After finishing the car’s striping, fitting the
two rear wing blanking plates (ZKC1454) prepared
2 years ago, should have been easy. Well the driver’s side was!
The opposite side decided to put up a fight. However hard I tried, the push-on spire nut (ZKC2539) refused to seat properly against the inside of the wing. And after the second attempt I decided to have a closer look at the blanking plate. Should have done that when I selected a pair of blanking plates for refurbishing and use on the car. The only selection criteria at the time were the outside looks. I should have paid a little more attention to the (hidden from view) moulded plastic mounting pins at the back!
Clearly visible is the ridge near the base of the mounting pin. This is almost certainly caused by the blanking plate being removed a few times in the past. And this ridge turned out to be the cause for my problem. It prevented the spire nut from seating correctly, leaving it almost 1 millimetre free of the sheet metal.
Luckily I had a few spares left. And the one discarded
first, due to heavy overspray, proved to be the best spare. As long as I could
get the paint of, without damaging the visible plastic! I shouldn’t have
worried, old school thinner, a fine scouring pad and 30 minutes work did the
trick. And as can be seen in the previous picture I had to fabricate a new
gasket. The one I made originally didn’t survive my attempts to fit the recalcitrant
spire nut.
And with all parts ready I went for the third
attempt. Third time lucky I should say. Though it took a few minutes to press the
spire nuts fully home. Finally result!
And after returning home from the shed I decided to spent the remaining part of the afternoon with a first inspection of the radiator I removed from the parts car. To prevent it from drying out I had stored it in the cellar, filled with water. And after emptying it, I transferred it to the bathroom for an external and first internal cleaning session.
First the inside was filled with a mild
solution of cleaning vinegar and boiling water. And while this solution was
doing its work, I attacked the outside of the radiator’s core with a hot water
hose and various soft brushes. Quite amazing to see how much dirt had accumulated
in there!
And with the outside properly hosed and brushed
down, it was time to drain the cleaning solution and flush the core. After
which the radiator could be inspected more closely, starting with the outside.
Looking pretty good overall, though it will need a bit of satin black paint and some rust converter in certain areas. And I found this tag, which might explain its condition. Presuming the tag shows the manufacturing date, this radiator is clearly not factory fitted, but an aftermarket replacement.
Remained the inside. Rather difficult to capture with a camera. There are still clear signs of a rusty deposition, especially at the bottom of the radiator (first picture) where a rusty coloured sludge sat when I removed the radiator from the car. But all visible pipes from the radiators core look free and clean.
Main bottom hose connection
Main top hose connection
No comments:
Post a Comment