Found Object

[ardiesse]

Three cups of oxalic acid crystals in the cooling system worked a treat.  My festy brown radiator cap now has bright metal and black rubber again.  The radiator hoses are no longer sclerotic.  The inside of the radiator tanks is shiny brass.  And I spent a couple of hours this afternoon with MIG wire and compressed air, picked and blew sixty years of insects and grass out of the fins.

I must have done something right.  Pootling around the suburbs, the water temperature is in the low 60s C.  I could even put a thermostat back in.  But I'll do the Melbourne trip first.

Rob

[my8thholden]

sounds like thermostat time , ideally 80 to 85C around town is best for efficiency .

[Errol62]

I've got the opposite problem in my ute. With an 82C thermostat in it, the 179 won't run any hotter than 77C. Verified even temperature values through the head and cooling system with s laser tep gun. It is a three core HR radiator. Next step is block off half the air flow.

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[ardiesse]

Well, that was an adventure.

I rolled the car out of the carport the evening before leaving, and thought it didn't roll too easily.  LHR tyre nearly flat.  I pumped it up, crossed my fingers, and drove to Yass, where I got the leak fixed (because suburban-tyre-place-inner-tube-blank-look risk).  Coolant temp runs at ambient + 55 C at highway speed.  It's OK as long as it's below 30 degrees outside.

Driving down Sydney Road in Coburg and Brunswick (tell me that this is where Denuto and Sons, lawyers, have their practise), I had more than one cyclist do a double-take upon seeing my number plates . . .

But last Friday, it was 40+ leaving Melbourne.  There was a long line of vehicles on the roadside with bonnets up, just like in the good old days.  I had to drive on the temperature gauge.  Which meant going at 80 km/h when it's 40 degrees.  I stopped a couple of times to check coolant levels (OK), but there was a good amount of . . . if I were a barista I'd call it crema . . . in the cooling system still.

Albury-Gerogery-Morven-Cookardinia-Mangoplah-Wagga-Wantabadgery-Tumblong is a good drive for avoiding traffic.  But, 36 at Albury at 10 am, and nearly 40 at Gundagai.  And so I crested the big hills at 50 km/h to keep the all-important number below 100.  Back at Yass, I flushed the cooling system out once more, and brushed the latest accumulation of insects off the radiator.

Apart from running hot, the car went fine.  I think I have to get a three-row radiator core, regardless of cost.

Rob

[Errol62]

When we first got Elle’s FC we drove from Kadina to Gawler swap meet and had to nurse it home, in mid September 1989. Took the original radiator to old school Kevin Sobey at Moonta. He took one of the tanks off and in his words”rodded” the tubes. He declared it good to go after soldering the tank back on, and we never had another issue. Cost all of $20 at the time, when a recore was $100.


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[ardiesse]

Brett's three-row radiator core did the trick.  Did it what.

It was between 35 and 38 here this afternoon.  I took the car for an overheating test run up Mona Vale Rd to Terrey Hills.  I think I got hotter than the engine.  At 55+ mph, the coolant temp was about ambient + 40 degrees.  And the temperature drop from top tank to bottom tank was about six to eight degrees (compared with 12 - 15 for the old radiator).  The coolant temp never got above 80 degrees, even in heavy traffic.

And I found an EK/EJ fan which didn't whistle at 60 mph, so that's a bonus too.

Rob

[Brett027]

Glad to hear it did the trick Rob. Don't tell Paul it should be in Wilma😀

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[ardiesse]

This is what happens when you stop working on a restoration project: it is very difficult to get started again.

So it appears to be about nine months, give or take, since I did anything on "Found Object".  But today I pulled it out of the carport, swept nine months of dust and cobwebs out, and tried to remember where exactly I was.

Ah yes - the inner section of the RHR quarter panel.  I hammered the indents into the replacement panel in January, but today I measured and thought, measured and thought, drew some cut lines, measured again, and drew the fold lines for the returns - where the outer rear quarter panel attaches at the bottom, and where the wheel arch attaches at the front.

I'll leave the cutting and folding for next week.

But things are going to be busy for the next little while.  I have the pulpit all to myself on the 17th.  I'm going to Narrabri in the last week of September.  I'm going to Albuquerque in October for another solar eclipse (and yes, I promise to come back with at least one Bugs Bunny T-shirt).  Then work's taking me to Geraldton for two weeks at the end of October.

And meanwhile . . . I was bridal transport service for a friend's wedding near Cessnock a couple of weekends back.  You know the big hill after the Oak at Freemans Waterhole?  Something didn't sound and feel quite right as I chugged uphill, and as I crested the hill, the engine speed dropped as the car sped up . . . oh, that's not good . . .  and David Bowie's lyric "get me to the church on time" was stuck on permanent repeat in my mind.  Pedalled very gently from Mount Vincent to Cessnock, except for one uphill where I put the foot down, and the engine flared.  Oh, that tears it.  I've got a slipping clutch.  Today of all days.  I can drive to Exmouth and back without any problems, but yet an hour and a half up the Hunter Valley is too much . . .

The bridal transport part was all level ground.  I'd have done it all in first gear if it had been necessary.

