Wednesday 21 November 2012

Six steps of successful brazing

Most classic car enthusiast are mechanically or craft minded. Apart from cars, they will normally have other likes and soldering correctly is an important skill for plenty of DIY projects.

Silver soldering and bracing is an important method for DIYers as it is cheap and makes very strong joints.
Al always, practice is important and I have just found a superb video explaining the technique with a great detail and educational view.

The video was made by Johnson Matthey soldering division (UK), which has a large amount of different silver rods and fluxes for all materials. The video is available both in English and Spanish.
Hope you enjoy them as much as I have:






I will shortly order some rods and flux to practice as I have the intention of a mid term project consisting in a tubular stainless steel frame for a radio control model airplane fuselage

10.000 visits and increasing!

Hurray! the blog has achieved the great success of receiving more than 10.000 visits since it first started in mid 2011



I really hope you have enjoyed all my posts, full of details of the problems I find and how I solve them with my limited time, budget, space & knowledge. I really feel most of the classic car enthusiasts are like me and wont be able to make full restoration, but want to keep their car in the best situation as possible.

I will continue sharing all my progress and findings, hopping maybe one or two can find it useful and learn something new.

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday 19 November 2012

Before and after

Believe it or not, the heater fan assembly was restored more than one year ago, summer 2011, along with the heater matrix.

I had to install at the very beginning the heater matrix to the engine, so I could start the engine, not having to mess around after with draining coolant to be able to install it.

But the heater fan was stored in a box, as I needed space on the engine bay to work (paint, solenoide, etc, etc). But now that the car is in running condition (have done 500km so far) and winter is at the next corner, I had to fit it. As long as out side temp is 10º C or above, the car can be used with the top down, but having the heater on is a plus as it will make a sort of hot air bubble inside the car that will make it much more comfortable.

So I used a Sunday evening to seat it up. Installation is a reverse procedure to dismantling (have read too many Haynes manuals!!!), but it's true. Connected the bullet and earth cable, and screwed the heater flap valve control cable. I was lucky as the heater rubber duct is in great condition, so just a little bit of clean with some APC. Also the cardboard connecting tube between the heater fan and the flap valve was in not too bad condition, so i also reused. It's lovely to see how so many parts can be reused keeping a very original appearance.

Fortunately the cable switch worked from the first moment, So I didn’t have to remove it to restore it, so for the moment I will reuse it.

I really have to say that I was impressed when I took a photo after the fan installation, and compared it with some original photos I made at the very beginning. I really shows a lot of work in small details, very easy to make, and that make a huge difference when opening a bonnet to the general car appearance.

I see too many owners spending a lot of money on improving mechanical things of their car, but wont invest any time in just tidying up the engine bay. I really encourage them to do so, its a very rewarding effort, easy, that in most cases can be done in the kitchen as a winter project.

Judge by your self!!!

Original situation:

More:

And the latest situation

And more work to be done!



Tuesday 13 November 2012

Order is vital

Time ago, watching the great "Is Born" series, particularly A Plane Is Born, Mark Evans was talking about the importance of workshop order, and showed a neet way of tidying up all the spare parts that would help easy and rapid location and identification.

As all my parts are stored in small plastic bags, I just pinned them on a big cork board, with a label indicating the part number and description.




A good idea is also to group parts of the same familly together on the same area, all groomets, all screws, all nuts, etc. That way, locating a part is easy and fast.

It is a real good way of getting a visual overview of all your spare parts, and it´s great to see how week after week the board becomes more and more empty, meaning the car is going the right way on its restoration.

Monday 12 November 2012

Fitting new retractible securon seat belts

For me, classic cars must be usable cars. I can understand people collecting very important pieces, but wont understand why they store them as they where a piece of art and never use them.

That said, you all know khow I appreciate to keep cars in a very original way with period accessories and so one, but sadly, its not always possible.

My car had the original Kangool Magnet seat belts in a very good condition, lets say 8 over 10. Webbing was perfect and chrome just showed some light pitting. Therefore they could be used with no problem.


Bad news was they are old seat belts with manual adjustment making them a pain for daily use, specially if many different people are going to use the car, as each one would need to adjust it. Also when using a child seat of course....

So I took the arguable decision to change them for a pair of modern retractable set. And I say arguable, because yes, many people will say I am stupid. Not only because I change them, but because I would sell them. As I am on a budget I sold them to get some "financial support" to buy the new ones.

Any way, here is how I made it......

The new seat belts had to be from Securon, a UK based company, well known for making universal seatbelts specially for classic cars. They are EU approved of course. The correct ones for the spridgets are  pn 514/30, available through most classic car retailers and ebay. This time, I opted to buy from WelshMG, which has a huge stock of second hand parts, so I could buy some things at the same time. Price was one of the best I could find, and customer service was great.

Spridgets have had 2 ways of attaching original seat belts:
-early spridgets: 2 thinner bolts on the wheel arch
-later spridgets: 1 thicker bolt on the wheel arch

Securon seatbelts come with brackets for the later ones, that will use a single bolt to attach it, so my instructions are referred to the early ones with the 2 thinner bolts. Of course, if your car is a very very early car an has original seat belts (as they where an extra), or even no holes, then you will need to guess your own way to fit them. But as far as I know, all chassis should come with holes already drilled.

As original seat belt had 2 holes on the wheel arch, I had to make a plate with 3 holes. A 3mm steel sheet would be strong . The shape was cut with a small angle grinder and a cutting disk. Two holes of 9mm for the smaller screws and one hole of about 11mm for the big one.

It is necessary to bend slightly the plate, to clear the space for the big screw. Just a few degrees, about 5º.


A coat of black paint finished the job. But I was thinking that I will send them to chrome in the near future, that should make a good finish.

Installation was easy on the drivers side, but the clamp position needs to be changed as it comes facing the inside. The way to change it is easy, just twist the webbing 180º and slide the clamp, don’t be afraid.


Now came the problem.... securon seat belts are not handed, and once installed, the copilots side seat belt has an off set, therefore the plate I made could not be used as the hole need to be about 2,5cm off.  So I had to make a new plate for this side.



Finally, all it rest was to lock the mechanism. Securon seat belts are universal, and can be used with any angle. On my spridget, the mechanism would lay in an horizontal position. To make the retractable system work correctly, you just need to turn the side knobs and make the arrow point to a vertical position. A little of fiddling would make the job.

Please beware that you are dealing with safety equipment and you always have to think twice before making any change. These instructions are the way I made it..... my way.

Hope my experience helps others, as all the information I could find to fit securon seatbelts on the internet, always reffers to the later spridgets with one thick bolt. On early ones, ALWAYS use both bolts. If the engineers had though one thin screw was strong enough, whey would have used it. If they decided to use two, then it's necessary.