Bordfunker

Thanks for the feedback both. Sounds like I can forget the spring lifter for now. I haven't had a close look at the diff bushes, but seeing as the diff will need to come out at some point, I may just try and replace the bushes. Thanks again Karl

Having rebuilt the front suspension on my Herald due to the condition of the bushes, the rears are looking like they will need replacing too. In order to do this, do I need a spring lifter, or is this possible without? I might look at replacing the diff mounts as well, as I can't believe they are in any better condition, does this mean dropping the spring and diff, or would that just make it a lot easier? I'm thinking the latter. Not a big deal, as I need to replace the diff nose oil seal anyway. Thanks in advance. Karl

Trying to some post some pictures of progress today. This was my starting point, freshly painted chassis and lower bulkhead, with the brake union attached and the starter motor installed. Next up was the passenger side suspension tower, a job I hated when I did the driver's side, but this time, with a bit of thought it actually went quite well, as was soon bolted in. This was rapidly followed by fitting the passenger side engine mount, allowing me to remove the trolley jack for the first time in months. Things were going pretty well despite the heat, and I soon had the lower wishbone installed, swiftly followed by the two part upper wishbones. And here we are at the end of the day, with the new damper and old spring installed, and all tightened up. Tomorrow should see the upright and hub fitted, followed by the passenger side front wheel, and a car that is once again vaguely mobile. Karl.

I've finally got a couple of days off from work with the express intention of making some serious progress on the Herald, namely getting it back to being a 4 wheeled vehicle, and sorting out the rot in the boot area. Today I have managed to get the bulk of the front suspension rebuilt, and I'd love to show you some pics of what I've done, but unfortunately Photobucket have decided to suddenly change their T&Cs and now I can no longer share my photos. Now I'm off to Google some alternatives. Karl

Well my plan isn't going to work as the new outrigger is a different design to the original, therefore I'm going to have cut the old one off completely and weld the new one to the end of the main chassis. Might have to leave this until the front wheels are back on so that I can remove the passenger side rear wheel for welding access. Karl

Stuart, many thanks for posting that, most useful. I was toying with the idea of leaving a stub of the old outrigger in situ, creating a sleeve on the new outrigger, sliding that over, and then welding around join. My reasoning being that I am less likely to blow through on a double thickness join than a single thickness. I've left the mounting points, rust and all, in situ until I get the outrigger welded in. I'll then remove the boot corner and reinforcing plate. This should hopefully ensure I maintain the correct alignment. Thanks Karl

Are you getting a spark at the spark plugs? Try pulling one of the plugs and holding it against the block while cranking the engine. You should get a spark across the base of the plug. If not try the same technique, but with the HT lead unplugged from the top of the plug, and see if you get a spark between the lead and plug. If both of these work, then power is reaching the plugs, and either your timing is completely out, i.e. Distributor installed 180 degrees out, or there is no fuel reaching the cylinders. I went through similar issues earlier in the year, and with Pete's advice traced it to dirty plugs, so I feel your pain. Karl

