Installing the front bumper

Using some new and big washers etc. to mount the front bumper. The fit is not to bad but I find the front gap to widen the sides are almost perfect but you can see that the bumper is leaning forward a bit. I will take it off again and try to get the gap in front a little bit smaller.

At last I found some fasteners to keep the air induct at its position, another issue solved.

This was it for 2011, hopefully the car will be on the road within a few months.

 Things still to do are;

·         refurbishing the car seats and rear shelf panel (trim shop)

·         adjusting the rear exhausts (body shop)

·         install the rear bumper and fog light

·         buy a small (MG) spare wheel

·         check the rev counter (isn’t working at the moment; probably bad contact in dash)  and the wiper delay unit

·         carburetor adjustment (workshop)

·         lights and wheel alignments (workshop)

·         polishing the paint work (body shop)

·         MOT and homologation (the hardest part…)

The list is getting shorter.

Happy New Year to you all.

Preparing the front bumper

It’s time to deal with the front bumper; the corners are new parts but the central piece is the original one and it had some cracks that were glued, it only needs a layer of bumper spray  to finish it. The heavy metal part has been sandblasted, metalized and powder coated to prevent further rusting.

The bumper is ready to be installed.

What was it that killed the cat?

I want some extra lights on the front of the car but I’m not sure if these will suit the car. Maybe I have to buy some round ones; the problem is that the extra lights can’t sit underneath the bumper because of the front skirt so they are always protruding a bit.

Early wheel discs and labels

A set of second hand small wheel discs arrived from Robsport. Second hand but in good condition accept for one that is missing some flanges were the bolt should keep it in place. But after sending an email to Robsport with a picture of the damaged part the assured me they would send me another one; nice doing business with them, good service.

I gave the seat belts a good clean and checked the working of it; everything is just fine and they can go back in the car.

Also put some labels on to the car; getting closer to the finish now, only have to redo the painting of the brake proportion valve (had a small leak in the beginning and it took some paint of, changed the pipe and all is well now).

Carburetors

One of the last things that aren’t been checked are the carburetors; just to be sure I’ve ordered some new float chamber needle valves and I checked the float chamber level.

Cleaned the carburetor interior and put everything together again, also made an appointment with the shop to regulate the carb’s and the exhaust emissions ( the car will be on the road for the first time since 2 December 1989).

I had a look at changing the automatic choke by a manual choke device but can’t find the right part for the moment, something for the future…

Wiper delay and standard steel wheels

I’ve ordered a wiper relay; we do live in a country where it rains often (well at least it used to do) so this is not a luxury part but more a necessity. The only thing is; I haven’t got the right connectors so this will have to be sorted out in the near future.

They ash trays where quite rusted lying for 20 years in the cellar but I gave them a sand blast and a fresh layer of paint and now they’re good enough to go back in the doors. The car is a non-smoking zone so the paint won’t cause any problems (and the wife and I are also non-smokers)

I had five steel wheels lying in the cellar but due to a water leakage from the neighbor’s house they  had been in the water for quite a long time and some of them where badly rusted. Looking at the price for new steel wheels (only 25€ for one) I decided to throw them all away and to buy new ones. When the new wheels arrived I send them directly to the workshop for a sandblast and metalizing along with a powder coating job. They are sprayed light grey although they seem to be white on the pictures but along with the old small style wheel discs I think they will look great.

These wheels will only serve for MOT and winter periods during the other periods I will use the light weights that it has on now. I’ve ordered a set of tires (Toyo 185/70/13HR) but delivery time was several weeks so I’m still waiting for them. On the alloy’s I will try to put on a set of 205/50/15 instead of the 195/50/15 it has for the moment. I guess I will counter some clearance problems but we will see…

Handbrake cable

I had some doubts regulating the hand brake cable; although it has new rear brake shoes there was not much regulating space left on the cable.

So I had a closer look at the cable and found out that it had a bad wearing spot in the middle where it is attached to the rear axle. I thought the cable had become a bit longer due to service time but when I compared it to the new one it had the same length.

On the handbrake lever side the cable can’t be turned in deeper than it is on the picture so I wonder why all the thread is for? But I managed to regulate the brakes having some thread left on both sides, I presume this is the normal quantity of thread?

Next thing to do was to tackle the rear roll bar; there was still a gap to fill. As the gap was quite big I decided to cut the old roll bar and use this as a spacer, this saved me the work of drilling holes and it was just the right thickness.

A picture of the close fit of gearbox and chassis.

Lower suspension ball joints

I had some problems with the thread on the lower suspension ball joints so I decided to replace them. This is quite a hard thing to do; they are really difficult to get out of there lodgment but with the help of a good vise and a hammer they finally give in.

Sanding the rust off in the lower suspension arm and greasing the lodgment helps a little to get the new part back in although it still is hard labor.

With this done every part of the suspension on the car has been replaced and is brand new so no worries for the MOT on this part.