My 1.6 coupe restoration (formerly back in red + rust)

[chrisc]

Doh moment from the weekend.. right, whats left to attach to the exterior - ah, the washer jets.

Washer jets mounted, lets just connect up the.. wheres the pipe gone? wait, wheres the tank gone???

I despair at points.. the car has come back bizarrely with the washer pump, but not the tank it was attached to.

How much pain am I going to be in for retrofitting either the VX style tank or a bag tank?

[peteracs]

Hi Chris

VX style scuttle tank will need some fixings unless you have them in the scuttle already. The bag option is similar, but just needs two small hooks. They are also available new for little money with integral pump, but do not hold as much fluid.

Routing the wiring should be easier for a bag tank as you could locate where the original tank went.

Obviously getting an original for you car is the simpler option.

Peter

[chrisc]

Time and weather continues to be against me, but some more progress.

Merlin motorsport provided complete washer kit for £30 (bag, pump, tubing, wiring, jets, switch) which strikes me as a bargain even if I only needed half of it. That went in without needing to modify anything



Also fitted the battery isolator, and set about trying to figure out why it wouldn't run since changing the fuel filter.

By some miracle, I watched a tv show featuring the logical fallacy 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' - Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X, and had that in mind.

How can a fuel filter change short of putting it in back to front, stop fuel from getting to the engine? it can't.. so thankfully I followed a sensible diagnostic process and discovered that lack of fuel at the carb was caused by lack of fuel in the tank so it's running again.

Now that it's running again with the exterior together, it's take out the dashboard and find the water leak. Watch this space..

[chrisc]

So after all these trim and presentation jobs it's finally time to tackle the water leaks. Probably been putting it off because it's depressing finding bonus rust, but here we are

Minor miracle that this instrument cluster is still working! corrosion central


Dash out. I removed the old insulation on the firewall after this.


And over in the n/s a-pillar where the worst of the rot on the car was I find this


Bit of poking later and chipping off some butyl and it looks like this


It looks horrific, and of course it should have been fixed when the car was done, but that's split milk, under the bridge. At least it's accessible to fix, and the holes above it that led to it have been fixed.

So what does this mean for our water leak mystery?

Well, there's a small leak over in this ghastly mess in the corner, but the main culprit, whatever it is, is behind the heater box. Of course it's behind the bloody heater box, anything else would be simple!

Taking a break and will regroup on it this pm

[Nigel]

Chris, that's certainly unwelcome.

The heater box is only held in by the 4x 6mm nuts in the scuttle, so fairly
easy to remove.
A bit more stripping will be needed before welding.
Is that a wavy vertical crack I see, or something else?

Nigel

[chrisc]

Chris, that's certainly unwelcome.

The heater box is only held in by the 4x 6mm nuts in the scuttle, so fairly
easy to remove.
A bit more stripping will be needed before welding.
Is that a wavy vertical crack I see, or something else?

Nigel

Thanks it's more just the annoyance of draining coolant if that's required which I assume it is.

The suspicious looking bit is just flaking butyl.

Having embarked to the garden for some manual labour which requires less subtlety than a beta (unless there are jobs on the car best handled with a pickaxe / mattock) I had a question for the forum..

With the heater box air inlet in the scuttle, some rain must get into even when the cars where new, where is that supposed to go? wondering if that might be to blame with mine

[peteracs]

Hi Chris

First up, the water coming in via the bonnet vents should be diverted either side of the heater inlet and the inlet has a lip around it, the water should drain out via two drain holes in the scuttle into the engine bay, these holes should have rubber ‘hoses’ on them. The scuttle is also shaped so that water should not get into the side vents.

On your newly found rot, that is where the front chassis support comes into the cabin and needs to be properly repaired. On my HPE it had similar (worse) rot in that area and when we removed the front subframe you could move the front of the car up and down relative to the cabin. I suggest you also check the other side to see if that also has an issue. Definitely not a welcome sight and you need to check in the engine bay as well where it comes through.