It's been a couple of weeks without any update due to work taking precedence over the last month, however despite a trip to the Flywheel festival at Bicester airfield I did get around to taking some photos this evening. The driver's side engine bay valance has received a couple of coats of gloss black, here's the engine facing side straight from the gun. It needs a rub down and a final top coat, but should be good enough for service under the bonnet. Here's the exterior face having been rubbed down and awaiting top coating. A number of other components have also received a coat of gloss black, considerably improving their appearance. The horn bar has a few runs here and there, but no more than it had from the original paint job! The spring and wishbones have also been painted. It's bloody difficult painting a spring! All of this needs to be attached to something, so I've also finished cleaning up the passenger side lower bulkhead and chassis rail, which have received a coat of Kurust, then etch primer, and now red oxide as a base for the Dolphin Grey. The red oxide primer was applied with the paint gun rather than a rattle can, as the latter was getting a bit expensive at £10 a tin versus £12 for a litre of red oxide which is equivalent to about 5 rattle cans! The red oxide needs a rub down before top coating, but the aim is to have this sprayed next weekend, which should then allow me to start reassembly of the front end of the car. Which brings me onto the back end of the car, which is not so pretty. Looking a little lacy both around the mounting and the lower boot side. Here's some of the rust and mud that has come out of the backend! I already have the replacement boot floor mounting panels, sourced from Chic Doig. Before I can fit these though I'll need to replace the rear chassis extension, as mine has rusted away around the bolts and is too far gone for patching, so I'll be ordering one of these as well. Ho hum! I had a nightmare removing the rear overider as the lower captive bolt most certainly wasn't, and just rotated in its cage. There's no room to get the angle grinder into the nut, but just enough room to get the air cutter in, and I then had to make a number of slices across the top of the bolt before applying some brute force with a cold chisel and a lump hammer. Quite therapeutic after being locked in contract negotiations! With that out of the way I could remove the passenger side valance, which proved to be in excellent nick, which is one less thing to pay for. Hopefully this week will be a bit quieter, without having to work UK & US hours, so I may actually get some time to do some rubbing down ahead of top coats at the weekend. Karl

I could have done with some of that this afternoon after mowing the lawn! Nothing particularly interesting done today, just applying primer to the large collection of parts which have been prepared to date, but I didn't get around to taking any pictures. Karl

I'd never heard of Clearhooter before I removed the caked on muck from this one Pete. I sort of assumed that they were all Lucas made items. Karl

I didn't fancy welding today, despite the new welding wire turning up earlier in the week, so instead carried on with the clean up of a number of components ahead of applying primer. First up was the passenger side spring which was pretty crusty when it came off the car, but has responded well to several hours of clean up with wire brushes in the drill. It's amazing how awkward it is to clean up a helical spring, you always seem to miss a bit. If I ever do this again, I think I'll spring for media blasting. (I know awful pun, totally unintentional) Next up were the two horns, but not a matching pair in my case. One looks to be an original Clear Hooter, great name, and the other a replacement Hella item.[ I ended up having to cut the mounting nut off the Hella unit as even after two weeks of soaking in penetrating oil it still would budge, preferring instead to round off its corners! Oddly enough although it's a German made Hella item, the fixing on the back of the unit itself is imperial. Here's the bracket post clean up. And the group shot. After this I gave everything a coat of Kurust ahead of applying primer tomorrow. The aim tomorrow is to finish the welding on the engine bay valance and then start applying the etch primer so that next weekend I might actually get around to applying top coat. Karl

Lovely looking rebuild! Karl

Yesterday saw some more work on the driver's side engine valance, grinding down the welds from the first repair section before I could attach the second repair section. Here it is tacked into place on one side, I had to clamp it down on the left hand side to make sure it would be held against the parent panel. And here it is all tacked in place.[ URL=https://imageshack.com/i/pm0W4kFnj][/url] I probably could have left it like this, just grinding the welds down, but I wanted to try and seal the edges up properly by seam welding it all, which left me with this. I still need to sort out the upper join, which kept blowing through, my own fault for not getting a tight enough gap between the two parts prior to welding, essential with MIG. Now I would have fixed this, but Sod's Law I ran out of welding wire at 5 past 4 on a Sunday afternoon! So I then spent an hour and a half cleaning up all of the bolts and screws that I had removed with a wire brush before dunking them all in Gunk for an overnight soak. Not the most interesting job, but one that needed to be done, and should help speed up the reassembly process. I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but I gave the suspension tower a blow off with the airline to remove dust from all the sanding and a load of mud was dislodged from inside the tower. This is just a fraction of the muck that came out. Amazing how much crud can build up in a component over almost 50 years! Karl