Postscript:  I got home OK after the reception.  Even up the Ourimbah hill, the climb from Mooney Mooney Bridge to Calga and the Hawkesbury Bridge to Cowan.  I checked the clutch adjustment: still OK.  A new clutch kit is indicated.  Probably a good Christmas - New Year's project.

It never ends.

Rob

[Errol62]

Thanks for the report Rob.


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[Harv]

Make sure you turn left at Albuquerque, otherwise you won't end up at Pismo Beach.

Know those hills well. Glad you got it home OK.

Cheers,
Harv

[ardiesse]

Right Rear Inner Quarter Panel Repair Section:  Today I put the folds in for the returns, the one to join the wheel arch, and the other where the outer quarter panel overlaps.  As usual, it took some massaging, but I largely got it right first time.  The front bottom part of the inner quarter panel isn't flat, but convex (as seen from the underneath).  I could make the panel curve in the right direction by hammering the returns to stretch them.  And now the replacement panel sits easily in place.  I marked it up for the drain slots, cut the bottom fold where marked, and hammered the slots into the returns.  Still need to weld the cuts, but that can wait for a bit.

And since I have to produce the mirror-image repair section for the left side, I'd better mark the patterns up for the actual fold lines, rather than relying on educated guesswork.

Rob

[ardiesse]

Time for an update . . .

Fine weather at Albuquerque.  Annular solar eclipse very impressive.  But it's time to dispose of an urban myth: there ain't no such thing as a Bugs Bunny "should've toined left at Albuquerque" T-shirt.  Time-Warner (or whichever media conglomerate they are today) won't license the design.  The guy at the T-shirt shop in Old Town told me I was the fourth person so far that day to ask for the Bugs Bunny T-shirt.  On the other hand, Breaking Bad merchandise was walking out the shop.

Back on topic.

I chopped out a piece of the donor FJ passenger's door to make the repair piece for the RHR quarter panel.  It seemed fairly easy, because the bottom of the rear quarter panel is largely a curve in one dimension.  Before going to the US, I had it approximately bent to shape.  But it's the detail which is time-consuming.  I marked up and hammered in the lower part of the "boss" where the rear bumper bolts on, and got the repair piece to the stage where it would largely sit in place.  Usual story, though.  The closer you get it to its position, the worse it fits.

Under the rear bumper is a part where the edge of the quarter panel does a quarter-turn upwards.  Where it joins to the inner panel is a section of a plane . . . so I needed to blend from the curved profile to a flat one.  This is where a sandbag is a help.  Effectively what I had to do was shrink the edge down.

Now the outer repair piece sits in place a lot better.  But there's still some work to do making the lower return of the inner quarter panel repair conform to the profile of the outer.  I think I've over-bent the return.  Should fix easily, once I'm sure what I'm doing.

Ha.

Photos to come (I hope).

Rob

[Jolls]

Just read through this thread from the start. Very impressive. Love the skills.

Cheers n Beers
Jolls

[ardiesse]

As promised.



So this is the repair for the inner wheel arch.  I made it about this time last year and then sidelined it until I got onto the rear quarter panel repairs, which is sort-of now.  I want to have a go at welding up a couple of pinhole rust holes in an otherwise good section of the rear quarter.  Need clear access to the inside of the quarter panel.

It lines up fairly well, and I think the profile's OK.  I don't want the very bottom corner to stick out above the profile of the rear quarter panel.

(And the pinhole-welding went OK.  Again, it looks straightforward by eye, but when you're sitting on the ground wearing a welding helmet . . . even the end of the handpiece blocks your view.)

Rob

[Errol62]

Good to see you’re continuing Rob. Not that I doubted you would.


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[ardiesse]

A couple more mouthfuls of elephant *



There were a couple of rusty parts of the rear quarter panel to repair, above the parting line.  It came together well, but it's not good to weld when it's windy.  I was waiting for the brief moments of calm before pulling the trigger.

Rob

* As the old joke goes, "Q: How do you eat an elephant?"  "A: One mouthful at a time."

[ardiesse]

I'd been preoccupied for a while about the wheel arch profile in the lower outer RHR quarter panel repair.  But it's better to do than fret.  So I marked out the lip of the LHR wheel arch on the paper pattern I used for the outer quarter panel repair, and then turned the paper over, marked out the profile on the repair section, trimmed and folded.  That was easier than I thought.  Here is the repair section, shaped and ready to go, clamped in place over the old panel:



The masking tape is the guide for the fateful angle grinder cut.  Which I did.  Then cleaned up the mating edges, clamps and masking tape to hold in position, and some tack welds.  Of course, it all "wanders" when you start tack-welding, and I had a couple of spots where the edges jammed up hard against each other, causing a dimple.  But I found that "relieving" with a 1 mm cutting disc helps.  You don't need to cut right through either . . .

Align edges, tack, planish, repeat; lay in some welds, quench, planish, grind, repeat -



Not bad for a day's effort after a loong break.

Rob

[Errol62]

Lovely work.


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[FireKraka]

Nicely done Rob

[ardiesse]

Thank you gentlemen.

I'm learning that the better the replacement section fits, the more it "falls into place" when time comes to weld.

Anyway, because the whole area is open, it seemed good to put some primer on -



Rob