Early HPE restoration

[peteracs]

On the subject of crossover from S1 to S2, this car was registered with a P plate in 76, the VIN is a few hundred into S2 production, but also has the S1 centre console with the gear selection plate rather than the stencilling on the gear lever. It does have the mounts for the engine and gearbox dampers, unlike my Spider, but has the S1 rear tailgate with the key located in the rear badge and no push button. No idea if the tailgate is original, but the colour looked consistent when I stripped it. It could of course have been one of the first batch of RHD cars so the VIN may not relate to exactly the sequence when it was put together.

Peter

[peteracs]

Not much progress other than the seat runners recently, but have bought a couple of speakers to fit the Coupe front end holes. I do not need a great hifi system, just something to listen to the radio and a reasonable music reproduction without going to separate bass and amp etc. I read various reviews and decided on a pair of Rockford Fosgate R1525X2. Tested them on the bench with the Bluetooth amp I bought a while ago and it sounds ok for my needs. As others report the bass is lacking, but that is to be expected with this size of speaker. One thing I do like is the inbuilt tweeter.

Peter

[HFStuart]

Looks a bit like the KEF Uni-Q design.

[peteracs]

Hi

Something I played with on the Spider and have been experimenting with adapters for the HPE are the wiper arms. On the Spider I bought a set of arms and blades from TEX who made a set based on a pair I sent them. The problem is they do not have the spline type used on the Betas, so bought a pair of adapters which worked OKish on the Spider. The problem is when you are going along at a reasonable speed or it is windy the spring force is not really enough to keep the blade on the screen, so you get poor clearance of the water. So I revisited the original wipers which of the ones I have are all painted in a silver colour. I wanted to keep with stainless finish to match the rest of the trim (black would have been much simpler) so took one of the arms and had a quick play with the polishing wheels I have. The result is below and quite pleased with the initial result. Original on the right, polished on the left. It will take a fair amount of time, but the result should give me original arms looking in keeping with the rest of the trim. I will then buy a pair of Tex blades in stainless to finish them off. Hopefully they will give better performance than the Spider ones.

I am also looking to mod the wiper mechanism as per Nigel’s wipers to improve the sweep of the blades.

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

Due to visit the car next week, but John has sent a few photos of recent progress. Nice to see metal actually being added, rather than taken away!

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

Following on from my thread on the Siem headlights which all seem to rust to some extent, given that they are probably 40+ years old, no great surprise I guess. I have decided to have them resilvered as the rust is not too bad.

To get the lenses separated from the bowls I warmed the edge next to the lens with a propane gun, this made the sealant soft and the lens was then easy to push out. This obviously damages the slivering, but is going to be replaced, as is the outer coating, so no harm done.

The company I am going for is Concours Plating (https://www.concoursplating.co.uk/), the quoted price is £75 + vat per bowl.

Photos of the bowl below.

I have also cleaned, treated for rust and painted the mounting plates. These are originally plated, but we’re not too pretty, so painting will hopefully keep them in decent condition.

One thing I am after are some of the plastic clips which attach the bowls to the adjuster rods, anyone have any or a source as a few broke during removal? Photo below

[Nigel]

Peter,
Mark has those plastic clips in stock.

Nigel

[peteracs]

Hi Nigel

Well spotted will get some from him next order I do, thanks

Peter

[mangocrazy]

Peter,

I guess you want to retain originality as much as possible, but if you are prepared to sacrifice that, I can recommend a set of Valeo (formerly Cibie) 5 3/4" headlights. The Valeo part number is 082372 and I can vouch for their efficiency. I replaced all the old Siem/Carello headlights I had on my Spider and when I flicked all four lights on it was like daylight, even with just humble halogen bulbs. I've seen them listed at £55-£60 each (when you can get hold of them). They are the same design lens as the original (and famed) Cibie Z-beam units.

Graham

[peteracs]

Hi Graham

Originality is of no particular interest. What I wanted to retain was the ability to tilt the lights and the Shem ones allow this but I fail to see how you can do it with the Carello style lights. Do the Valeo ones use the Siemens three point fixings or dare they suited to the Carello style of fixing?

