Found Object

[ardiesse]

Blacky,

The vinyl the trimmer suggested is very close to the original in both colour and texture.  It will be fine for the everything except the door trims, which (hopefully) will just need to be re-carded.  And I don't care if the door trims look second-hand . . .

Rob

[ardiesse]

The series of wet weekends has run its course.  Naively I assumed I'd be able to do some car work this weekend.  Nope.  Didn't count on the wind.  Another tree blew down.  The carport-catastrophe tree of October 2012 flattened the carport.  The mini-tornado branches of November 2019 clobbered the house and squashed the ex-Malcolm Young Merc.  This one was like the east-coast-low tree of June 2015 in that it had the good sense to miss the house.  But it fell on the drive, so I can't get to the back of the house without some gymnastics.  And the deck railings (repaired in early 2020) are looking very second-hand.

I filled a green bin with foliage and sawn-off branches.  I reckon I made it weigh a quarter of a ton.  It took, shall we say, no small effort to wheel it up the drive to the kerbside.

Rob

[graham_fuller]

Hi Rob,
Sorry to here that. I had a branch just miss my Calais when I was at my daughters at Oatley.
Very strong winds indeed.
Cheers

[my8thholden]

Three ute loads of small Blue gum green tips , bark and sticks and about 30 branches thick as your wrist 2-3 meters long ..At least nice fire in the paddock at end of day ...

[Errol62]

I need to buy a decent mulcher. Borrowed one once that would consume branches as thick as your forearm. Big heavy flywheel on it. I thought about converting the blue 202 out of my EK215.


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[ardiesse]

Fallen tree cleared away.  Took me three weekends, but I still have ten digits.
So now I can get down the back yard to retrieve "Found Object's" front seat and take it to the trimmers.  I got the retrimmed rear seat last week (photos to come), but . . .

The grey FC's clutch slips even when I drive around town.  Can't put this off any longer.  I bought an Exedy clutch kit on Friday.  Now to replace the clutch.  Yes.

Rob

[Errol62]

One thing at a time, preaching to the converted I know….


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[ardiesse]

Cleaning out and painting the inside of the RHR wheel arch, I thought, was going to be a nice, routine, well-defined task.

No.  Nothing's routine.  A couple of spot welds to the brace at the top of the wheel arch had torn through, probably at assembly, and I figured I'd clean up the site and re-weld where the spot welds tore.  But this is what the clean-up revealed:



Water got through, and the rust set in.  And the return of the brace has rusted out in one place.  Access from the boot is too hard, so I'll go at it from inside the wheel arch.  Next weekend.  For now, I'll concentrate on the portion of the wheel arch I paint-stripped and rust converter'd.

Rob

[ardiesse]

I managed the repair to the RHR wheel arch this afternoon: cut out a piece of sheet, lay in place, put masking tape around as a template, cut out the rusty part, drill a couple of spot-welds, repair the brace's return, drill for plug welds, lay in place and zip it up.

But I'm having imgur troubles, and uploading images is defeating me at present.

And in other news, the front seat is at the trimmers' being re-trimmed.

Rob

[my8thholden]

what trimmer are you using Rob ?

[ardiesse]

Vern,

The Little Trimmer in Castle Hill.

Rob

[ardiesse]

Signing out of imgur and signing back in seems to have done the trick.  A bit like the old "have you turned it off and back on again?" thing.

Here's Sunday's repair:



I went in with the strip'n'clean disc and breathed some black primer over the repair so it won't rust.

Rob

[Jolls]

Very neat and tidy work!

[ardiesse]

Yep.  I surprised myself.  Once I got my welding-helmet-clad head into the wheel arch, access wasn't great.  Also, it was getting late in the afternoon.  Normally, these two things mean crappy welds, but this time it went well.

Rob

[ardiesse]

(Off-Topic Post)

Executive Summary:  Grey FC's clutch and pressure plate replaced.  Cylinder block water jacket hosed out.

