The Dark Wob

SiC wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:45 pm Also this angle looks so right to me on the BGT. Pininfarina did a great job on this.

Spot on there mon brave

That car wears a classicly trimmed but very sharp suit so much nicer to look at than the ubiquitous rooster / roadster

I haven't done one of these for a while but this happened. It's almost certainly 159k.



Pulled into the garage for a quick bit of fettling. First thing was to fix the indicator.
Indicator you say? Didn't you just fix that?

Well...


Irritatingly the indicator portion managed to jam itself. No idea how it happened (might have dropped it) but I was certain it worked before I put it back on.

In these Lucas indicators there is a metal clip that holds the detent spring in. I removed this spring and realigned a small nylon piece that was used for the detent itself. Shortly after this picture I managed to loose said spring and qué 10 minutes of searching for it.



Next up is the brakes. These were replaced around a year ago and a good thousand miles or so put on them. Irritatingly they have been getting more and more squeally. The shim has had a habit of moving and falling down. This was the suspicion of the problem.

However removing the pad it became clear


That the squeal coating has worn through where the piston pushes. Rather disappointing Moss...

I've coated it heavily both sides of the shim with CeraTec. Hopefully this should be sufficient to shut them up again.

In doing this I managed to get the wing covered with brake cleaner. Unfortunately I didn't realise this until the day after.


Thankfully this is the bad wing and will need repainting longer term. You can see some blisters under here from likely poor prep. Some Autoglym polish got most of the brake cleaner marks off. Probably helped it being cellulose paint.

The front of the wing is in the biggest need of treatment and paint.



Decided to go for a bit of poking and rust finding. As I was here I took off the arch panels. No idea why these don't go all the way to the top. Almost designed to be a deliberate rust trap...



Removed cover. Not too bad in here at all! Wing will need to come off longer term though as the top of the trumpet has a fist sized hole in it.


Nearside was a bit messier.



Especially at the bottom. You can see where a new sill has been welded in at some point in its history. Shame they didn't quite finish this off.


Irritatingly someone had welded the cover on.


Gave the area a clean off with a wire brush and then chucked some red oxide on. Will also put some stone chip on after to provide protection. This will come off again to weld this up and finish properly.


Also this is the only real major area of rust that needs sorting. Very minor really.


Cover got a coat of paint ... including the floor.

Once the Dolomite is done, my intention is to get this in and get a few bits sorted. Primarily pull the engine for a light rebuild and hopefully sort wherever the oil is disappearing to. Then general body bits sorted and hopefully a respray on a few bits where a bit of surface rust is coming through.

Could also do with some more suspension refreshing. Rear leaf springs are not far off their stops, front springs are pretty sagging and the rubber bushes up on the front suspension have worn already. Given those were new 3 years ago and not seen much use, I'll probably replace them with decent quality polybushes.

If my Minor is anything to go by I can thoroughly recommend SuperFlex polybushes. Supple and taut in equal measures.....No appreciable deterioration in 3 years all-weather driving either and mine came in proper black not electric blue or anything silly. Did you specifically wait for that mileage to come up before a bit of fettling?!

Oil pressure looks a bit on the low side.

FFS don't start him off on oil pressure again!

And I reckon the choke is wrong for the year.

That was the year that came with a clothes peg as standard wasn't it?

Mine was replaced at about 20 years old as it did need a clothes peg.
That was a different style though being circular.

My Midget had a circular one & needed a peg too. I filed the peg down a bit to get the correct adjustment for where it run best cold, so it became a precision part that stayed with the car for almost a decade while I had it.

any of the cheapo Chinese manufactured choke cables come with a cheapo gypsy clothes peg and some heather etc