Found Object

[ardiesse]

So I drilled spot-welds.

I removed a good-size piece of the "floor" of the rear box section.  It needs repairs, and removing it gives me the all-important access into the box section itself.



The next piece to come out was a vertical brace that goes between the boot lip and the box section.  The bottom of the brace was rotten, and it was welded onto a rotten part of the box section.  I figured the brace would be spot-welded to the channel for the boot seal, and once I drilled them, I could just cut the brace away from the box section.  Wrong on both.  The brace wasn't spot welded onto the boot seal channel, instead, it had two tabs welded onto the channel from the inside.  One was rusted out; I cut the other.  But I didn't realise that the brace was spot-welded onto the seam where the RHR quarter panel and beaver panel come together.  Many more spot welds to drill, and one to grind out with a die-grinder, because access . . .



With these two pieces out of the way, the task is looking a little more manageable.

And I reckon that early on, the bottom right corner of the boot seal channel rusted out.  The water ran into the space between the rear box section and beaver panel next to the brace, then down into the bottom of the quarter panel, and the metal-mice set to work.  Then at "farm-grade-repair" time, the holes in the boot seal channel were deftly bogged up.  The bog held and was water-tight, but the damage was long done by then.

There will now be a pause while I chant, sing and eat too much (in approximate order).

Rob

[ardiesse]

I started tidying up the boot seal channel.  There were plenty of holes and rusted-out portions of the the lip.  A good way of repairing them, I discovered, is to weld a flat piece of sheet in at the "bottom" of the channel.  And then, if the lip's rusted, to fold the repair in place, make the final couple of welds, and cut the lip back to size.



The previous gap-toothed appearance is gone.  And from the photo, it's difficult to make out where the repairs are . . .

Rob

[ardiesse]

There's a lead-wiped body seam where I need to repair the bottom of the beaver panel.  I gently heated with a MAP gas torch, and wire-brushed the lead out.



Then I cut the rotten part out and welded in the new, including more than one air-weld.  Patience.



As you can see, more of this style of repair is yet to come.

Rob

[Errol62]

I have to replace the pinch section that is tacked and folded around the bottom curve below the tail light, on one side of my van.


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[Brett027]

You are doing great work Rob. Very neat fixes. 👌

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[ardiesse]

I repurposed an unused flat portion of the Rare Spares LHR floor pan -



- and discovered another, un-anticipated property of the 100 x 5 mm grinding wheels you get at Bunnings:  They glaze.  When grinding the welds back I wondered why I was only heating the seam up rather than removing metal.  So I de-glazed the grinding wheel on the bench grinder.  It was good at removing metal for maybe five minutes, then glazed over again.  So I put the cutting disc back on, and with care, dressed the welds down.

And a few strokes with a round file in the internal angle helped too.

I need to weld the return on, and then follow it with the body-to-bumper rubber retaining channel . . .

While on that subject -

0.8 or 0.9 mm mild steel, 265 x 30 mm.  Scribe and 90-degree-fold 17 mm in, parallel to a long edge, then form the channel over a piece of 4 mm sheet.

Rob

[ardiesse]

. . . and I repaired the internal brace.



Repairing channel sections like this one is, I discovered, a lot easier if you start with a strip of sheet, which you then weld and fold in stages, cutting the parent metal out as you go.

Rob

[ardiesse]

I made up the repair for the rear box section, fold by fold, and then eased it into place to check its fit.  Here it is, with a clamp to hold it in place, and with the repaired brace in position.



So it seems to fit.  Viewed from underneath -



- the final shape is a little more complicated than three folds - there's this beveled part.  Why go to the extra trouble . . . ?

Because, if I don't, the rear bumper won't go on.  The rear box section is shaped to clear the bumper bracket at this point.  Then I welded the cuts, and for some final pointless detail, put in a drain channel (because I'll most likely body-sealer it up shut).  But it's not pointless detail, because the drain channel accommodates the body seam that the brace is spot-welded to.  Without the drain, the repair won't fit.

Rob

[ardiesse]

The usual rhythm: one repair section per day.  Today's effort was the return around the RHR corner, underneath the bumper.



