Spyder restoration - long time coming

[peteracs]

How much was the press you bought, Peter, and what are the approximate dimensions? I suspect that buying from China would be cheaper than buying the steel and welding it up yourself.

I did consider building one, but just buying the steel made it a no brainier. I paid £58 delivered from a supplier in the UK via Ebay, but payment was to a Chinese firm, they obviously have holding stocks here to allow duty paid and quick delivery. Only downside to them is do not expect much support. I complained about the faulty bottle jack and eventually was told to return the unit, which would have made no sense as a replacement bottle jack is only £15, but for me not a problem as the solution was widely shown on YouTube/Google my go to for most domestic repairs such as boilers and washing machines etc.

Dims are 93cm high, 40cm wide and the base feet are 40cm

[mangocrazy]

Excellent - thanks Peter. That is very cheap. I feel a purchase coming on...

[peteracs]

The other job I have managed to complete is rebuilding the rear callipers. This was fairly straightforward and included stainless bleed screws as per the front ones. The big issue with them and glossed over in Haynes is reassembly of the hand brake levers. The mechanism as discussed elsewhere is via plunger/screw arrangement with the main lever activating a cam to push the plunger. The plunger has 5 domed washers under it to act as a spring. The problem is these domed washers leave the head of the plunger too high to insert the lever. The solution I found was to ensure the plunger was screwed into the main piston by putting the assembly in the vice and using a 20mm socket to compress the domed washers and allowing a flat bladed screwdriver to screw in the plunger into the piston which needs to be pressed in as much as possible, especially with new pads. Obviously this is simpler without the cast iron yoke being attached to the main calliper body, but I had removed them originally anyway.

So we now have the plunger in as far as it will go, but after releasing the tension on the domed washers the height of the plunger is too high still to allow the main lever to be inserted and the small ‘cam follower’ for want of a better name to be inserted. So this is where the press comes in. I used a small bolt to press on one side of the plunger to allow the follower and the lever to be inserted about halfway onto the plunger. Then to allow the the lever to go all the way I repositioned the bolt onto the domed washers and compressed them enough to allow it to slide. I had used waterproof grease on the lever, follower and plunger beforehand. This allowed the lever to be fully located and the circlip to be added, followed by a good helping of more grease and finally put the rubber hoods on. Final job was installing the yokes which are held in place with a 4mm split pin as I had drilled out the original pin due to being all rusted etc. End result is shown.

[peteracs]

Excellent - thanks Peter. That is very cheap. I feel a purchase coming on...

This was the guy who supplied mine, so price has gone up a little, but still cheapish

The construction is pretty good and well painted.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/383365894137?ul_noapp=true

Peter

[mangocrazy]

Thanks for the link, Peter. I also have some rear calipers to reassemble, and am not looking forward to it. But at least you've provided me with further justification for a press... 

[peteracs]

Just to finish on the press, one thing which watching one of the recent Binky episodes taught me is the benefit of having good sleeving parts. They bought a commercial kit which I see on Ebay retails for around £60/70, but I resorted to using selected sockets from my set and for the bearings using old inner and outer races which worked a treat putting in the new bearings. I found to get the hub onto the stub axle I used two of the inner races to get the clearance I needed.

Peter

[peteracs]

Thanks for the link, Peter. I also have some rear calipers to reassemble, and am not looking forward to it. But at least you've provided me with further justification for a press... 

Best of luck, I hope you had better luck than me as I ended up cannibalising 4 to get two acceptable ones, main issue was the piston and rusted in bleed screws.

Peter

[peteracs]

Another couple of weeks and a few steps forward and then the odd one back.....

I finally finished assembling the rear hubs and refitting together with the new disks and rebuilt callipers. I have new brake hose and am making new hard brake lines throughout the car. Also fitted the brake balancer assembly and the NOS handbrake cable. I cannot finally tighten the rear suspension until I put the wheels on and lower the car to ride height, but not a big job. Will do that when I have finished the brakes lines.

As a break from the rear I took a look at the window winder mechanism which is very stiff. This may be in part to the felt type strip along the top of the door, but also I felt was the mechanism itself. I tried applying spray grease to what I could get at of the mechanism, but had little effect and also had a bit of the dreaded ‘slipping’ of the gear where the handle is, so as I have a few spare winders, decided to take the plunge and split one to see what was going on inside. I think this was good idea as I found the spindle mechanism coated in very sticky old grease and the long spring was pretty dry. The spindle assembly itself is rather curious in that there is no bearing as such, just a spindle and a tight fitting spring. Splitting the winder was simply a case of using a 7mm dril to drill out the 6 riveted retainers. These are also interesting as the rivets are part of one side of the retaining plates. This itself presents a slight problem when reassembling in that there is very little clearance when fitting the mechanism back into the door for any bolts or nuts. The only way I can see to resolve this is to use some 7mm rivet nuts (rivnuts) which have a small flange which should give adequate clearance and use a 5mm bolt and washers on the side where there is plenty of clearance. I have some on order so hopefully will be a good result. Below is a couple of photos of the component parts of the winder mechanism with the exception of the small rubber stopper at one end and the padding around the spindle where it attaches to the door as I need to replace them.

