chrishawley
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Posts posted by chrishawley
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Glad you've got a remedy. But I had a comparable experience today:
Job was to epoxy primer a very large panel. Of which some was bare metal, some was good metal with a waft of BondaPrimer, and some corners had filler in with traces of 1k primer and colour that had been used for guide coating. As it was drying I could just see hairline cracking in the 1k areas; nothing tragic and they'll flat out ok, but just a clue that epoxy is not quite as 'unreactive' as might be supposed.
I'll see how it is in the morning, but maybe the learning point is that epoxy really does have to be applied as the root coat and not on top of other stuff. Hmm.
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I'd be thinking along the same lines as to the likely, or at least possible, occurence here: In current ambient temperatures the primer-filler(PF) may be dry enough to sand but not in fact entirely 100% cured (assuming 2k primer from a gun). Such that the thinners in the epoxy have 'woken up' the PF allowing uneven shrinkage and hence cracks.
A rescue procedure for situations such a this is to heat-dry the area then put down a layer of isolator primer and apply PF again over that - but that's probably more effort than simply sanding back and PF'ing again. It might be that in this context the epoxy is not adding much value if not applied to bare metal as the the root coat.
As an aside PFs don't like to be applied to a base that is too finely sanded: 80 grit for example is fine whereas too smooth (e.g. 400g) impairs even adhesion.
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Much the same as above, really.
The only colour matchable product I know of is Raptor. Very tough but far from cheap. And I could see that to get a paint factor to match it up just-so to an existing body colour might in itself get a bit dear.
Stonechip in rattle cans gives a fairly flat, untextured, finish which can be made a bit more textured by holding the can a long way back and letting it spatter on. Most manufacturers (e.g. Tetrosyl) do black, grey or white. Cheap and handy to use but doesn't provide very much thickness for severely exposed areas.
Application with a schutz gun gives a much thicker coating and 1 litre cans are availble in grey, back and white. The texture can be controlled by either adding thinners or controlling the pressure on the compressor (low pressure = spatter/very coarse finish, high pressure = smoother with lots of flow out).
Stone chip is basically clay suspended in toluene - so, yes, it needs to be really dried off before overcoating. I once messed up but going in impatiently with 2-pack over stone chip and the result was a crazed, puddingy, mess.
Probably the most common thing is to stone chip then overcoat in 2 pack. Though I recently had a good experience using brushable coach enamel (colour matched from Paintman) over stonechip which was handy to get a job done well enough without too much effort.
As for brands, there's not much to choose bewteen. I use what ever the paint factor has a the time most commonly T-Euro, U-Pol, Tetrosyl, Promatic.
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7 hours ago, attwood65 said:
guidance on what thickness metal to make the repair panels
As a generality for cars of this era the panels (wings, door skins, bonnet etc) will have been 20swg steel which is approx 0.9mm. 18swg (1.2mm) is a bit more 'structural' (e.g. sill ends, bracing) and 16swg and above (≥1.6mm) for heavy structures e.g. chassis, jacking points.
Reproduction repair panels are commonly pressed in 0.8mm and that's the realistic minimum - need to be a bit deft when welding but 0.8mm is easy to work and shape. 1.0mm is a bit harder to work but provides more lattitude for the welder.
The type of steel is important. 'Scaveneged' steel from filing cabinets, washings machines etc etc often turns out to be difficult to work and weld. The alloy will be unknown and coatings (e.g. zinc) can seriously interfere with welding. After much penny pinching I've found that buying fresh steel gives the happiest results: CR4 is fab if one has a handy supplier but not that there's anything wrong about ordinary low carbon 'construction' steel - but not galvanised.
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30 minutes ago, Stratton Jimmer said:
I can't find what is causing the piston to stick. I'm open to suggestions
Possibly worth trying is this....:
The cover (held by the four Phillips screws) is in principle a precise machine fit to the body of the carburettor. But I've found on at least some Strombergs just a gnats of variance in the fit such that exactly how one tightens the four screws is the difference between binding and no binding. Thus when refitting the cover my approach is to tighten the screws progressively a little at a time while continually feeling the movement of the air valve and, if need be, 'settling' the cover with bit of wiggling. And then, having found the sweet spot not to tighten the screws any more than is needed for attachement.
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Not sure I have a great grip on this - I've never not resolved a flasher unit malfuction by relying on substitition. But to improve my understanding does the following sound correct(ish)?......
