Spyder restoration - long time coming

[peteracs]

 No specific jobs done other than driving the car over recent months. A few shows and Betameeta so getting some use out of the car.

A few to dos are
Fix a weep from base of expansion tank, tried new pipe but may need new clamp. Very occasional drop from it which is annoying.
During Betameeta Nigel noticed the cambelt was not as tight as on his car, so will re tension it during winter as well as check valve clearances and timing whilst I am in there.
Need to apply underbody sealant as not applied any since 21, so time to do some.

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

On the subject of the timing belt I read a section in GC’s book which says you should be able to twist the belt to 45 degrees between the two cam pulleys, which my belt does appear to do, so will leave well alone until I come to change it, probably next year.

I have been to a few local meets recently including my local club Sunday drive/lunch yesterday. I had not noticed it at first, but after half an hour I saw the oil pressure indicator was reading very low and through the day proceeded to get lower and lower, however the red light did not come on, so I was hoping for a sensor failure…

Changed it today and sure enough new sensor gives a good reading so happy camper.

Peter

[Neil-yaj396]

The oil pressure gauge on YAJ suddenly dropped to zero many years ago on a long drive back from Suffolk. As the red light didn't come on I risked continuing the journey. It was the same thing, and a second hand sensor brought it back to life.....

[peteracs]

I guess after nearly 50 years they are allowed to fail!

Peter

[peteracs]

And there I was thinking that apart from a regular local dry weather run over the winter and some planned maintenance things were over for another year. That was until yesterday morning at 10:00am (Wednesday just before the NEC) when John B rang to say the Spider of Paul Greenway has had an electrical issue and cannot make it, is yours available…..

So after some negotiation with better half and some trainline searches to get back home, I delivered the car to the NEC that afternoon at around 2:00pm where I met Mark & Frank from the LMC who took the keys and I returned home courtesy of the train.

Back to the NEC on Saturday morning for my originally planned 2 days on the Beta/LMC stand.

Photo sent by John B during Thursday setup day.

[Nigel]

Well played on stepping up Peter.

That green Coupe, what a lovely shade, suits it so well.
That's a great display.

Looks like I'll be missing a fine collection of cars this year. However I've got a
local LMC event to attend as compensation, a visit to a restoration company
near Tonbridge, and I'll be driving the HPE.

Nigel

[WestonE]

Well done Peter!

[Neil-yaj396]

Paul (not John) Greenway's Spider is red (pic in this months VL), so in a way your Spider is a better contrast Peter, with the red VX (?) already further down the row. Great line up.....

[peteracs]

Hmm no idea where I got John from (John B maybe?) Yes meant Paul, now modified

Peter

[peteracs]

Started on the list of jobs I wanted to achieve this winter, want to get them all done before the HPE comes back…. So probably have most of the winter to do them!

Anyway, first up was inspecting in the sills using the new endoscope I bought. A little disappointed that the protection I squirted in there did not get to the ends of the sills, though the rest appears to be coated OKish. I am planning to buy some more and reapply and can now see how well it has covered.

Another couple of jobs which I wanted to do are lighting related. First was the led front side lights which have yellow disk at the front and it looked odd to me with the clear lens when switched off. I have now replaced with different leds. Then a couple of issues with the dash. The clock backlight was really hard to see and there is a switch next to it which has a very bright illuminated ring round it. I bought a brighter bulb for the clock which has improved it and am considering removing the bulb or painting it to reduce the brightness of the switch one which will also improve the visibility of the clock.

Peter

[Neil-yaj396]

Hi Peter

You posting about lighting on your car reminded me of following you during Betameeta. I'd meant to mention at the time that in bright sunlight your brake lights are pretty marginal as to being visible. Not sure if they are LEDs? They were OK when you were in shadow such as under trees.

Neil

[HFStuart]

Anyway, fist up was inspecting in the sills using the new endoscope I bought. A little disappointed that the protection I squirted in there did not get to the ends of the sills, though the rest appears to be coated OKish. I am planning to buy some more and reapply and can now see how well it has covered.

When mine was ziebarted at new they drilled access holes front and rear to get to the sills.

[WestonE]

On LEDs Tim (Auto Electrician) who had the Monte on the stand has done an outstanding job for us with Classic Car LEDS building a kit for the Monte. My brake lights, indicators and dash lights are all transformed. Note Red LEDs Brakes and Tail Yellow LEDS indicators.

The LEDs this company provides are an obvious quality step up from the ebay LEDs I have previously tried.

Eric 

[peteracs]

Thanks Neil and Eric.

