Unkel Kunkel

I have no experience regarding steel 2 stroke tanks, but I can say steel tanks that hold only oil certainly do rust - even terne plated ones. During the last few years I have cleaned / repaired the tanks of several very old vehicles that have separate oil and petrol tanks. The bottom of the petrol tanks were all rusty, but the bottom of the oil tanks were all rusty to a varying degree. In one case the oil tank was considerably more rusty than the petrol tank though it was known to only have contained engine oil for 90 + years. I think condensation water falls to the bottom of the tank -whether it contains petrol or oil.

Gaz shock. btw, 77 Kg is a bit more than 11stone, Nigel..

Bit late here ..but there are 4 brackets for spire clips I welded them back to new floor when replaced it. The hardboard does fit but have to push it in and up first. Its 42 cm tall.

I have always been very impressed by Paddocks, especially with delivery times. - I choose to forget the mechanical Powertune mechanical fuel pump they supplied because I think it was more an issue with their supplier rather than with them as a retailer and the courteous response with an offer of full refund was very promptly offered.

Thanks. Yes the windscreen pillars are very rusty. Pretty much everything on this car was rusty.The “before “ pictures do not reveal it. A Cataloy or Isopon extravaganza.The lower of the rear wings, behind the doors had in fist-fist size quantities. I’ve had the body off, raised up on a platform doing the other jobs until just recently, so the pillars have been a bit out of easy reach. No excuse now. tbh It ‘s not a job I’m really looking forward to.

Just following up with before and after pictures before and after refurb original spring with UHMWPE “buttons”. Before, it was a bit sagged down: After : ( also after the “usual” body- off stuff : new wings, sills, floors , boot floor etc etc …) -and a gap of …a few years): 1/2 an hour ago.. It sits higher - The body has only just gone back on; it is near a bare shell - so it should sit a bit lower when everything is back on/in and it settles a bit.

Sure.

My measurements are just the size of the that particular scrap one I found The ones I made were all very approximate and I selected the best -fit from rather lot of them - I did not produce them to 2 places of decimal! If you or anyone would like the left over off-cut rod in the picture, happy to send it.

Hi, Found a couple of “reject” ones and measured them, putting the dimensions in red next to the ones you showed. ( That 8 mm in your drawing would add s lot to the spring height, I ) think. I have only recently put the body back on the chassis but the ride height seems OK,

Hi, I used the full diameter of the stock UHMWPE (which happened to be near the width of the spring) with a raised bit to fit in the depression /button hole. It was all a bit “rule of thumb”, really. I think Ive got one or two “prototypes” in the garage I will try and get there later today, measure and photograph them. meanwhile, this is the UHMWPE stuff they were made from

I wonder just how long the original rubber items were effective for - or the rubber replacement ones. (They always seem squashed to near oblivion - or absent in photos I’ve seen ) The UHMWPE ones I made did increase the ride height a bit. However, this was quite welcome as the spring had sagged v. slightly. I had originally intended simply replacing the spring but the replacement was a really great disappointment - stiffer, straighter, very much heavier and spring leaves were much thicker - did not fit into the swing spring “box”. I think the ride height would have been comically high if I had fitted it and I suspect the ride quality would have also been poor. - Returned it for a refund. So the “buttons” meant the original spring could be cleaned up and re-used.

I made eight UHMWPE “buttons” Fiddly stuff to turn. To get eight good ones I made a pile of .. not so good ones - a different product from my garage, aka the swarf and sawdust factory.

The dangers surrounding fuel tank repairs can be real, even lethal unless careful precautions are taken. You might get away with it.. after all not all petrol/ air mixtures explode, as anyone who has ever struggled get a petrol car to start and run should know. -but why risk it? Always best to keep the odds in your favour.. The fact that puzzles me about fuel tanks rusting is not so much that they rust , it’s the variation - why of two cars of the same type, same year and similar mileage, one is pretty well holed yet the other shows hardly any signs at all.

Echo what you say,Roger Finding my way as a totally inexperienced DIY mig welder, I assumed that since the “ joggler” I had bought had a certain size punch hole that was supposed to be for mig welding , then this would be the best size. It really isn’t . It is too small -the weld wire goes immediately to the edge of the hole on the upper plate , quickly fills it and does not penetrate into the lower plate. I slowly learnt that on car bodywork a larger hole is needed - enough for the weld wire/pool to go to the lower panel first and then build quickly outwards to include the edges of the hole in upper panel. 6.5 - 7mm mm dia works for me. The “push “ technique may work really well in others’ hands, but for me I think it will result in the top panel producing a high weld build up and poor penetration into the lower panel.

Here, you still have a to display a “real” tax disc on any vehicle that goes on the road no matter what age it is ( even the oldest vehicle on the Island, a roadworthy 1900 New Orleans, has to have one) “ historics” are £25, like for my Spitfire, which hasn’t been on the road for …err…well.. a few years.. ( if you let it lapse a couple of years a fairly stringent test is required before it can go on the roads) Hard to believe now, but I can recall when that the tax disc also used to display the name and the address of the owner!