With Mrs B away for the weekend I've got a chance to crack on with some of the long list of tasks which need to be tackled before I can get the Herald back on the road. Much of the work that needs to be done is clean up, removing almost 50 years of muck, and what is left of any remaining paint. First up was the anti roll bar and associated fixings. The bushes are being replaced as the current ones are perished, but I'll try and save the bush mounts. Here is the before and after comparison. Not great, but they'll do after a coat of paint. Next up is the driver's side engine bay valance, which when we last saw it looked like this. So I drilled out the spot welds and separated the two sections of the valance. Here's the old section against the new section of steel. It shows just how badly corroded the original was. The new section is 1mm thick and has been plug welded through the drilled out spot welds. The plug welds need cleaning up in the morning, don't think the neighbours would appreciate me getting out the angle grinder at this time of night! This still leaves the other section that had to be cut out, to be replaced. This section of the original is a complex shape , which my limited metal working skills were going to struggle to recreate, so I opted for a simpler pattern which would be easier to make, but still retain the strength in the panel. To form the reinforcing depression in the panel I used a socket and the vice, opening the vice jaws to the same width as the socket, and then hammering the socket, on its side, into the gap between the jaws. Brutal, and probably not very healthy for the socket, but it's a metric one, and who needs them? Here is the new panel resting in position. Once I've ground the plug welds down tomorrow, I'll seam weld this in, and then it's time for primer. Also on the clean up list this weekend, and something I've been putting off for ages is the passenger side suspension tower. It took me about 3 hours to get this state, using multiple drill mounted wire brushes in order to reach into all the nooks and crannies on this component. The steering rack also got a thorough clean up, which highlighted a perished gaiter on the passenger side which I'll need to replace. As well as the anti roll bar bush mounts, I also cleaned up the remaining bumper stay , the aim to having everything cleaned up and ready for paint next week. Tomorrow I'll finish off the repairs to the engine bay valance, and then I just need to strip the paint off the radiator, I'm not touching the core, that I'll mask up, and the two side panels need a clean up and a coat of paint. Karl

It's certainly improved my grasp of Anglo Saxon expletives! But like I said, it does appear to be getting easier, or maybe I've lowered my standards! Karl

Dave, yes I'm welding gas less with flux cored wire and and a Clarke 151 EN, and it's certainly proving a steep learning curve! I picked up an auto darkening mask at the Practical Classics show, and it's taken a bit of playing with settings to get it a point where I can see what I'm actually welding through the gloom. I've also spent a lot of time on YouTube watching videos on gas less welding, and I noticed on one that the guy had removed the shroud from the torch so that you could see the electrode, and see exactly what was happening at the weld pool, so I gave that a go this weekend, and found it helped a huge deal. I'm finding welding is more of an art than a science. I've ordered my boot corner repair sections from Chic Doig this afternoon, so that needs to be my next welding exercise. Karl

As expected this weekend has been dedicated to welding up the driver's side front outrigger and side rail, and trying to improve on my previous efforts. Given that I need this welding to be strong enough to satisfy an MoT tester I decided to go belt and braces and flush weld and then patch them. Not the neatest I know, but it's very solid and hopefully will keep the MoT man happy. Now I just need to weld up the boot floor and then the fuel tank can go back in. Next weekend Mrs B is away so I should get plenty of time to clean up the remaining suspension parts and start the painting, the aim to have the car back on the road by the end of June ahead of the Bicester FlyWheel festival. The MoT isn't due until the end of July but I want to get as much as sorted out early so that I can drive the car for the summer, rather than just taking it apart! Karl

The fresh welding wire turned up, however it didn't come with a portion of welding skill! I ended up cutting out the patches that I had put in last week. All pretty quick and easy with the angle grinder. Next up creating a card template for the patch. And marked out on the sheet steel with a marker. 5 minutes with the angle grinder gave me this.[ URL=https://imageshack.com/i/pm6cmKXij][/url] So far so good. I then tacked the patch in and welded round the edges, quickly followed by a grind down, and a coat of weld through primer. Lots of blow through around the edges, and the side rail has turned to lace where it meets the outrigger, having said that the patch itself is very solid, just not pretty or MOT worthy. I therefore spent last night on YouTube watching welding tutorials, which did highlight my main issues: 1. Not enough metal being fed into the weld as I had the wire speed too low, overheating the weld and causing blows. 2. Pushing the weld not pulling it. Pushing is for gas MIG, not flux cored. At least next weekend is a long weekend so I should get an opportunity to sort both the chassis and my welding. Karl

