Post 20: Wheels on weekend

20 January 2018

A week after "wheels on weekend" and it is wheels on weekend.  Not too much to do to be fair to get the wheels on as last weekend got me almost there.  Some new shims for the hubs and the correct brake cylinder seals and that was it. 

Wheels on albeit for show only! White wall ties I think?

Onward then to the other things to do, a very dirty engine awaits me. . . and oh that rear shroud is still kicking about - more on that another time.

Right side of the engine, oil filter, distributor hosing

Left side of the engine - not much is there



Rear of - bit dirty

Post 19: Was to be Wheels on Weekend

16 January 2018!


As the title suggests I was expecting, hoping, that this post would end with the car on its wheels for the first time in nearly 9 months, well it is still on axle stands I'm afraid.  Lots of effort was put in though and I nearly made it!


The task was to complete the rebuild of the front suspension to allow the wheel fitting and I was minus the kingpins.  Well the kingpins arrived after new bushes and reaming, rebuilding each side went well. . .

Assembled Kingpins

Then it was build up the steering shafts and brake mounting plates, hubs, wheel cylinders, brake shoes and finally the drums.  Everything was going to plan until two things:


1) While rebuilding the hubs I find that the wheel bearing shims are missing on the car.  Lots of old cars don't need shims and set the bearing float by tightening the nut but here, whilst it is possible to do that, the spacer adjustment would then rattle - I'm for doing it right so need to get some shims


2) More of a problem, I just could not get the drums over the brake shoes.  After lots of struggling and comparing to the originals there was a very small difference in the shoe plates that meant I couldn't get enough clearance.  Rectified this by gentle use of a file and all is well - except I only had time for the left side.


Wheels on Weekend is coming!!

Spring compression initial stages

Spring installed



Messing about with the bottom shoe

File utilised!



Drum on - only one



View from the from - steering and brake drum in shot

Post 18: Start of a new year 2018

January 10th 2018:


Did I get the wheels on over Christmas?  No not really as the festive season took its toll on the build progress but I did get a couple of days in the garage and looked at a few things.


The first thing that has and continues to worry me are the shrouds.  The rear one is particularly bad and needs a fair amount of repair caused by a combination of corrosion and butchery.  Seems the panel has been subjected to some abuse over the years as there is an old repair that no needs some attention.
I have started to make some headway into these repairs, I tried welding them but have taken advice from a specialist welder so watch this space - hoping that my effects work - will update in a week or so!

Right of the rear shroud corrosion damage

Corrosion damage

Old repair

Butchery

Other progress was made on a couple of fronts.  Completed the rear end build by adding the brakes and drums.  Had a few issues to resolve on the brakes, not least replacing all the cylinder seals and drilling out one of the shoe spacers - had to make a new one of those! Also cleaned and painted the engine mounting brackets and fitted new rubbers in preparation for powertrain install - engine is very dirty though!

Left side brakes

Right Side Brakes

Engine Mountings - Pretty - Now!