No-Shit-Sherlock Moment:  No, I'm not in my early 20s any more.  Attempting to lift the gearbox back into place defeated me.

TLDR:

I took the flywheel off and removed the welch plug at the back of the block.  My goodness.  Was there some mud and scale in there.  Working from inside the car I hosed the sludge and scale out until it ran clean.  Then I put the welch plug back in.  Yes, I know.  You're not supposed to do that.  But this appears to be a superior-grade stainless steel welch plug, and I Silastic'd the hole in the block and the plug before driving it back in.

I'm stumped as to why the "old" clutch slipped.  The old driven plate and pressure plate appear to be in perfect condition.  The flywheel face is fine.  No grooves, no hot spots, no discernible wear.  I chose not to get the flywheel machined.

Faced with defeat at the bench-press, I improvised a transmission jack by cable-tying a 15x6x1" piece of wood to the trolley jack, which I could sit the gearbox on.  But I still needed to get the gearbox onto the jack, under the car.  See "bench-press", above.

But I can tell when I get tired.  I do things in the wrong order.  Screws which normally behave want to cross-thread.  Parts don't line up.  I wondered why I couldn't get the clutch cover screws to start.  I had put the clutch cover in backwards.  The passenger's rear engine mount bracket bolts didn't feel like they tightened up right.  I had caught the exhaust pipe bracket between the gearbox face and engine mount bracket.  I used a hacksaw blade to clean the slots in the transmission tunnel cover's screw heads with a hacksaw blade and then, predictably, the blade slipped and the red stuff came out of my finger.  The transmission tunnel cover itself gave me grief.  The screw holes didn't want to line up.

Anyway, it's done now.  The Exedy clutch kit seems to be of good quality.  Interestingly, the Exedy driven plate's quite a bit lighter than the PBR/Clutch Industries one.  The facings are the proper 203 mm/8" OD.  Pedal effort is less than before, and it takes up 1/3 of the way off the floor, rather than 3/4.  It doesn't shudder or rattle on engagement.  Let's see what happens in 10000 miles.

Rob

[Harv]

Man I've had days like those.

I'm stumped as to why the "old" clutch slipped.  The old driven plate and pressure plate appear to be in perfect condition.  The flywheel face is fine.  No grooves, no hot spots, no discernible wear.  I chose not to get the flywheel machined.

Any chance the clutch springs are not springing as they should?

Cheers,
Harv

[ardiesse]

Harv,

That's the conclusion I came to.  Either the pressure plate face got machined down too much at reconditioning, or weak pressure plate spring.

Rob

[ardiesse]

If I do nothing, nothing gets done.

I had a couple of hours in the late afternoon, and I made a retainer channel for the rear-seat-to-boot divider.  I made it out of the 25x0.8 galvanised strip with holes in it that you use for, among other things, cross-bracing a wooden deck so it doesn't sway.

Rob

[Rod]

Gee Rob,

Going by your post of looking to have the shell off the rotissiere by the end of the year, I am sure you are doing more than nothing. You must be getting excited to get to the point of having the rust repairs done and moving onto the next stage.

Thanks for continuing to share your journey.

Cheers Rod

[ardiesse]

Late this afternoon, it looked like the rain was going to hold off long enough for me to tack-weld into place the retainer strip for the rear-seat-to-boot divider.  I used the old divider as a template.  Figured it wouldn't matter if I charred it or set it on fire. Hmm. No smoke.  Not even any smouldery smells.

Putting the replacement divider in place was, of course, not without its challenges.  I had to bend many tabs and even the seat squab hook to clear the holes in the new divider, but here it is, sitting in place in the retainer strip:



And then I pulled the divider out, laid in a few more welds, dressed them, and breathed a layer of primer over.

Oh, and also - one of the seat squab fold-over tabs had broken off.  While I had the welder out I welded a new section onto it.

Rob