3-pin flashers came in two configurations. 1) the contact for the status light is normally open and closes when the main circuit is made: 2) the contact for the status is normally closed (i.e. 12v normally present at that terminal all the time when indication not in action) and the contact for the status light is opened when the flashers flash.
????
So if a Vitesse had the second type installed installed (rather than the first) might that produce the condition which Martin OD is reffering to?
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I found myself pondering this on and off during the day: What failure mode of a flasher unit could cause that to be?'
With a two-pin unit (e.g 8FL type) it's difficult ot see a way to have a persistently 'on' green light - yet the indicators still...err... indicate. But with a 3-pin flasher it seems more possible because (internally) is has two sets of points. And one could fail 'closed' while the other is still operative. But I'm theorising rather than having direct experience of the issue in question.
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Presumably you bought original part number 154049 gaskets of which each side light unit has two; one between the lens and the light body and one between the light body and the metalwork - or perhaps fibreglass in the event of FG valances. . 8mm is rather chunky and 5mm would be more like it and they should be a really soft, compressible, foam. Rimmers, however, are not the masters of getting details right.
But I'm wondering if the snag here is sometghing slightly different. In particular; the screws which fix the escutcheon and lens do not also fix the whole unit to the valance. The body of the unit is (originally) attached to the valance with two no.10 unf screws going into two caged nuts egde-clipped to the aperture. After fitting the bulbs the outer gasket lens and escutcheon are then attached with the two (originally) filister chrome head screws - just long enough to engage with the body but not going through the body more than a couple of turns .
In the event of FG valances the first bit of fixing (no.10s and cage nuts) has to be achieved with a workaround - but there's enough options of J-nuts and self tappers, or lug nuts with a screwed thread to enable this.
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Just a photo scaveneged from an advert. But it's correct with the headlamp wiring loom running up the left bonnet tube held by two metal clips. These clips often go missing and are not easily obtained.
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Have used Jenolite for the past 50 years and never felt the need to change. That's untill I nearly had a heart attack at the current price of just short of £100 for 5L. Wot!
So thought I'd try milkstone remover(MSR), £20 for 5L: Dilute phosphoric acid by any other name.
First go with MSR seemed good (pic 1) based on a two hour soak.
But what about a comparison? Pic2 shows, left to right: warm water with Fairy (control), Jenolite, then MSR - all immersed to the depth of the orange line for 60 minuites.
Ideally one would run repeat (and possibly blinded) trials but for £20 v £100 I'm, happy with the MSR!
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15 hours ago, Phil C said:
on main beam (220w) is it normal for the feed wire to be warm
Hmmm. Seems like a borderline case to me. Most probably safe (esp. since you have the circuit fused) but not really right either.
As a starter it's worth looking at the feed wire used if you still have a snippet to hand. If you pick it apart and count the number of individual strands which will most likely be 9, 14, 28 or 44. 'Continuous amps' is number of strands divided 2 as a rough rule. So for 4 x 55w (approx 17 amps) a 28 strand wire is the minimum.
I've no experience with warm relay - so hopefully another member can comment on that.
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2 hours ago, ean said:
Any ideas or thoughts, please.
I say with complete confidence that I don't know the particular cause of this. But I could suggest a simple method of investigation:
Disconnect the 'in' 12v from both horns (purple I think). Then with a suitable bit of flex take a jumper from battery to horn 1 and then on to horn 2. If normality restored then defect is in feed side. If normality not restored then add jumpers from the 'outs' of the horns and touch down to a convenient earth. If both horns now toot togther then defect is in the earth side - not least earth strap as mentioned above.
If normality still not obtained then implies defect in horns internally - in particular the contacts. While Lucas 9H horns can be disassembled and fixed it's quite laborious to do so and there are all sorts of replacement options quite cheaply.
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A while since I've done this - so here's hoping other members will correct any faulty recall on my part......
As regards the the drivers dash (veneer) panel. It's mostly held in place by the speedo and tacho units so the first step is to remove the stand-off legs locking those units in place; two per unit held by knurled ('thumb') nuts (Don't lose these as they may be a difficult to replace BA thread). Remove and set aside the instruments.
Then there's a captive stud top right held by a plain nut. Easy in principle; but may be seized or otherwise broken in which case removal will have to be destructive. With instruments out and the stud released the veneer panel should then 'float' such that it can be seen what needs to be done in terms of removing choke cable and other attachments.
