Repairs and More Mods

30th March 2015

Bent Suspension Bracket

Back at base I took the front axle off to get on with removing the bent bracket and replacing it. It was torn across one side of a hole. I cut it back to good metal and realised that to get the tapered hole for the ball joint to fit to I would have to re-use the original top of the bent bracket which had the correctly tapered hole already.

I made a piece of 6mm thick metal to replace the damaged part

Then prepared the top part with the hole to join to that

...welded that on

...then welded it to the axle

..cleaned it up and primed it

Then I repainted the whole axle and put it back on the car. I thought the paint looked a bit rough on the bracket, but then realised it was a reflection of the sumpguard!

Slave Cylinder Skid Plate

I straightened(ish) the sumpguard and noticed the guard I had put under the clutch slave cylinder had been pushed up and was touching the bleed nipple. The skid was made of alloy treadplate. It was just a cuve between the two bolt holes with no re-inforcing to prevent it bending if the car sat on a rock. I decided to make a steel one to avoid unfortunate breakages in the future. It would be daft to have to retire for the want of a bit of a stronger skid.

Here is the news next to the old: -

and fitted in place

I can't imagine that bending.

Knackered Water Pump

The main reason we retired was that the water pump was spraying water out. I didn't fancy frying the cylinder head just to do a few more Hills.

I took the old one off and decided that whilst I was doing it I would paint the cam belt cover, which was a dirty white, and the rocker cover which was a blotchy black.

When I took the pump out I saw that there was a sort of funnel shape cast behind it for the impeller to run in. Very important, this. The cam belt looked fairly new, if a little slack.

I ordered a new water pump from a seller on ebay and waited for it to arrive. When it did I offered it up and it wouldn't fit. I compared it to the old one (which was truly jerked) and the impeller was bigger. 66.5 mm diameter compared to the original which was 60mm in diameter.

Because of that funnel shape casting the new one wouldn't fit in. I tried ebay again and asked the seller to measure the impeller before sending it. 

This one worked OK.

You can see the difference in the size of the impeller between the old one and the oversize new one.

I stripped and primed the rocker cover and cam belt cover and then painted them with some gold paint I had handy. Then a coat of lacquer.

It doesn't make it run any better, but I like it looking smarter. Whilst I had the cover off I checked and reset all the tappets. They were a bit towards the tight end of the range suggested. I set them mid-range.

Temperature Gauge

I'd ordered and temperature gauge and fitted it into the car, but hadn't connected it as the boss they supplied was pretty large, 5/8" UNF.

I couldn't see how to drill a big enough hole in the manifold to fit it. 

Whilst I was rolling around underneath the car I used a torch to look underneath the manifold and spotted the old, electric, sender unit. I removed that and, would you believe it? The new boss fitted straight in. So a quick job after all. I had to take the carbs off, but that was all.

Just About Done

As things stand I think I've done all the little jobs needed. 

This is how it looks