Checked the welder today and realised that I'm almost out of welding wire. I think I know I'll be buying this week! Karl

This weekend hasn't seen a great deal of progress due to getting up late yesterday, then having to go get my new glasses, and then having visitors today, so work has taken place in short bursts. One of the jobs I dislike most is cleaning up parts prior to painting. I know it's essential, but it is bloody boring, but well suited to being done in bits when you have a spare half an hour. Focus of my clean up activity was the passenger side engine bay valance, which unlike its opposite number, has not succumbed to the dreaded tin worm, and responded well to strip discs and wire brushes. [ URL=https://imageshack.com/i/pme93vZrj][/url] This vision of shining beauty took me about an hour and a half over yesterday and today, and has since received the customary coating of Kurust, which means it should be ready for etch primer next week. With visitors safely out of the house and Lincolnshire bound, it was time to bite the metaphorical bullet once more, and try sorting out that outrigger. First job, cutting back to good metal, which left me with this. Next up was creating a card template, and cutting out a repair section from fresh steel. This was then held in position with one of my new magnetic clamps.[ URL=https://imageshack.com/i/pnoOm2gqj][/url] I really can't praise these magnetic clamps enough, they make welding so much easier, leaving me with a neatly tack welded repair. Idiot notes on patch are essential for me! And here it is welded in. I appear to have found good metal at the top of the patch, and where it joins to the original patch and the centre of the outrigger, but despite appearances, the metal at the bottom keeps blowing through. Next week will therefore see more cutting and welding, though I may just cut out the two patches, grind back, and then put in a single larger patch. The upside is that I am starting to get the hang of welding, and the repair itself appears to be good and strong. Happy days! Karl

Following on from yesterday's exploits I cut out the patch I'd attempted to weld in yesterday, and then cut back to good metal. I then cut out a new patch and attempted to weld it in. To be honest, it went better than yesterday, with the power turned down to minimum and the wire feed turned down to 4. 3 sides welded in fairly well, but the side nearest the centre of the car kept blowing through. It looks as if the rot goes further than I expected, so I can see me cutting out another section, and welding in another patch next weekend, at least then I'll have my new welding magnets to hold the patch in place. The reason for the rot is the ton of muck that I had to clear out from the back of the out rigger, mainly mud and leaf debri, which looks like it has been there for years. Karl

That depends, as I know BL bought a job lot of steel from Fiat in the 70s, which I believe were used on Dolomites. Explains a lot! Karl

Mishmosh, don't apologise, as I said the thought of plating the patch did cross my mind as it would have been a lot easier. Pete, I think I just need to grind the edges back a little further until I hit full thickness steel, which should then give me something to weld to. Not sure I'd have a lot of faith in the steel used in coat hangers! Karl

I did think about plating it, but would prefer the neatness of butt weld, and without creating a double skinned area which could be more prone to rot in future. If I could get behind the patch an overlapping repair could be seam welded on both sides, but I just don't have the access for that. Still, all part of the learning curve. Karl

I have managed both bird shit and blow holes this afternoon! However I have now fathomed the power settings on my welder, which were not at all intuitive. I started off by cutting out the rotten portion of the outrigger with an air powered cutting disc, which left me with this. Which in close up looked like this. Everything looked fairly solid and therefore ready for a patch to be tacked in, so I used the section cut out as a template and simply scribed around it on some 2mm steel sheet, before cutting it out with the cutting disc. I then set about welding in the patch, today's aim being to simply tack the patch in while I practise my seam welding, however the best laid plans and all that... First up, I couldn't get a welding clamp into the outrigger to support the patch, and I hadn't thought to buy a welding magnet, so I ended up using a magnetic tool tray to hold it in place, crude but it worked. Long story short, patch welded in, but it turns out the lower right hand edge of the hole in the outriggers were too thin and I ended blowing holes in them, see below. Not pretty! So tomorrow I will cut it all out again, making sure the edges have sufficient meat on them to weld to. Not a particularly productive afternoon, but I have learned a few things which I can apply to my next attempt. Karl