Fall/Winter/Spring Projects for 0248k

[steve lyle]

More progress today.

In the morning I painted the doors and headlight pods. Mixed results. I'm using a disposable cup system on my spray gun, and found out too late that the lid did not seal with the liner - it pushed the rim of the liner into the cup in one area. This caused a leak that didn't show up until I was spraying the 2nd pod. The first looked great, but the drips on the 2nd mean I have to sand it flat and try again. To top it off, a small bug, too small to lift out, landed on the first coat of the first pod. So I stopped there. It's a shame about the leak - I was getting a good surface with this new gun.

I did get good results on the doors - they should sand flat, with no issues that shouldn't be easily dealt with. I also sprayed some more paint on a couple of edges of the boot lid I had painted previously and sanded almost through. So with a little sanding those panels should be done. I had painted and wet sanded the boot lid after the issues I had with the body to test my air setup with the replacement gun. Thankfully it came out good (other than the thin paint on part of the edge - so I'm pretty sure the body paint issues were based on the faulty gun, not something else in my setup. Today's results look like they verified it - the doors really came out with minimal orange peel. Almost OEM.

In the afternoon I took advantage of our 80 degree day and got some assembly done. I installed the master cylinders. Actually, twice - once by themselves, and once (oops) after installing the pedals. And I installed the heater valve - unbolting the left side motor mount, jacking up the engine, and screwing the base into the head. And I would have installed the exhaust, but found that one of the muffler rubber mounts was broken - so that will need to be replaced.

[steve lyle]

20 work days available before we leave for LOG.

This weekend I installed the Webers, hooked up the throttle, etc. It feels like the throttle cable is rubbing somewhere - definitely more friction than the Stromberg's had, so I've got some more work to do there.

The packet of grommets for the firewall arrived on Saturday, so now my heater hoses, speedo, etc. are in.

I wet sanded the doors, boot lid and headlight pods. They all look good to great, making me feel even worse about using that defective gun on the first coat of the body. The pod that got gripped on has to be repainted, so that leaves me with the bonnet, the pod, and more work on the body to go.

The bonnet catch cables are in as well.

Placards and heat shield are in the engine bay.

Starter solenoid is on, with cables, as is the windscreen washer pump.

Windscreen install got moved to Thursday. So today will be prepping the body and bonnet for paint. Then painting them tomorrow morning before it gets too hot. Final wet sanding on Friday?

Yesterday afternoon I paid a penalty for a stupid decision from a couple of months ago, when I zip tied the speedo cable and reverse light loom to the top of the bell housing to keep them out of the way. I found out when feeding the speedo cable through the firewall that the zip tie was too constraining - the cable wouldn't reach to the gauge. A sharp tug fixed the problem, I thought at the time. That night in bed I realized that something was probably wrong - no zip tie would give up that easily. Next morning I inspected - I had pulled the cable out of its fitting at the transmission end. And for a T-9 five speed, to remove/install the cable you've got to put jacks under the engine/transmission, undo the motor and transmission mounts and the driveshaft, and move the powertrain up and forward and to the left so you can get your arm back to the speedometer takeoff at the transmission. This takes your average 'me'' a couple of house, and a lot of sweat and foul words. But at least it's done. Except for the right side motor mount which I screwed up some how int he process. I've got another one one on the way - I'm actually getting pretty good at getting those mounts on and off, unfortunately.

[gjz30075]

Looking forward to seeing it Steve. I've got 0243/K, in red, with steel wheels. I, too, have a 5 speed,
a T5. I solved the speedo drive issue by using a GPS unit that drives the oem speedo.

[RichardHawkins]

Greg,

Whose GPS speedo drive are you using? I bought mine from Classic Speed in Oregon some years ago, but when I put power to it yesterday it was alarmingly noisy.

Richard Hawkins

[gjz30075]

I got the Speedbox by Speedhut.
https://speedhut.com/categories/speedbox.html

No noise at all. It's mounted in the (homemade) glovebox.

[TWebb]

Steve,

Glad to see that progress is being made. I can give you a hand , if needed. I'll be here for a couple of weeks before heading to Monterey for the pre-Historics and Historics.

Feel free to drop me a line.

Tim

[RichardHawkins]

Greg,

Thanks, the Speed Hut option is about half the price of the item I bought. I might change it.

Richard Hawkins

[steve lyle]

Some more progress, and issues.

All the 'so far' painted parts, save the body, are wet sanded and buffed. Still have final polishing to do, but the doors, boot lid and one pod are pretty much ready to go.