And I fiddled some more with the rear box section repair.  I cut a slot in where the rear bumper bracket goes, marked up and drilled for plug welds to the brace, sanded it down and red-oxide-primed the "top surface".

Rob

[ardiesse]

I installed the (now repaired) rear brace.  I wanted the body lead not to melt when I plug-welded the brace, so I clamped the brace in position, with a wet rag and quenching block on the exterior.



I crossed my fingers and worked quickly.  Hope springs eternal . . .



OK, so the lead did melt.  But the wet rag held it in place, more or less.

And then a moment's panic when I feared that, with the brace in position, I wouldn't be able to get the rear box section repair into place.  Fortunately, I could slide it in, and tacked it in a couple of places.  Then I could line it up with the parent metal, bit by bit, tack-welding as it went.  Tack welds became seams, and -



That looks a whole lot better.  And seen from the underside -



Note cereal-box rear bumper bracket test-fitted.  It clears the bodywork.  Hooray.

Rob

[ardiesse]

. . . and a week slips by.

I made up the bumper-to-body rubber retaining channel.  Making the channel was easy.  Bending it to shape took patience.  The channel wanted to close up the moment I started bending.  When the shape looked right, I tried the replacement rubber in the channel:



and then trimmed it to length.  Meanwhile, there was another piece of the right rear corner jigsaw, which I massaged to shape, and then welded in place -



- and plug-welded the returns together.  Once I dressed them flat, I could then weld the rubber retaining channel in place.



Rob

[Errol62]

Great work Rob

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[ardiesse]

Clay,

If you're going to make one of these for your van, a "mending strip" (340 x 40 x 3.5 mm) from Bunnings makes an ideal form.  And then it's a good idea to cut off a half-inch-wide piece and bevel the long edges so it looks a bit like a lens in cross-section.  Put this in a vice and use it to keep the channel open once you start bending the retainer.  And I found that an old-school bench grinder motor is just about the right radius of curvature.

I put V-notches in the retainer about every inch, welded the two that are near the vertical seam under the taillight, and then worked my way towards the ends, tapping the retainer into place, clamping it and welding as I went.

Rob

[Errol62]

Thanks for the tip Rob


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[ardiesse]

More repairs on the RHR inner quarter panel:



Which just leaves the larger piece of the inner quarter panel, but it's "largely" flat with a couple of folds . . .

Rob

[ardiesse]

. . . so I made a cereal-box pattern from the LH inner rear quarter panel.  The fold at the bottom, where the inner and outer are spot-welded together, is a straight line, to a first approximation anyway.  It makes a suitable reference for a cereal-box pattern, as the fold comes with the box.  Then it was a case of trimming slightly, and running my thumbnail along the fold that goes against the wheel arch.  And then measuring the indents from the body and transferring the measurements to a piece of sheet.



Here are the indents.  I had to make sure I formed them the right way:  I want to make the driver's side, not the passenger's.  Still have to mark out the fold lines and returns, and cut the repair piece out of the sheet.

Rob

[ardiesse]

OK, so I got distracted.

I broke the handbrake in my "other" FC, then bought two front and two rear cables from Rare Spares, to head-scratching from the bloke behind the counter.  Put the car on ramps (front), axle stands (rear), and got to work.  Six hours and a few false starts later, and I have a working handbrake.

Rule Number One of Rare Spares Parts: they 95% fit.  The remaining 5% takes most of the time.  In the case of FE-EK rear handbrake cables, the casing is just that little bit smaller than original.  So the original cable is a firm push-fit into the anchor tube on the backing plates; but the replacement needed to be packed out with PVC tape.  Then there are the cable clamps near the rear spring eye bolts.  They needed to be squashed up (gently and in the right places) so they secure the replacement cable without it pulling through.  Things weren't helped by a stripped thread on the driver's side, right near the fuel and brake pipes.  Fortunately I had the presence of mind to try another bolt, and it held, without the need to weld a nut behind the bracket, under the car, right next to the fuel pipe . . .

. . . and the cable pulled through the home-made clamp, which I then replaced with a proper one I scored from Brett027.

