Highs and lows, eh Today’s certainly a low Re-jigged a load of stuff so I could spend all day out in the garage re-stripping the wheels after my first aborted attempt at painting earlier this week, cleaned them up, masked everything off, sprayed on some black and it’s just … well, shit would be one way of describing it. A less kind way might be to say that it’s very shit …
After a strange few week’s break, I’ve had the urge and the time to get back out into the garage This co-incided with the arrival of a set of “10GG” nuts from SpeedShack which are needed for my new wheels – 5/8″ sleeve nuts to fit an M12x1.5 stud. At £1.95 a nut though, if my retirement fund has a shortfall in a few years, I’m going into business making nuts and washers …
More rain this morning, but at least most of the garage roof leaks have now been fixed Was just out there tidying up really, and whilst admiring my recent handiwork had one of those “doh!” moments. Crouching down to look through the grille, I could see the fan, the relay and the thermostatic switch … and the noise of the rain on the roof made me think of rain and spray…
Ahhhhhhhhhhh! You would not believe how cold it is out in the garage tonight! Ran some wire through to the cockpit for the LED to show me when the fan’s on, and put it in its temporary position on the steering column shroud. It’s earthed onto the column itself, along with (I think) the ignition, so the wiring was straight-forward. The wire comes through the bulkhead to the right of…
Yesterday gave me three simple jobs – stop the leak in the top hose, remove the viscous fan and finalise the wiring. Taking off the fan would be quick – I’ve done it before – so I started there The viscous hub on the fan attaches to the water pump shaft with a large 32mm nut, which is reverse-threaded (so that the normal rotation of the shaft causes the nut…
OK, first up I’ll admit straight off that I spent some time putting a couple of coats of Hammerite on the fan shroud and my new brackets Having reassembled everything, I then drilled some holes in the bodywork to mount the brackets onto. To reduce vibration and noise, I wanted to put some kind of rubber isolator on each of the brackets … browsing the shelves of B&Q turned up trumps…
It is indeed a 12 volt LED, so hopefully none of that confusing stuff about resistors applies You lost me on the second sentence, Group4_Mark2 I just chose blue cos’ it looks cold, not for any technical reasons Had to go and get some more yellow crimp connectors at lunchtime, so got a multi-pack of lots of flavours and a packet of yellow piggy-back ones. This meant I could have a convenient take-off…
Went out shopping to Maplins armed with a big list and came back with a bagful of goodies A 30A relay, an in-line fuse holder with 20A fuse, some 30A and 3A wire and a nice little panel-mount blue LED… The thermostatic controller I got from the Staffordshire Vehicle Components stall at the NEC Classic appears to be much the same as any other generic thermostatic switch kit… Before starting, I’d spent a bit of…
Right, had some time in the garage this afternoon – football on the radio, tea in a Thermos, the smell of woodsmoke wafting in through the gaps in the roof First of all I hooked up the fan to the defibrillator to check that the thing actually worked and gave myself a surprise as it almost spun itself off the workbench … they’ve got quite some kick to them on startup. …
Back in the mists of time in November, a parcel of treasure did arrive from the land of ebay … Originally Posted by Stu.C … a radiator fan from an Escort RS Turbo… I forgot to check the address of the chappie that sent it, but I’m guessing this Escort lived in a seaside town and was owned by the bloke who ran the salted cod factory – no other explanation…
Well, I managed to get down to the local garage this morning to get both the alignment on the front and my general nut tightening abilities checked out Good news was that my nuts are fine However, it seems my ability to adjust the steering rack/rods by eye is rather lacklustre I had “about an inch of toe out” when they first checked it … now set to three millimetres of…
The ladies tell me that an extra inch can make all the difference On the left is the old 8″ drum setup, rather creaky, stiff and tired looking, but otherwise still serviceable. On the right is the replacement 9″ setup, off a 2.8, with new cylinders and springs, all greased up. I’m betting that there’s somewhere between “sod all” and “bugger all” noticeable difference between the two, but at least it…
Back in July last year I refurbished a set of rear brakes from a 2.8 ready to put them on the car … then put them in away in bags on the shelf while I “just popped over” to France. Turns out I forgot all about them Thought it was time I did something I’ve read up about how to swap them over and what tools I’d be needing for the job…
I couldn’t get my verniers inside the rim of the new wheels to measure the hole size, so Steve Law at Speedshack very kindly put a couple of second-hand ones in the post to me so that I could check for sure … they’re 5/8″ it turns out. Excellent service from Speedshack Now comes the question of refurbishing them I’m guessing that media blasting would be the quickest/simplest way of removing the old…
First up, I’ve been talking to Steve Law at Speedshack and apparently I need sleeve nuts, rather than longer studs and new nuts, so we’re just sorting out the right size So that it didn’t become one of those jobs I kept meaning to do, I’ve jacked the back up to remove the spring pads – given that nobody had a good word to say about them (not even “ooh, nice colour”) For completeness,…