Peter

[Neil-yaj396]

Hi Graham

Originality is of no particular interest. What I wanted to retain was the ability to tilt the lights and the Shem ones allow this but I fail to see how you can do it with the Carello style lights. Do the Valeo ones use the Siemens three point fixings or dare they suited to the Carello style of fixing?

Peter

Peter

I bought 2 NOS  Cibie/Valeo(?) headlights last year. They didn't fit the 1300 Coupe pods being very slightly too big for my stainless rims and having a different fitting clip pattern.

I'll get some photos next time I go to the garage. They are as new and not much use to me if you want them.

Neil

[peteracs]

Hi Neil

Thanks, the Siem ones just have three ‘studs’ and it is this which allows the tilt, so will be interesting to see what you have.

Thanks

Peter

[mangocrazy]

Hi Graham

Originality is of no particular interest. What I wanted to retain was the ability to tilt the lights and the Shem ones allow this but I fail to see how you can do it with the Carello style lights. Do the Valeo ones use the Siemens three point fixings or dare they suited to the Carello style of fixing?

Peter

Hi Peter,

I'm afraid I can't remember which make of OE headlights I had, but remember that it was a comparatively simple job to mount the Valeo lights with the OE hardware. Unfortunately I can't check the car as it's in France and I'm in Sheffield. I'd be inclined to use the Valeo units if you can get hold of them, as the light output and beam pattern is in a totally different league to OE, whether it's Siem or Carello, and the appearance (once the plastic bezel is in place) is indistinguishable.

Graham

<Edit> just realised that we are talking about different generations/series of Beta here (the clue being in the word 'early'...) My Spider is an S2FL model and the mounting hardware looks quite different. Sorry for leading you up the garden path...

[peteracs]

Hi Graham


Hmmm. Well I am hoping the fitting of the backplate for the lights is the same as the HPE has a S2FL2 front end now!

Something I will have to check to see if any mods are required on top of the mods we have already identified.

Peter

[mangocrazy]

Hi Peter,

I must confess I'm not fully conversant with the 'Series' nomenclatures and which vintage of Betas they correspond to. My Spider was first registered in 1980, but built in October 1979. How many Series are there? I was under the (quite possibly mistaken) impression that there were 3 distinct 'Series', with the third Series commencing with the fuel injected Coupes and HPEs and the VX. Is this correct? And what Series would my Spider fit into?

Graham

[peteracs]

Hi Graham

This is my take on it, others may have a different view. The original S2 (coupe/Soider/HPE) had the brown dash. Then around 78 the Facelift S2FL was introduced with black dash. AFAIK all UK Spiders were this. The S2FL2 with new grill was introduced around 81? As only 2l cars were sold in the UK at this time this was the IE and VX. My HPE front end is from an IE.

Peter

[mangocrazy]

Hi Graham

This is my take on it, others may have a different view. The original S2 (coupe/Soider/HPE) had the brown dash. Then around 78 the Facelift S2FL was introduced with black dash. AFAIK all UK Spiders were this. The S2FL2 with new grill was introduced around 81? As only 2l cars were sold in the UK at this time this was the IE and VX. My HPE front end is from an IE.

Peter

OK, thanks for that, Peter.

[HFStuart]

Then around 78 the Facelift S2FL was introduced with black dash. AFAIK all UK Spiders were this.

Peter, not quite sure what you mean but early S2 Spiders were brown dash.

[peteracs]

Hi Stuart

True and reading what I wrote is not what I really meant, I meant in the U.K. there were no FL2 Spiders.

Peter

[peteracs]

Not been too much fun working in the garage with recent temps, but had a part day working on the cyl head yesterday, today was reassembling the runners for the seats. I had previously stripped them, cleaned the old grease etc and today was reassembly with the correct amount of rollers etc.

End result not is quite pleasing, just hope I have orientated the runners correctly to allow the seat to move forward when you want to get in the back seat.

Also the light bowls went off a week ago, quoted turnaround is 8 weeks, so beginning of March to see how they look.