Fall/Winter/Spring Projects for 0248k

[Donels]

Don’t use felt for the saddle but get some self adhesive neoprene sheet approx 10mm thick. It will not absorb water.

[steve lyle]

Don’t use felt for the saddle but get some self adhesive neoprene sheet approx 10mm thick. It will not absorb water.

How about the closed cell foam that RDE sell?

[steve lyle]

You weren't expecting rust there? That is one of the first areas that rust attacks, due to the saddle felt becoming saturated with water. The felt should not be fitted any lower than the seat belt mounting bolt hole. It does not do anything lower than the bolt hole anyway, other than suck up water.

Leslie

Well, I've only remember reading about rust in the front shock towers, fwiw, which isn't much. Good point about trim the pad.

[steve lyle]

Thanks, jono and gjz30075, nice pics.

Unfortunately my repair isn't as as attractive as your repairs, but thankfully / hopefully no one should see it for another 50 years or so.

[steve lyle]

Finished the rust repairs on the chassis. I neatened up the welding from yesterday, fixed a couple of pinholes in the backbone to body flange, and repaired a weird rust hole in the left/rear of the chassis.

So tomorrow I'll take the chassis back to the powder coater, and get back to work on the body.

[steve lyle]

Got the chassis back from the powder coater today. Looks very nice - they even made my ugly weld look better!

Also working on fixing all of the unused and accidental holes the engine bay has gathered over the years. Then will be painted in satin black urethane.

Meanwhile, the wishbones are at a shop getting the bushings replaced. Still researching how to do the sway bar to link bushings,

Finally, the last known parts I'll need are on the way. That should be everything needed to assemble the chassis.

[pharriso]

You're making great progress Steve.

[steve lyle]

Progress today. Fuel line and brake lines on the chassis, and (drumroll) the diff is in. Time for a reward beer.

[steve lyle]

She’s back on her feet again.

Had fun getting the rear uprights in. New strut inserts, new bump stops, new lotocones. I couldn’t get the strut top up far enough in the lotocone to get any threads started. Eventually I realized it was because the new bump stop forced the spring abutment too high. I had to contour the top of the bump stop a bit with a flap wheel to let the abutment sit lower on the strut shaft. This bump stop sits on top of the ‘ledge’ of the shock absorber shaft, not sure if the original did or not. I called Ken at DBE and he supported my mod.

The unmodified bump stop

The contoured bump stop

[steve lyle]

Moving on.

Today the transmission went in, thanks to the help of the 2021 winner of the "Blind Eye" award, which is annually given by the British Iron club of NW Arkansas to the spouse who best tolerates his or her partner's silly hobby.

Since I've done this task before, I was able to benefit from my previous mistakes, and avoid putting the tranny in without the speedo cable, or the driveshaft, or the reverse light wiring.

Another recent success was the drop-link to ARB bushings. I had challenged the shop that did my wishbone bushings to handle these, and they gave up. But I was able to follow Flatcap's method from this thread viewtopic.php?f=42&t=21016 to get the job done, at the cost of about 30 min per side.

I am hung up on installing the handbrake cable, as described here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=52681

The next few days will be devoted to my new Webber head - the guy who did the work wants me to cc the chambers and measure the valve height. It also needs painting. Then a few seal and gasket replacements and the engine can go in. Then it's back to the body.

Setting up for the bush install

Then use big screwdrivers to lever the link onto the bushing.

Step one in installing the tranny

Tranny and drive shaft installed

[gjz30075]

Great stuff Steve! Is the Weber head new to you, or newly manufactured (or both)?

[steve lyle]

Great stuff Steve! Is the Weber head new to you, or newly manufactured (or both)?

Just new to me. Got it last fall from a listing on this board.

[steve lyle]

Painted my new head, it had come from the shop freshly sandblasted.

[steve lyle]

Got the cv axles installed. Had to wait for cv grease, which I couldn’t find locally. Also got a kit of clevis pins so I could put the handbrake linkage together with them instead of #10 machine screws. So the chassis is done other than the handbrake cable, which Ken mailed out to me today, and the engine.

On that front, I installed the cams and made valve to piston clearance measurements, and sent them to Barry, my head machine work guy. I’ll call him tomorrow to see what I need to do next on the head front.

Axles installed

[steve lyle]

Barry Sale, who did the head work, wanted me to check the valve clearance and compression ration. This was a particular concern since the head height was 4.56", which I seem to remember hearing was on the short side.

Clearance was checked by putting #1 at TDC and measuring the projection of the #4 valves past the head surface. Then comparing that to the distance from the block deck to the bottom of the piston relief cuts. No problem, there was .070 of clearance, or .1 with a .030 gasket, so that was good.

On to compression ratio. I got a burette and dial indicator from Amazon and watched several Youtube videos. Here's what I got:

Cylinder Head Piston Gasket Cumb Chbr Swpt Vol Tot Vol CR
1 35.40 6.84 1.34 42.78 389.34 432.13 10.10
2 36.00 5.64 1.34 42.98 389.34 432.33 10.06
3 35.00 5.84 1.34 42.18 389.34 431.53 10.23
4 35.00 5.84 1.34 42.18 389.34 431.53 10.23

Which look fine to me. at most, less than 2% variation, and worst case if I need premium fuel I can live with that.

So now I can go ahead with assembling the engine. A stand would make that easier, so I'll see if I can find one on Craigs list. Worst case HF has them for $100, and I can sell it when done.

This is the last post for awhile. We're off for an Alaskan cruise - actually finishing up the one from last year where we came up with Covid just before getting on the boat.