Restoration Diary

4th January 2002 to 27th February 2002

Although it has been a while since we've published a full update, here's an update on where we are today.

We are currently waiting on several parts/services before we can make any more significant progress. These bits include:

Recon steering rack – improved version.

Anti roll bar – improved shorter version.

Shocks – AVO adjustable shocks and new springs (springs are built to order to Adrian Venn’s spec. – the parts that are delayed!)

Brake pipe flaring tool. Several weeks ago we had good intentions of kitting the car out in brand new brake pipes. Justin Forwood came over to help us and kindly let us use his flaring tool. After partially making up the rear brakes we started to make the brake pipe sections, it was taking excessively long due to imperfections in the flaring piece so eventually we had to give up. Justin has ordered a new tool so soon we hope to have another attempt and with this new ‘luxury’ flaring tool, have all the pipes sorted in a couple of hours. We are using Copper Nickel brake pipe (3/8” diameter) - £10.99 for 25ft (I think) from local motor factors. We will also make the fuel line once we source some 5/8” pipe.

Front n/s stub axle, just as we were about to fit the new wheel bearing, eagle eyes Justin Forwood noticed a small gouge on the axle, which after showing it the file then drew his attention to a wear mark, caused by the previous bearing. Not wanting to risk using this we are going to fit a new one. Once this is on we will be able to reassemble the hub with new bearing, and put on our new brake discs, powder coated stone guards and recon caliper.

We have painted the calipers gloss red using special high temperature paint. In the painting kit came brake cleaner, paint and hardener. You needed to mix the hardener with the paint and then use the mixture within several hours – it won’t keep. As often happens, our half hour job turned into 2 hours, but we do now have shining red brakes – calipers and drums. We think this will look superb once we have the wheels refinished.

Rear wheel bearings. The initial delay in fitting the rear axle was due to the UJ's, well these arrived but before we had a chance to fit them, we were advised to check the rear wheel bearings for wear. Surprise, they were worn, we are getting complete exchange units from Adrian. Apparently they are quite dramatic to change so we thought it best to let someone else do that for us. Once we have these we can fit the UJ's and bolt the drive shafts to the diff, and finally reassemble the rear brakes.

Engine. Tony has found a local engine specialist, Terry at www.terryeng.co.uk so we are booked up with him for the end of March. The idea is now that we have stripped the engine down, we will supply the necessary parts and Terry will be able to reassemble the engine for us. The main reasoning for this is that we don’t have all the kit needed to do this properly, so all being well we will just collect the engine in a couple of months and be able to virtually use it straight away. From John Wade I have ordered his 210 camshaft, cam followers, medium sized steel timing gear and his full engine gasket set. From my two phone conversations with John I put my faith in all the parts he supplies, he really does know his stuff on the Essex engine.

Other jobs we have been able to do have included fitting the parts to the front o/s corner. Thanks to the new torque wrench and torque settings from the TR6 manual (thanks again Justin!) we do at least have one corner rolling so to speak. On our drive shaft the UJ’s were ok so we only needed four new ones, we have been able to fit two of these - after much cursing and what I feel was several tons of potential energy on Tony’s vice! Last week we refitted the handbrake mechanism. Using a bit of Gunk we cleaned the old cable which is in very good condition, we then packed it with new grease. The lever itself was almost seized solid. There is a riveted part holding it to the ratchet, it was this rivet that had rusted. With it clamped in the vice and much use of much WD40 we were able to get it going as good as new again! With a lick of gloss black lacquer on the handle we reassembled it and fixed it to the car. Maybe it was luck but it seems to be working fine, holding on the ratchet and releasing on the button.