Thursday 23 July 2009

DHC report nr. 35; Heater controls

Switched my attention back to the heater tonight. After checking how the heater’s coolant valve worked, I decided to disconnect the thin copper pipe that runs to the back of the heaters' radiator and actuates the temperature sensitive valve regulator visible at the top of the valve;


Removing this should prevent the valve from closing ones the heaters radiator gets to warm. This shouldn’t be a problem as I ditched the A/C and I can close it manually with the regulators.


Contrary to the rest of the heater I didn’t coat these as they were too much of a challenge to dismantle. So they only got a thorough clean-up, after which everything could be mounted to the heater.


Remains the biggest challenge, the rods between regulators and the different flaps and valves and the outer seals. Will take my time for that ...

Sunday 19 July 2009

DHC report nr. 34; Wiper mechanism

As I am still working out how to adapt a few things on the heaters coolant valve I turned my attention to the wiper motor assembly. First thing to do was find myself a decent one to start with, but in the end I decided to use the one that came of the car (as it was almost dismantled). I started with dismantling and cleaning the wiper motor and putting it back together. But despite being careful while pulling of the housing I managed to dislodge the brushes. But that happened during assembly, I forgot how strong the magnets were. A frustrating 15 minutes were needed to get all three brushes back in together with the engines spool. Tricky with only two hands but it can be done! With that sorted, the rest of the assembly of the wiper motor was rather straight forward.


With the wiper motor sorted it was time for the wiper wheel-box, which didn’t look that good at first glance;


But after a thorough clean-up with degreaser, wire-brush and sandpaper, and a bit of black paint they (together with the tubes and the spacers) again looked quite acceptable.


Only (slightly) bad bit being one of the wheel boxes’ threads, which is damaged by contact corrosion with the locking nut. To prevent this in future I used some non conductive anti-seize-grease.


So another few bits ready for assembly once the body is back from the paint shop.


Monday 13 July 2009

DHC report nr. 33; Heater rebuilt

It’s been a while since my latest report on the heater rebuild, but it is nearing completion. This was mainly caused by the fact that I had to make some last minute alterations to the body stand and am still sorting through some 1600+ photograph’s which I took during my recent trip to Scotland. The fact that a few minor jobs on the heater took much longer than expected didn’t help much for my motivation to finish it!

But last Saturday I collected all what was left of my courage and started on probably the worst bit, reassembling the heater housing. And it was! It took me nearly 2 hours to get the radiator housing closed. Due to the new rubber seals around the heaters radiator and the new coating I really needed an extra hand to get the lid in place. But after quite a bit of swearing I got it in place in the end. After that it was fairly simple to get the ventilator housing mated up and fit the coolant pipes.



Not very clear in the pictures, but there are quite a few pop rivets needed to get all the parts back together, 94 so far to be precise!

A few pictures from the inside; the ventilator housing;


And the heaters radiator;


So remains fitting all the levers, connect up the wires and fabricate some new external seals.

Thursday 9 July 2009

Administrative jobs on ‘t Kreng

Had to spent a little bit of time on ‘t Kreng in the past two weeks. First the car needed a new valuation report to get it insured for the next three years. Only thing I had to do for that was a few phone calls, polish her a bit and take a day off from work to wait for the valuator to do his job. Turned out to be the same guy who originally valued her after the restoration in 1996. He was rather impressed by the work done to the car over the years. Especially after an extended test drive. As a result of which the insurance fee has risen a bit!

After valuation it was time to have the car MOT-ed. I would have liked to check the car over before that, but I couldn’t find time for that. So I just drove her into the workshop, where I waited patiently to see what was wrong with her. Nothing really, even the CO level was well within the limit at 2,36%. Only remark (but not on the report) was that she’s burning a bit of oil on idle, resulting in a rather misty workshop ...

As a reward for her good behaviour I filled her up with some Shell V-power racing (100 RON), which she seemed to like very much 😊

Saturday 4 July 2009

DHC report nr. 32; Start paint preparations

Brought the body away for (pre)paint preparations and eventual paint job today. At last I dare say. With a little help from a few friends (some being more helpful than the others 😜)




we managed to get the body into the stand pretty easily.



But as the stand wasn’t meant to be moveable we encountered a small problem. When trying to turn the body single handed, the pivot point of the stand will move inwards once the bolts are removed, thus locking itself inside the pivot point bolted to the body. Luckily this will be pretty easy to rectify by placing a third set of wheels in the middle of the stand, and/or by welding two small plates to the back of the stand’s pivot points. Both to prevent them from bending inwards. Something to sort on Monday.

And hopefully the paint job will be complete by mid August.