The dash top (vinyl) is held in ten places with quite inacessible fasteners. The dash top has six studs bonded into its reverse (underside) right on the forward egde but can be felt by working along with finger tips.: Plain nuts but can't remember if they are 1/4 unf or No.10 unf. The other four fasteners are captive to the dash vents, going through the panel and securing the metal ventilation ducts. Plain nuts again.
Hope that's a bit of a start.
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Yup, good bet that Bresco will have 'em. But just to mention that, for the OE fitment, it needs to be female thread with a countersunk screw (so that there's no thread sticking out to snag on the carpet).
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16 hours ago, Colin Lindsay said:
That won't work on that version of sidelight
Indeed so. It's does appear that repro L677 units are now mostly sold with captive studs (unlike 'naked' versions as per photo); but would so soooo difficult to fit to spit4/5/GT6-3 given the double skin construction of the valances. Maybe it would come down to pressing or drilling out the studs if no alternative.
How about earth return? A Spit 1500 would have a retrun earth wire as per photo but presumably not on, say, Heralds (???).
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The precisely correct nut for the sidelights on Spit/GT6 is the cage nut taking a No.10 unf pan phillips setscrew. Clips over the lip of the light aperture in the Q.valance. (Part FZ3404). Means that the light unit is just screwed in from the front. So no fishing round the back for a nut.
Hard to obtain now but Bresco do an M5 version which will be very close. I suppose, at worst, it would be possible to use a a J-nut (or U-nut or spire nut) with a self tapping screw - cheap, cheerful but would horrify purists!!!
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Had a comparable instance yesterday removing the brake pipe union from a caliper. Pipe sheared off at the base and nut rounded off.
In this instance I got a result by driving a ring spanner onto the nut - what started off as a 7/16 A/F nut had a 10mm persuaded onto it with hammer blows. Spanner was scrap afterwards but a sacrifice worth making.
Then heated the area using an ordinary little butane 'decorators's' torch. Well cooked. - about a minute. Then with an extension tube over the spanner applying lots of torque but aiming for minimal movement in both directions. Once it 'cracked' it was still a fight but eventually got there by reheating and working backwards and forwards with an increasing range of movement.
Heating things, if the part in question is ammenable to be being heated, really does work. And I guess nobody likes sacrificing tools to a job - but in this case £3 -5 for a new spanner to save a caliper worth £££s seemed worth it
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I take it that's a GT6 Mk3?
The easy bit to answer is the black stuff on the rear valance. That is Stone Chip Protection. Commonly called 'Stone Chip' or 'Gravitex'. Used properly, for example on sills ends, under floor pans or wheel arches, it offers durable protection against, errr.., stone chips. Used improperly it is a cheap and cheerful way of disguising dented, ill repaired or rust-scabby bodywork. If it's known that the metalwork underneath is sound it can be flatted off a bit, given some primer and then refinished in body colour. But there is a distinct possibility that it is there to disguise corrosion problems: What lies beneath can only be found the stripping to bare metal, but removing stone chip can be a long and tedious process involving twist knot brushes, DA sanders, heat guns and graft.
Bubbling wheels arches is a tricky issue. Wheel arhces generally rust from the inisde out. What may look like a minor scab on the outside can be the iceberg tip. Photo attached show how a 'few bubbles' became a major repair on my wife's Copen. In this sort of situation only a welded repair will provide any long term durability. The alternative is to patch up as best possible with fibreglass or filler. May hold up for a couple of years or so but ultimatley a 'proper' reapir will be needed. If one has to make a bridging repair of a rust hole then a fibreglass repair paste (e.g. p40) is preferable to a ordinary body filler - fibreglass is waterproof whereas standard talc based filler soaks water up and readily becomes a soggy pudding.
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Couple of options
1) Spaldings, but mostly that's stainless items.
2) If it particularly has to be BZP, then Namrick is a good place to go.
And just to check that it's Phillips countersunk rather than raised countersunk (RSK). If it's a visible part (e.g. the screws securing a sunvisor) RSK is commonly used.
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Where to start?
In the original setup at 2.0 Vitesse without overdrive would be operating at 4100rpm at 70mph. Subjectively that can sound markedly 'fussed' to modern ears: With overdrive 70mph would be 3300rpm. Far more modest. Originally both od and non-od Vitesses had the same differential ratio of 3.89. So at lot be be said for overdrive. I have experience of having added o.d. to formerly non o.d. Spitfires and GT6s to great advantage in both cases.