Now the front handbrake cable comes with the big conical grommet pre-installed.  It looks like you're supposed to put the grommet in place when you have a bare shell, and the firewall insulation goes in after it.  Instead I fought it into place, blunt end first, through the hole in the firewall from the engine bay side.  But I needed to unbolt the handbrake handle.  Which meant pulling the dash out.

For some time, the top of the steering column had been making clunking and rattling sounds.  OK.  The steering wheel was slightly loose on the shaft.  Mind you, the locknut was tight.  So I pulled the wheel off, without a puller, and this gave me much better access under the dash.  Oh.  The indicator stalk's loose.  I removed it.  Mmm.  The indicator switch is loose.  I tightened the screws.  Didn't help.  That means the upper bearing's loose in the column.  I eased the indicator switch out of the way, tightened the bolts, and promptly stripped a thread in the upper bearing.

You can now see what's happening: Scope-Creep.

I now have an upper gearshift control rebuild on my hands.  Old pushbike brake cable as guide-wire, unplug the indicator wiring, remove indicator switch, remove gearstick, remove upper bearing and honeypot.  Now what do I do?  The best thing is to heli-coil the stripped thread.  I found one upper bearing with good threads, but knackered ball-race.  More searching and I found a serviceable upper bearing.  The threads were a bit worn where the honeypot screws in.  Most of the wear is from side to side, so I "pre-distorted" the upper bearing in the vice.  Strewth.  It worked.

I test-fitted the upper bearing and honeypot on the column, and without the indicator switch I could see that -
(i) moving parts of the gearshift were scraping on stationary parts in second and third.
(ii) the webbing on the honeypot was touching the column jacket in top gear.  My bad, and my bad.  I got the linkage adjustment wrong when I restored the car.

The shift levers on the gearbox were worn out, again.  I pulled them off, welded them up, welded the gearshift rods up, added washers until the gearshift rods didn't rattle on the shift levers, and fabricated a sleeve to take up the slack between a Rare Spares lower gearshift lever grommet and the trunnion (see Rule 1 above).

And finally I cut some adhesive Teflon sheet to size to use as shims between the gearstick and gearshift tube, and also on the sliding contact between the gearshift tube and honeypot.  Reassembled and adjusted the gearshift, and - bloody hell, it works.

A handbrake repair ended up taking three days.

And my Humpy has developed a brake fluid leak.  Just to keep me on my toes.

Rob

[Harv]

That sounds familiar. Most times I touch an old Holden I can hear "there's a hole in the bucket" playing.

Cheers,
Harv

[ardiesse]

And I am still distracted.

"Cars Are More Reliable When You Drive Them" Part XXII: Cooling Systems

Last Sunday I drove the "other" FC up to the Central Coast.  Bad mistake.  Water temp was about 100 at Cowan, and not much cooler at the Hawkesbury.  I drove in to the rest area where everyone was launching their boats, and checked the radiator level (OK).  It got well over 100 degrees as I climbed up to Mt White, and pinned at 110 climbing out to the Gosford exit . . . yep, it's boiling . . . coasted down the hill into Gosford and rolled into a service station, where I carefully took on a couple of litres of water.

On the way back I drove the "old" Pacific Highway, meandering up the hills and cruising down, and only briefly got into three digits at Kariong.

Today I flushed the radiator and engine out as best I could.  Opened the drain cock in front of the starter motor, and - nothing.  Cleared the sludge with the hose and a sprayer, and then it flowed.  The radiator hoses made crackling sounds as I undid them.  That's the sediment inside the hoses cracking.  I put about three cups of oxalic acid crystals in the cooling system, and while I was at it, changed over to an EJ fan.

OK, so something appears to have worked.  I drove up the freeway to Berowra (35-degree day), and the water temp peaked at 85.  In ordinary traffic, between 75 and 80.

As a "sorting-out drive" before the Nationals, and before I chase a total solar eclipse at Exmouth later in April, I'm taking the FC to Melbourne next week.  I'm now mostly confident I won't overheat on the Hume Highway . . .

Rob

[Harv]

It makes me grin when you nominate a 1000km run to Melbourne. This is what they were made for.

Cheers,
Harv