[peteracs]

Something which had been at the back of my mind was the replacement rubber fuel hoses I installed many moons ago. I decided to take them out from the tank and the engine bay and found the ones I used were unbranded R6 spec ones which maybe at the time were current, but given the scare stories about these I decided to go for branded ones with the current R9 spec. I bought Cohline branded from a UK retailer who specialises in fuel systems, so have to assume they will do the job for the foreseeable future.

[HFStuart]

I must admit I hadn't thought about that. I'll check mine when it eventually goes back together.

[peteracs]

A bit of progress, the door window winder mechanisms are all cleaned, greased and back together. The rubbing strip attached to the top of the door skin on the outer side was replaced when the bodywork was done and is very tight for the glass at one end of the door. I used a large screwdriver to open the gap, but erred on the side of caution as I did not want to bend anything. The glass now slides better, though not perfect, but is acceptable. Assembly of the mechanism was fairly simple, I used the press and a suitably sized socket to get the spring back into the housing. The idea of using 7mm rivnuts and bolts was only a half success as it is not possible to get washers on the bolt side of the rivnut due to the contours of the mechanism, so I cut down some approx 6mm headed screws to use as a centre to the rivnut and using the press (amazing how often it comes in useful) I pressed the screw head into the rivnut making it like a normal rivet gun rivet. Not pretty but very effective. I have the drivers side one all back and works very smoothly and without too much effort, so a good result in my book. Always amazing how long these things take, probably been 2/3 days on this job alone.....

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

I feel your pain with the door glass rubbing strips. Mine rolled in on themselves jamming the electric windows which had been flying up and down for a Beta setup. With them removed full speed windows re-instated. I am now prising the old strips out of the stainless trims to replace with strips supplied from Italy by Cicognani. We will see if this is the solution to the too long saga of fitting up the doors. 

Keep going we will get it done in the end.

Eric

[peteracs]

Thanks Eric. Yes the door strips are on of those things which are a complete pig to replace. My guy when he did the bodywork ‘replaced’ the outer strip and that is a bit too wide really, but as my windows are manual, not as bad as if they had been electric I think. The drivers side one has ended up being somewhat easier to raise than the passenger one, but that is how they are staying.

I bought a stainless exhaust some time ago, used from a coupe. It was in good condition, the only issue was that the down pipe was welded via a flexi to the centrally mounted box which made it pretty unwieldy and very hard to get the outlet of the middle box over the rear frame. So I decided to sacrifice the flexi and grind out the welds which was pretty successful. I have ordered a stainless flexi and my debate now is the exhaust manifold.

I have a couple of 4-2-1 manifolds, one is almost new and off a Strada 130TC, the other I forget its origins, but I seem to remember it was for a beta. I would like to use the Strada one, but I can think of two issues, first the Strada was 2l and mine is a 1600, so block height might be an issue, secondly, the engine angle of the Strada which I cannot find documented anywhere. So anyone ever tried using one of these or know if the angle is different to the Beta?

[HFStuart]

Failing that Peter my old manifold will be available  - the flange it's been re drilled to suit a 2L but it's designed for a 1600 so should work well on yours.

[peteracs]

Hi Stuart

Thanks for the offer, what is the manifold (4-2-1)?

Peter

[HFStuart]

Yes  4-2-1 in stainless. CSC I think. I'll fish it out and get you a photo or two.

[peteracs]

Thanks again Stuart. I aim to take the original manifold off the car tomorrow and offer up the Strada one and see how it fits or not.

Another small job appeared whilst I was working on the window winders. The car currently has the front wheels up on ramps, and on opening the doors they should stay open curtesy of a door spring, sadly neither do, so I removed the spring assembly and it was obvious they were worn and the gap in the U shaped metal part was too wide. This is spring type steel, so to get the gap reduced I placed the U end in the vice to close up the gap and applied some heat to the bend. This worked a treat as the gap stayed reduce. Be careful if you try this as one of them I over did it and the gap was too small, fortunately I have a spare or two. I then cleaned them up with the wire wheel and a quick coat of paint and they are ready to fit and hopefully the doors will now stay fully open when asked to. Picture shows the two springs and one of the mounts in the door.

[WestonE]

Interesting. Normally it is just the plastic section worn or broken that has the doors flying open.

[peteracs]

Hi Eric

It may well be the plastic part is worn, but nothing much can be done to change that. The original metal springs appear to have a plastic type of coating/thick painted surface on them originally which was definitely worn away on the ones I have.

Peter

[Nigel]

Peter, re. the plastic part that fits in the door, i've seen these with a steel roller perhaps from later cars?

I think that,if a roller could be turned, making a fresh unit may be feasable.

Thoughts from a while back.