Dec 2013

Well things have started to move along. I have just spent the weekend working on the car and have achieved a bit really, much thanks to my dad for giving me a hand with some of it. So far I have managed to replace the axel to hub seals and the back brakes, slave cylinders and pads and two of the three flexible hoses. The master cylinder was changed over in a surprisingly short space of time (thankfully), though I have noticed that the new master cylinder cap does not actually have a breather hole in it, so not sure if it should or not. The old cap definitely has a breather hole in it and to be honest I had never known that it was supposed to be there, it was so perfectly filled with dirt that you could not even see where it was supposed to be (don’t get me wrong the cap was perfectly cleaned and wired brushed of all dirt, it was just that not knowing the hole was supposed to be there I had never even noticed that it was full of dirt). I had never been able to get the brakes to bleed properly and it was a constant round of bleeding and re-bleeding every few months to try and get some pressure, usually I actually had to pump the brakes up to use them at all. Once I knew there was supposed to be a breather hole and I found the location and cleaned it out, BAM! the brakes bled and pumped up perfectly with a fantastic pressure, it was amazing.

 

The front brakes are being somewhat of a pain, I managed to get time to replace the cylinders and fit the new shoes/pads but the drum then flatly refused to go back onto the hub. It is as though the brake shoes are holding it so far out of alignment as to not have any way of getting the drum on. Dad managed to move the shoes with a screw driver whilst trying to get the drum on and managed to get it to fit, though there was no hope what –so-ever of getting the hub to then turn, it had locked up so tight that it too judicial thumps with a rubber mallet to get it off again. So the wash up of that is we’re going to get a mechanic to come and have a look at it just to see what the devil is going on there and whilst he is there get him to bleed the system as well, saves me doing it. 

Additionally have replaced the water pump, radiator and radiator hoses and the thermostat and housing and the by pass hose as well. I will need to get some new heater hosing and replace the fuel hosing as well as rubber components don’t like the hot humid weather where the car is locate at the moment, so just to be sure they need renewing. 

The new radiator is quite different to the original one I had in the car in that it doesn’t have the high top tank and it also does not have the drain tap and the bottom drain plug either. This is most vexing as I have had the heater hose running off a brass fitting in the bottom drain plug and now I have to come up with the correct piping and such for the later cars so that I can refit the heather hoses properly. Further I am going to have to find a way of modifying/adjusting the lower two mounts for the radiator as the new one sits about 1mm from the fan blade at the bottom, the top there is no problem at all for clearance, and 1mm clearance is just not enough the run safely with out the fan cutting a nasty hole in the radiator. Hmmm maybe a thermatic fan is necessary after all? 

 The new tyres are all fitted and looking quite good on the rims, they don’t look at all out of place I think and fit quite nicely. The fitter was most certain that I had to have inner tubes fitted as well with these tyres so luckily I had managed to get a bunch of new tubes and supplied them as well as the rims to the fitter. The tyres are the Nankang 155/80 R14 type and where not badly priced and look a whole lot better than the old crossply ones did. Mind I did have one reasonably decent crossply amongst the ones on the car and I have kept that to have it mounted on the spare rim as the Nankang won’t fit into the spare spot, so it will have to be my “emergency” tyre just like a modern has. Anyway progress has been made and now it is just a matter of getting the brakes seen to properly and then driving the car down to Melbourne for some proper going over and fitting of a few electrical items to make it comfortably able to cope with the modern sound and electrical requirements and then get it registered. Thank goodness I fitted an alternator all those years ago!