Peter

[Nigel]

Chris,
There is also a drain at the base of the heater unit.
The connecting hose goes through the bottom of the firewall.

Nigel

[chrisc]

Well. the main leak is solved, and like most things, I should have looked at it sooner.



This bracket wasn't reattached after the car was painted. Water down windscreen = water into the hole where the attaching bolt should have gone. Drips through right onto the lip of the heater inlet, and the seal is missing. Presto, water in cabin.

As simple as reaffixing that central bracket with the appropriate stainless nut + bolt and presto. Water buggers off to the sides and drains as it should, not a drop through into the cabin itself.

I figure I'll just make a new seal on the vent as it looks pretty generic, but for now, I'm really glad to not be taking apart the heater, and not having another enormous rust hole to solve.

[chrisc]

More tiny progress whilst waiting for availability for garage to do the further welding.

Decided I didn't want to go on a mission every time I want to buy wiper blades. Whilst I'm sure there are betas out there with standard arms, rather than the side pin affair mine had, I couldn't find them easily, so as a temporary solution I fitted a pair of the worlds most terrible looking adapters.





On which note, wiper arms are made out of serious stuff, and drill bits are even more variable in quality than I thought.. lidl cobalt drill bits.. yes but incredibly slow. bosch drill bits.. nope. Random B&Q set I got given years ago with a house purchase, ok.

[chrisc]

After this weeks visit from the Sahara to the UK the car was looking almost barn find condition!


A hasty scrub and dropped off at a trusted local garage to tackle the further rot


Not pictured is a pancake air filter and crankcase breather filter fitted to a) give me room to access the carb adjustment screws during tweaking, and b) to keep filtered air available whilst I clean up the original housing.

I've blocked off some vacuum lines in the process which will undoubtedly reveal to me what purpose they serve at some point!

[chrisc]

Popped down to see progress today. utterly failed to take pictures.

The work that's been done to that nasty rot is amazing. it went quite far, back of the wheel well beyond it too.

Little hole in the left rear suspension turret has been a gift that keeps on giving. Patch on a patch on a patch all taken out to be made good.

The real surprise however has come from a small floorpan hole at the edge behind the drivers seat. In uncovering that it ended up in a peel back pristine looking underseal to reveal that the floorpan is shot where it meets the sills, on both sides.

Fortunately they are happy to continue, the guy is a proper craftsman and the rates are very fair!

[peteracs]

Hi Chris

These problems are pretty common, especially looking at the original rot where water would come into the cabin. Glad you have found someone to do the work who seems to know what he is doing.

Peter

[chrisc]

So.. a long overdue update

If we recall, it went in for a nasty bunch of rust on the passenger side chassis leg, a 20p sized hole in the inner n/s/r suspension tower, and a hole in the floorpan beneath the driver seat.

Chassis leg



Driver side floorpan





and.. brace yourselves

the 20p sized hole









And with that, the car was perfect and lived happily ever after.. I wish.

More rust has been exposed




So on with that, question really is will we have to drop the subframe out to get at it - if so, stand by for scope creep with a new gasket set for the engine, a new clutch and who knows what else!

[SanRemo78]

That's ugly. Cut it out and put new steel in, it's the only way!

[peteracs]

Hi Chris

Sadly not uncommon problems, just glad you are able to see a way forward. It will be worth it in the end, just very painful getting there. Given how far you have come, hope you can see it to the end.

Peter

[WestonE]

Hi Chris

Well done for getting it done. You will know you have a great car that is safe and solid to enjoy. BTW I just wrote an article for the Monte Consortium on Scope Creep or whilst I am here as my Montecarlo Clutch change job spins off into multiple other must fix areas!

Cheers

Eric 

[HFStuart]

Bottom of the A pillar. I feel your pain, it's a complex area to repair but very strong indeed once done. 

[chrisc]

Pictures speak a thousand words










I remember when I got the car home the first time thinking.. the sills look pretty solid, shouldn't have to worry too much about underneath.

Sure enough, the sills have had no welding. Everything attached to them however....

[HFStuart]

That all looks very familiar !  Good work.