I had not considered that the brake lights would be marginal, they are obviously dual filament led types. I will look into alternatives to get a comparison.

Peter

[peteracs]

Winter jobs are now in full swing….

Following on from Nigel’s and others of poor voltages at the wiper motor, I decided to have a play with some relays. Essentially the wiper motor has 4 positive/power inputs, so have re-wired each of them to drive a relay which is supplied by a positive from the fuse box. That way the power does not have to go through the steering column switch which is the most likely source of voltage drop and avoids any burning out of the column connections.

Quick test shows it all working, but I need to have a bit more testing to establish voltages etc to make sure I am not being a busy fool.

One reason I am doing this is as a test bed for the rewiring of the HPE which I will need to do.

Further relay related work is to add them for the starter solenoid and the main ignition switch.

When finished I will post photos etc.

Peter

[Nigel]

Hi Peter,
I didn't find the source of my slow wipers despite burrowing everywhere, and
fitting relays only got the second speed working properly.

I totally re-cabled from the column switch. I included the intermittent relay in the circuit,
and all came to life. No extra relays added. I did have a think and realised that the
current draw was fairly low therefore deemed extra relays were not needed. I didn't need to touch
the hazard switch wiring, that also, unexpectedly, works fine.

In conclusion, it was the original wiring that had a failure somewhere, probably at
one of the many connectors in the loom.

Cheers, Nigel

[peteracs]

Hi Nigel

Interesting re current, I will try to do some measurements now I have the relays all wired up.

Here is the new relay and loom setup. I tried to run a +12V wire from under the steering column (yellow/black) where it connects to the column connector, but short of removing the air vents for the screen it was impossible, so I ran one from the fusebox an into the scuttle area via the grommet which carries the washer water pipe. I added things the existing connector to the wiper as there is a spare slot in the connector handily. This then feeds the relay outputs.

I had to decide where to site the relays. At first I was going to mount them using the passenger side bonnet latch bolts, but eventually decided to use one of the wiper mechanism bobbins. I therefore made up a bracket, drilled 8.5mm hole for the bobbin mount and drilled and tapped M5 for the relays to mount. Should make a tidy job and keep the relays out of the worst of water which comes in from the two bonnet vents.

One point is that it is simple to revert back to the original setup.

Peter

[peteracs]

On with checking the voltages with and without the new solenoids and without having the engine on readings on some of the wires going to the wiper looked to be higher, however it is difficult to know 100% as the way the motor works means the load on each wire varies over the full sweep and hence the meter fluctuates and I do not have an old style analogue meter which would dampen the variation.

I also tried it with the engine running with similar changes as far as I could tell. We are only talking maybe half a volt, so not the end of the world, but will be interesting to try in real life.

Testing was cut short at this point as I noticed a reasonable sized pool of liquid under the engine which was more than a shock as the engine has never had more than the odd drip previously, usually from the rear driveshaft seal. The liquid was oil, specifically engine oil and after jacking up and getting under the car it looks to be coming from one of the exhaust studs which go into the main oil gallery, oh what joy that is going to be to remove, reseal and replace. The nut came off without a fight and now just ordered a set of stud extractors to remove the stud, hopefully without having to remove the manifold. I Dod wonder if it was from the Cambodian gasket, but that looks to be ok, time will tell. The odd thing is on restarting the engine, no more leak, which must mean it has been the recent colder weather with leaving the car without starting it for the last month has caused the sealant on the stud to fail.

After this excitement applied some cavity coating (Bilt Hamber Dynax S-50) to the sills and the top front crossmember. When it has dried, I will revisit with the endoscope to see how much I have managed to cover with it.

Peter

[peteracs]

Revisited with the endoscope and had to have another go with the cavity coating, this time looks somewhat better coverage, so not as simple as it appears.

Also during the summer with the rear hood down I thoughI could hear a bearing rumble, or was it road noise from the back? So I removed the rear calipers and thankfully the bearings all appear to be in good shape which they should be as only done around 6k miles, but you never can tell as some of the bearings I used were old stock as I tried to use non Chinese ones.

Peter

[peteracs]

Stud extractors arrived and I had the day to sort it. The stud came out without a fight, as it should with oil on the thread. Cleaned it up and ran a thread cleaner down the hole a few times to try to remove the worst of the oil. Then applied some thread sealant to the stud and using the stud extractor (it also acts as in insertion tool) I rewound the stud into the head.

Left it for a few hours and fired up the engine, so far no obvious leaks, but will see how it goes over the next few months.

Peter