

Back to Work

It seems strange to be updating the blog after such a long interval, but my work commitments have now slowed, and I am able to work on the estate again.

I took a trip to the machine shop today and collected the engine parts.

Unfortunately while pressure testing the heads and block various porous areas were found. This necessitated liners being fitted to some of the bores. You can just see the lip of the bottom of one liner in the following picture

 

The heads needed welding where corrosion had damaged the faces. The best head is here, you can see where the welding was done near to number 2 chamber from the slightly closed water way

The other head was much worse, and you can see far more evidence of welding, particularly near the chambers - the rough edges.

 

Both the heads now need work, to reshape the chambers back to standard, radius the chamber edges (to help prevent detonation) and to equalise the chamber volumes.

Because I had the welding done, only 10 thou was taken off the faces, so it won't need thick gaskets (or stainless steel head shim, and it shouldn't cause any alignment problems in the V with the inlet manifold.

I decided to recover these heads rather than try and find other good ones, as the low mileage means that the cam bearing faces are all good, the cam bucket bores too, and many secondhand heads have damage in this area which is even worse to recover.

New valve guides were fitted, the crank was crack tested, tuftrided and balanced as an assembly, with front pulley and flywheel and dummy pistons. (weights are attached to replicate piston and rod weights). Con rods were weighed and matched end to end.

The balancing is worth it for a smooth running engine, and pressure testing and crack testing should help with reliability, when this goes back in, I don't want to be fetching it out again in a few thousand miles due to unforseen problems.

The next step is to build the bottom of the engine, and assuming it rotates correctly, measure all the piston heights and then machine block and front cover to zero deck the pistons.

I need to buy another burette (mine is broken) before I work on the heads, as I intend to equalise the combustion chambers, and smooth out the ports.

I hope to get some roof work done later this week, so the engine will wait.