Swilling 1-2 litres of acetone is good to remove the “varnish” type stuff that binds all manner of rust and debris in the bottom of tank. (Cheapest source for this is a builders merchant that sells fibre glass roofing material) As mentioned beware hot air gun -I posted a picture last year of a tank that exploded when someone did this.They significant injuries - and a destroyed tank. Filling as much of the tank with water as possible up to the level brazing / soldering / welding as per Wagger describes is good practice. - Steam cleaning for some hours helps cleaning and makes things a lot safer if any repairs are to follow. If you have a wall paper steam stripper, then you can have an effective steam cleaner - take the end plate off and put the pipe into the tank.Keep checking and topping up the water level. It works well - only drawback -care needed as the whole tank gets a lot hotter than you might expect!

That's very interesting - and especially to have the drawings on official “ headed” paper. I would imagine though, a car maker would be almost offended if competitors did not show a great deal of interest in their product. There is a long history.Before the “eight “ appeared, Morris dismantled a 1932 Ford eight.When the Morris emerged it did have had some different features, such as better suspension (and brakes that worked) but the little 803 cc side valve engine and its three speed ‘box bore close resemblance to the 918 cc Ford.

Well I’m knackered - I’m off to bed. but I wish to extend the very Best Wishes to All who use this forum in advance of the midnight hour. For the very therapeutic enjoyment you have given me - your advice, your humour, and your companionship in trying times, Thank You everyone. - and I wish you all a Happy and Healthy 2022. Andrew

There seems to be two problems with these Powertune pumps: Problem (1) .Pressure too high iro 7 psi instead of 2.5 -3. Problem ( 2). Very rough -sharp even, shoddy finish to the operating arm that runs on the camshaft. (1). is caused by the spring which pushes the diaphragm upwards after it has been compressed on the cam. Just looking at the “old” spring and one from a new pump they are obviously different. The new spring is slightly longer and thicker gauge. Even allowing some age related change, there is a very obvious difference when you squeeze the springs and a crude test using the kitchen scales shows 3.1 Kg needed to compress the old v 5 Kg for the “new” one. ( 2).The operating arm is made from a stamping but has simply not been “finished” leaving a rough finish is so ragged that I would think it could damage the cam. The rest of the pump seems to be OK. I had lowered the pressure by increasing gasket thickness, but have since removed the pump and swapped over the springs. I worked on the rough operating arm to obtain a smooth finish. Annoyance - These jobs were no big deal deal, but slightly annoying to have to adapt parts which are supposed to be “straight replacements” Safety - It could be argued that a component delivering a pressure so well outside of specification that fuel leakage occurs is safety issue.

The EP oil lingering pong was partly explained to me by someone who took a student vacation job in a midlands oil company lab.He described a smelly and unpleasant part of the process of making EP oil involved the “rendering” of large quantities of poultry fat ( long unfit for human consumption) that had “ gone off” …

Petrol and clothes seems OK.After drying usual washing machine cycle I have seen the shoe soles of some one who stood in petrol for a while go a bit soft and “ melt “ a bit. Now EP gear oil is a very different matter v.difficult to wash out. Stinks. Never liked it since I had a Ford 105e gearbox discharge its contents all over my head when removing it .Omitted to drain it first. I could still smell it a a week , and many washes , later. Don’t know what it did to my scalp , but fifty two years later I’m not bald - perhaps there’s a business opportunity here.

I have a large amount of cardboard from cereal packets - it’s good quality card and has a thousand uses ! ( I was into recycling in the days when it was just called being mean) I used gasket paper off- cuts

Paddocks offered a full refund adding they had not had similar problems reported to them from a large batch of pumps. Meanwhile, I read the manual* again I was a bit doubtful about this working and it sounded a right faff .. - would be worth a try. 2 Flexoid paper gaskets plus a 1.5 mm spacer made from fibre gasket material off cut plus the pump gasket .. I was surprised: the pressure was now down from 7 psi to less than 2 psi. Just the fibre gasket and the usual pump gasket it now gave 3 psi which is in the 2.5-3.5 psi range. I will keep it - (and the old pump in case I need the spring ) It seems we must do a little “tuning “ with gasket / spacers for these pumps to suit our cars needs. and the regulator is now on its way.. * RTFM .. read the f manual

Thanks everyone. I will inform Paddocks and see how they respond. I should say I have used them for years and hold them in high regard.At the very least they need to be made aware there may be issues at least on some pumps regarding pressure being twice the upper specified limit. However, I suspect that they all have a similar problem.To preserve their good name they may have take it up with their suppliers. Maybe these things are just too cheap.. Out of curiosity, I’ll take the spring out of the old pump and compare it Depending on response from JP may swap it over. In any event, I have already ordered a Malpassi Filter King…

Hi Pete , The original pump is as fitted in 1973 - no spacer , straight, short lever one like this: The replacement is this : which is listed on the receipt also as RKC1624. It terms of the arm it looks just the same size and angle. No spacer, just a paper gasket.It went on easily. The manual suggests adding paper gaskets to reduce pressure. The pressure would seem to be determined by the spring under the diaphragm which as the pump lever comes off the heel of the cam the spring is free to return the diaphragm upwards and pump outwards. So it would seem spacing , by limiting the travel of the diaphragm downwards would also reduce the “return stroke volume” that the spring is able to deliver - so the volume - and pressure would be lower. Return it - or are they all like this. Pressure regulator . Canabalise the old one for the main spring? I appreciate your views and advice Andrew