Ben came over yesterday to help me get the windshield in. Unfortunately, when we fit the windscreen gasket, we found it to be too big. It came from RDE, and Ray is on vacation this week, so I'll call on Monday to explore options. DBE doesn't sell a 'one piece' gasket - they just sell the material by the foot, and you cut your own miters. I could cut the one I have, and wouldn't be any worse off, which may be the way to go since the miter angle isn't exactly right either.

Ben did bring the recovered dash pad, which is now installed. That opens the way for the wiring loom, dash, etc., which is the last thing before starting the engine. So there is that. He's still working on the visors, so the final windscreen trim can't go on till those are available.

Anybody know what kind of rivets for hood hold down at the top of the windscreen trim? Steel, I presume?

The final 'red' parts got sprayed this morning - the bonnet and the 2nd headlight pod. I've still got the bumpers to do. I'd sprayed satin black on the underside of the bonnet a couple of days ago. Plenty of orange peel on the bonnet, which will sand out, but no bugs, thankfully. The pod looks very production-like, so that will go fast.

The bonnet came from DBE. I presume it's normally sold to racers - it's lighter than the stock bonnet, has no reinforcing steel tube at the front for the spring attachment, or reinforcing ribs underneath. So it oil-cans a lot when sanding it, and likely doesn't have the correct shape, or would hold it if it did. I'm curious how it will look when finished.

If I had more time, I'd get more aggressive on sanding the last shiny dots out of the body, and spray another coat or two if needed. No time for that at this point - I'm down to 18 working days before we leave. So the plan is to spray a couple of spots on the body with a touch-up gun, primarily where runs have left a shadow, sand those in, and put drops of paint in the most visible shiny dots, then finish wet sanding and buffing the entire body. There should be time for that. Then if I can't live with the result long term, redo the body next spring.

The miter isn't quite right, is it?

Just a tad oversized...

Dash pad is in

Last of the red parts painted

[steve lyle]

Steve,

Glad to see that progress is being made. I can give you a hand , if needed. I'll be here for a couple of weeks before heading to Monterey for the pre-Historics and Historics.

Feel free to drop me a line.

Tim

Thanks, Tim, I appreciate the offer. I'll be at the beach next week playing with my grandson. Progress should come quickly the week after that. If not, I'll give you a call the week of the 14th. The weekend of the 18th could be panic time. We leave on the 22nd.

[steve lyle]

I got the Speedbox by Speedhut.
https://speedhut.com/categories/speedbox.html

No noise at all. It's mounted in the (homemade) glovebox.

I'll have to look into this. My speedo reads about 10% high with the T-9, so I do a lot of math in my head around speed traps. This would solve that!

[pharriso]

Ben came over yesterday to help me get the windshield in. Unfortunately, when we fit the windscreen gasket, we found it to be too big. It came from RDE, and Ray is on vacation this week, so I'll call on Monday to explore options. DBE doesn't sell a 'one piece' gasket - they just sell the material by the foot, and you cut your own miters. I could cut the one I have, and wouldn't be any worse off, which may be the way to go since the miter angle isn't exactly right either.

Steve, Windscreen seal miter needs to be more like:

My oem seal

Since your seal is now too long recutting should not be a problem. What glue did you use?

[steve lyle]

Steve, Windscreen seal miter needs to be more like:

IMG_3401.JPG

Since your seal is now too long recutting should not be a problem. What glue did you use?

Never done it before. Any ideas for glue, or how to cut it?

[smo17003]

Steve, Windscreen seal miter needs to be more like:

IMG_3401.JPG

Since your seal is now too long recutting should not be a problem. What glue did you use?

Never done it before. Any ideas for glue, or how to cut it?

I used Gorilla Super Glue and a pair of cheap Ebay mitre shears to cut the rubber. Practice on some scraps beforehand.
When glueing, it helps to pack the grooves in the rubber with some nylon tube, or similar, to help with alignment and prevent distortion. Also rig up some kind of clamp system to hold the rubber while the glue sets.

Mike

[steve lyle]

Steve, Windscreen seal miter needs to be more like:

IMG_3401.JPG

Since your seal is now too long recutting should not be a problem. What glue did you use?

Never done it before. Any ideas for glue, or how to cut it?

I used Gorilla Super Glue and a pair of cheap Ebay mitre shears to cut the rubber. Practice on some scraps beforehand.
When glueing, it helps to pack the grooves in the rubber with some nylon tube, or similar, to help with alignment and prevent distortion. Also rig up some kind of clamp system to hold the rubber while the glue sets.

Mike

Shears like these? https://www.ebay.com/itm/204386649863?h ... BM-sT_r7Ri

[smo17003]

Yes Steve, they're the ones.

Mike