Nov 30th 2014
The clutch was very, very sharp and the front brakes were seized.
All the hydraulics on the bulkhead were seeping fluid and the exhaust was a bit noisy.
The whole car was painted red. I had sort of fallen out of love with red so decided to strip the car right back and paint the frame black and fix anything I came across whilst doing that.
The side bars were a bit wobbly, made of quite lightweight square steel tube. I decided to take them off and make up some new ones in round tube.
The clutch seemed to have too long a pedal (Literally. The pedal was too long), as my boot was bearing on the arm not the pad, and not enough movement at the master cylinder. The slave cylinder was new, but the release arm at the bell-housing seemed too short so the slightest movement of the slave push-rod let the clutch engage with a bang.
I altered the pedal push-rod attachment to get more movement, and improve the angle to the master cylinder. Then I lengthened the release arm at the bell-housing, moving the slave cylinder to the other side of the mounting rail to operate it properly.
That seemed to fix the clutch operation.
The brake pedal was a bit lightweight so I strengthened that and shortened the arm as well. Again the push-rod wasn't quite concentric with the master cylinder so I altered it's attachment position again.
Wheely Rusty
Whilst I was getting into this I was attending to the wheels which were a bit battered. I took the tyres off. The insides of the wheels were a bit grim. A couple of very noisy afternoons, lots of rust dust and very dirty hair later I'd got them clean enough to straighten and paint.
My other car had tubeless tyres. You tend to remove those quite often to get the grass out from the bead and seal the rims. With tubes you possibly don't have to do that so often and the corrosion and muck build up.
The next thing was to remove the bodywork and store that in the greenhouse whilst I stripped the frame and checked it for corrosion or cracks. It was remarkably rust-free. The only cracked welds were on the pedal box frame and one on a bracket on the front axle. It looked like it had suffered a bit of a belt.
Whilst I was moving it about I thought it was very difficult to push, which can't help performance. It turned out the front wheel outer bearings were seized (they are small needle rollers) and I later discovered that the propshaft UJ was seized as well. Of course you always find out with vehicles like this that parts are sourced from everywhere.
The needle rollers bearings were (of course) about £20 each. The inner, larger, bearings are about £4 each.
The brake calipers are a slight problem. I have managed to get seals and a piston, but one has a broken bleed valve. Rather than just leave it and bleed through the hose banjo I decided to get the old nipple out. Mistake. Despite an engineer friend's attempts using top quality easy-outs and heat, the boss the nipple is screwed into has cracked. I will just alloy weld it up and do what I should have done in the first place. Bleed through the banjo. (You can even get adapters with a nipple in to allow you to use banjo.)
The calipers are from a pre-1988 Kawasaki trail bike, so the chance of finding another is zilch. New calipers are about £120.
Similarly the propshaft UJ has a Unipart bearing-joint in it. It's the same as used in Midgets, Spitfires etc etc.
I have the measurements and it took a while to identify it. These are not common items these days. I found a firm online who had the joints, GUJ 101, in stock. I got one. It's the wrong size. I rang him up and he said "No-one else has complained"
I found another supplier who had a GUJ 101, which he measured for me and it was correct (only a matter of 1.4mm, but that is a lot).
The rear brake calipers are Ford Fiesta. Although they were seized and had a broken mounting bolt a bit of Plus Gas and dismantling sorted them out OK.
Don't think I am suggesting that Bob wasn't keeping the car running properly. He has had his smart new(er) car since February and I bought this one from him in September. I think it had one outing at the practice day in August, but other than that it's been sat in a barn or wherever.
Apart from that he has a farm to run and cows to milk etc, unlike me who has sod all to do really.
Another thing I did (the first thing actually) was to service the trailer and make sure the brakes were working and bearings greased and adjusted. I've had too many trailers to trust this to chance. When they stand unused for a while they usually suffer. I also wheel it about a bit, now and then, so that the bearing's rollers are not always left in the same place on the tracks.
Suck or Blow
When I took the radiator off and the cooling fan I was a bit baffled at the look of the fan. Plugging it in again showed that it pulls air from the engine, through the radiator, towards the front of the car. This isn't very helpful really, if you are moving forwards. I tried reversing the feed and it ran backwards, but not pushing much air. Coming from a Triumph Acclaim (I presume) it's likely that it was mounted behind the radiator in the original installation, which would work well with the natural airflow.
In front of the radiator it's doing the wrong thing. It is also pretty massive. I will look for a front-mounted electric fan down at the scrappies. At the worst I'll get a Kenlowe.
There is also a stainless steel vessel in the top hose, presumably to prevent air locks stopping the through-flow of water. It looks like someone has gone to some lengths to fit it. I can't see how it works though and have chucked it. The last car worked well enough without so we shall see.
That'll do for this post.
The next one will deal with the back axle, fuel tank, new side bars, front axle, water pump plumbing and exhaust
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