Another line of thinking is to put a 3.63 diff (ex Spitire 1500) in place of the 3.89 diff. Although not quite a straight swap such would be feasible for must less cost and effort than replacing the existing gearbox with an o.d box and its acompanying overdrive. But not such a great effect: 70mph would now be 3850 rpm - still pretty whizzy. A greater effect would, in principle, be had by using a 3.27 diff from an non od Triumph GT6. But never plentiful they are now very rare and hard to get hold of. In any case this might be a step too far and make the car feel boggy in lower gears.
Before embarking, might it be an idea to check on a road test what rpm are being obtained at 70 mph (or calculated by proportion at a lower speed)? I'm wondering whether it's possible the car has picked up a 4.11 differential ratio sometime in it's life in which case that would be a (probably quite unpleasant) 4350 rpm at 70mph.
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9 hours ago, gt6j said:
Looks a fiddly job to replace door glas
Provided that the aligment of the glass and the quarter light frame is good the job is not hard, but it is tedious. The actual removal/replacement of the drop glass is, in itself, the easy bit: Remove the rear channel (two bolts) and allow channel to fall out of position. Remove the low position stop bracket (having noted its position). Wind window down and allow carrier channel to slide off the nylon runners (wheels) while noting the relative position of glass and lift mechanism which allows this to occur. Lift glass from door. Replacement is reverse of above except that on refitting time needs to be spent getting a good adjusment of the rear channel such that the glass runs true and nicely.
Possibly more time will be spent: a) removing/replacing door card without damage b) transfering the carrier channel from old glass to new without breaking either c) removing the waist seals and then the curse'd job of refitting them. And to also mention that the rear channel may need a new rubber insert channel (easy) or if rendered weak by corrosion may need repair or remanufacture (hard).
But if glass is signficantly scractched then there's not really a solution other than biting the bullet on replacement.
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I can't picture a way to get to DAB reception other than gutting the internals and replacing entirely. Feasible to have done but £££££££££s.
The label is a bit ambiguous and could mean a number of things. Most likely is that a 3.5mm mini-jack (as used for small headphones) has been added. If so, this will be evident on the back of the unit. And assuming so, that means that, with an appropriate lead, any device which has a headphones output can be plugged in. So, for example, a 'phone could be coupled in and through the 'phone have access to FM radio, internet broadcast but probably not DAB (or DAB+) as few 'phones support this. But many sophisticted 'phones don't now have headphone sockets.
It's not impossible that the unit could have a USB-A port retrofitted on the. Pretty unlikely though unless the unit has been completely rebuilt.
I don't think there's a route directly from 'phone to speakers. The power output from a 'phone may be, say, 100millwatts and driving even small loud speakers requires 10 - 100 times that.
Hope that's a bit of help but I could simplify or complexify more as needed.
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16 hours ago, foshi said:
started first time but runs like a bag of old nails
A difficult one because there are so many possibilities but some first-aid steps I'd consider would be:
• Add a couple of gallons of fresh fuel, disconnect fuel line at carbs, crank engine and observe for good fuel delivery (into jam jar!) of about a desert teaspoon per pulse.
• Remove air filters, check free upward movement of carb pistons, observe linkages for correct operation (including symetrical action on lowering and retruning jets when choke cable operated), top up dashpots. Check rocker cover to intake breather pipes (direct to carbs or PCV depending on engine) for poor fit or splits in rubber.
• Remove distributor cap. Inspect for cracks, worn contacts, burnt points (if applicable).
• Run engine. Observe for fuel leakage at top of float chambers; may show leakage or just staining (leakage may be more evident just after the engine is turned off). With engine still running disconnect each of the plug leads in turn: if removing a particular lead does not worsen engine running then a problem in that pathway is indicated.
Hardly a comprehensive list of procedures but are all £0 except for fuel.
If the vehicle has electronic ignition it is not outside the bounds of possibility for it to be 'sparked' by welding, but far from the most likely scenario.
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14/0.3 (assuming standard cable as opposed to thin-wall) is good for about 8 amps continuous. Hazard flasher circuit is about 8 amp at peak. So that would be fine.
Exhaust studs…please can someone direct me
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Is https://www.mgv8parts.com/product/v8-exhaust-manifold-downpipe-nuts/ any good as an option?