New member - Excel SA

[Pete Boole]

Brilliant work Neil - I especially like the metal forming over the wooden buck. It will be as good as new when finished. Does your car have the elongated/reinforced anti-roll bar brackets? They were a factory recall ISTR.

Pete

[Excel SA]

Thanks Peter & Pete,

Metal forming was easier than I thought it would be - did a test run first - block of wood cut to shape, a vice and a hammer! Many hours of watching car shows on TV have paid off!

Does your car have the elongated/reinforced anti-roll bar brackets? They were a factory recall ISTR.

Yes - I have the longer brackets, but had to make up the spacers as neither side had them - I did consider welding the spacer to the chassis to help strengthen it, and thought it a bit of an odd way of doing things. Saying they were a factory recall explains quite a few things....using the 2 existing holes on the chassis to line up the bracket and the re-manufactured bit meant I was out by at least 8mm when I checked all my measurements - lots of head scratching later I decided to make sure everything lined up with the drivers side, so now I need a new hole in between the two holes, and to fill up the two holes that are in the wrong place. There is also a 6mm diameter hole at the end of the bracket that has no corresponding hole in the chassis cross-member which added to my confusion.



Yes, there is also a crack that needs welding....

Neil

[MetBlue]

Lovely work Neil.
Looking great and like the innovative solutions you are finding to unique problems.

Tony

[Excel SA]

Seat Frame Repair

If this is better off being added to the other topic on seat frame repairs, please can it be moved there!

The seat frame in my car was broken, as in snapped, and the frame had twisted, the details below are in the order I should have done the job, not necessarily the order things were done in....

The picture below shows the break, but not the twist in the frame.



Remove the leather seat cover and rubber base support - mainly spring clips/hooks etc. - some of the seat foam is glued to the frame - I removed that as the frame will go off for powder coating.

The tube was no longer round where it broke - a tapered drift was used to get it back into shape, and the powder coating around the area to be repaired was removed.

I drilled a couple of holes in either side of the crack for puddle welds.

A 60mm long 19mm (3/4") diameter pipe was cut ( I had to turn what I had down to fit) and forced into the frame - there is a punched hole in the tube for the rubber base hooks that requires some force to get past....it should go into this part of the frame first so it can be knocked into the frame with the necessary force.



I then maneuvered the frame - it can flex a fair amount - to get the other end over the insert - a sash clamp and some wiggling did the job. This is when the frame can be tweaked back into shape - removing any twists and making sure it is all square. A vice and long levers are helpful here.



I welded the insert in place through the holes drilled earlier, and the crack was welded using short tack welds - the idea being to try and not weaken the insert too much with the weld penetrating too far - I believe the original weld around the tube is what caused the weakness in it. The weld was then ground down and cleaned up and I cut a bit of 3mm thick angle iron to shape to add to the frame for a belts and braces approach....



Final result after more cleaning up - green lines are where I welded - red arrow is where I avoided welding.



Now to replace the rubber base support, sort out the leather etc. and the seat is done.....

Neil.

[Excel SA]

Front chassis repair has been done - welded in and painted.



I had to weld in a strengthening plate (red circle) as there was a crack which I welded up and 2 holes for the ARB support bracket which were both wrong - the right hole will be in between the other 2 holes. Old holes were plug welded to the plate.

Many other chores have been going on - Cleaning, fixing, painting and buying replacement where necessary. Will need to purchase suspension bushes soonish once I've got my head around what to get!

Rear light clusters have been pulled apart completely - will post pictures and my thoughts on those when I get a moment.

Neil.

[Excel SA]

Worked on the rear chassis where the suspension had broken the tab off on the weekend - repaired and welded the tabs back on, but then couldn't get the rear hoop back in place as it is has been deformed out of shape by about 5mm. Efforts to reshape it were not entirely successful, a bent bolt and my bench vice taking some strain. The weld on one side where the tube meets the sleeve that the bolt is suppose to go though has cracked, so will resort to cutting the joints in both sides, get it all to fit properly and re-weld it all. The main tube was pinched to meet up with the sleeve, and I think this is where it has now been deformed, everything else still seem straight, but not something that I could reshape with any finesse.

The offending area is in the white circles - excessive camber from the broken bracket is also noticeable with the body out of the way. This side of the hoop is fine and lines up, but the front side is not.



The extra support bracket is also proving a bit trickier to design and fit - on the driver's side it need to avoid the main power cable where it passes through the chassis, brake lines, as well as an area where the chassis is double skinned. Am thinking it may be easier to weld them on to the chassis rather than to try and bolt it on.

Have also sent some parts off for stripping and powder coating - all 4 springs, window frames, ARB and the drivers seat frame. I used up a good amount of paint stripper trying to remove the old powder coating of the window frames, and still never got to all of it - some jobs are just better being done by others.

Neil.

[Pete Boole]

You can get adjustable upper links to correct the camber. Good progress though! I left some powder coated parts in a bath of thinners for a couple of days recently - just de-greased them!! All the powder coating was still there

Pete

[Excel SA]

The camber was out because of this - the green arrow shows the support bracket that had broken off and was on the bolt the wrong way around as a spacer. The rubber bushes on the link appeared to have been home-made too.



Will see how things end up before gong the adjustable route. I need to start getting some things back together - an exploded car takes up a lot of space!

All the bits sent for powder coating needed re-doing, and the price is reasonable - I probably would have gone through that value in paint stripper by the time I cleaned everything!

Going to look at some tail lights today - have taken mine to pieces as they were filled with crud. The moisture and dirt that collects in the lights removes the reflective paint.



They did clean up well, and could be used with a coat of reflective paint and and gluing back together if necessary - the other light has a piece missing from the lens, so needs replacement anyway.

Neil.

[Pete Boole]

ISTR that they fill with water because they are fitted upside-down on the Excel and therefore the drain holes act as fill holes!

Pete

[Excel SA]

Yip - that's part of the problem - there are multiple holes into the lens area, most are sealed by the foam around the light, but I suspect muck still gets in through there from the boot and behind the bumper where it's not sealed that well - there was a lot of it, and those drain holes aren't very big.

Have picked up another light - this one hasn't been filled with water through the drain hole, but the reflective paint has worn out in places - and that was the same for all the lights I looked at. Will need to experiment a bit to get them repainted and put back together.

Neil.

[MetBlue]

I tried various paints / solutions to repair the reflector on my Series 1 style rear lights.
In the end found that a sticky backed silver foil worked best. The top half done in photo below, then powered the bulb to see the effect.

Due to the compound shape, I needed to do it in several overlapping slices, but once assembled, no one will know ( unless you've read this post ).

Tony

[Pete Boole]

That looks really good! I've bought some paint that uses glass beads (like "cat's eyes") to provide the reflective surface but haven't tried it yet. Only had it 9 months

Pete

[Excel SA]

Funnily enough, the chap I bought the light from also gave me some vinyl wrap that he uses to line his light bowls - will try that, but there are a lot of curved and wavy surfaces and patience may get the better of me. I have some "chrome" spray paint that seems to stick to the plastic well, so may try that as well, and then use LED bulbs to get the most out of the lights.

Nice chatting to Richard and Pete on the Zoom call last night!

Neil

[Pete Boole]

Yes - nice to put a face to the name! Forgot to mention that after 40 minutes Zoom chucks you out and you have to log in again via the forum to continue chatting . Not sure why it does that.

Pete

[richardw]

It does that ‘cos it’s free! The paid version lets you talk as long as you want. Good to chat with you guys and use Zoom for a real long distance call.

Cheers Richard