ratchetmonkeys

It’s been a small while since I updated but I have been a bit busy with the herald. It’s keeping me on my toes. Decided to paint the roof whilst it was on the ramps so I prepped the car, rubber down the roof and painted it with Arctic White and it’s come out really well. You will notice I didn’t do around the rear window or the door pillar, this was a conscious choice and all will come apparent.

It does Steve, it’s fitted with a 1” lowering block so that’s helped with the positive camber and when it settles the wheels are in the arch and look much better. It’s an odd setup on the herald and I was warned about the rear “swinging” not what I want with a mx5 engine in but I was advised to lower it and it helps a lot. Soon to find out I hope 😉

It’s a reference to me by my mrs. She thinks I look like a Viking due to the hair and tattoo and beard so when I told her it was a “herald” straight away it was “oh like king herald” lol

Thanks Jeff, thanks for popping i too. Made Me wish I had bought a convertible though seeing yours. I think I just need to replace the chromework as most say it can’t be repaired due to the pitting ?

Once the brakes were sorted, interior kinda sorted less a couple of door panels and the engine serviced and running well it was time for the bodywork. Now I have to say the car is solid, none of the typical rotten holes, few welding patches on the chassis but solid and good, I will be under sealing the whole floor and it’s pretty much a toy and staying in a storage container during the winter so it’s good to go. Looking through my documentation I found out the car had been fully restored in 1992. It had been pained in Porsche Gaurds Red, the paintwork seemed decent but was badly badly faded. The intention had been to do a quick flash of paint to bring it back to life but lots of people on another social platform told me to try and machine polish it, I wasn’t convinced but thought “why not” oh how wrong was I The car came up amazingly well, much better than I could have ever imagined. I have to note the paintwork has come up really well but the prep work before it was painted In 1992 is really not good. You can see all the deep scratching in the metal and swirls under the paint, you don’t see them just looking at it but if you get close enough you can. I am going to paint the roof white, just something I want but even the roof is in good condition with a small amount of rust just above the drivers window, that will be sorted before paint

The seats belts were fitted previously but they needed upgrades. I bought campervan strengthening plates from eBay so the seat belts now meet MOT regulations. The plates are cheap at £13 a pair

Whilst I was doing the brakes it seems sensible to upgrade the suspension, my current shocks were was past “a light misting of oil” stage. Replaced those with 1” lowered springs and Gaz Fully adjustable shocks. Huge difference to standard but that meant I now had to lower the back. There was loads of choices but I went all in and a full 1” drop on the back.

Now I knew the car could go forwards and backwards and quite well I may add but BIG problem, it just wouldn’t stop, and I mean wouldn’t, something was definitely wrong in a big way so I set to work figuring out what was wrong….. all I could think was A LOT I put the car on the nursery bay ramp and took the wheels off, as soon as I removed the back wheels the drums fell off by themselves, yup they needed serious adjustment although it looked like someone had done some work, brand new handbrake cables and new brake shoes and even on on the handbrake adjusters was brand new, they just didn’t work so I set to adjusting them up, after some dismantling fluid everything was free and the drums were back on and adjusted….. wow I had a handbrake I was looking at the wheels thinking, these are ridiculously small and those tyres are 3000 years old. I went straight onto JBW and bought some black minilites and ordered some 185/60/13 Nexen tyres….. that’s better……we have traction Now onto the front brakes, these were just as bad. The car had type 12 calipers fitted and they had seen better days. Time for a full overhaul A call to spitfire graveyard and I picked up some Type 14 hubs, fitted the hubs with extended freelander studs. Then onto new type 14 calipers, discs, pads, ball joints, track rod ends and trunnions. I had heard that you could fit freelander servo assist and after some Googling I set to it and ordered the servo and fitted it, she WILL stop

Once the car had been fully deadened I set to putting the interior in, new carpets, steering wheel and battery relocation into the boot.

Firstly I removed the full interior down to the shell and fitted 40sq ft of sound deadening pads, swiftly followed my felt deadening across the bulkhead and the entire car, the roof was deadening using sponge pads for weight

After 6 weeks of ownership Im finally breaking the back of my project. First let me introduce my 1964 Herald Porsche Guard Red. I have been wanting a Herald since I was 12 years old and I’m now 42, although it seems like it been forever. Me and my dad spent years pondering over what we would do if we owned one, we loved the look of the rear fins and the headlight covers and I was instantly sold. I’m a mechanic/MOT tester and have spent years building custom motorbikes which has taken up most of my spare time. This year due to lockdown things have been slow so I decided this is the year i buy my herald. I found a few on the internet but most seemed to need a lot of work and I wanted something I could drive straight away and be a running project. Finally I came across the perfect herald, in red with little extras I was going to fit anyway such as cobra Classic seats. This car had already had a engine rebuild in 2017 so I didn’t need to get in on the engine, I could see out the year with it before the planned MX5 engine. The bodywork was badly faded and I had planned on giving the car a flash over but as it turned out….. it didn’t need it…… More on that later I live in Newcastle and the car was in Margate, slight problem so after a conversation and a bit of haggling with a courier I had the car collected and brought up

Our garage is literally next door to the scrappy.

I’m going to be building that car not far from you actually, I’m a mechanic in backworth.

The chassis did cross my mind but luckily my good friend worked for chassis development for Toyota for 10 years. He’s also worked on load of heralds and repaired/replaced the chassis sections on the herald next to the prop tunnel (according to him) he will be strengthening the chassis when the tubs are off and making all the repairs regardless of what engine goes in. the Suzuki bandit 1200 oil cooled engine is great and I did consider using it, I just built one so i have a decent idea what’s going on inside the engine and you can turbo the oil cooled engine very easily. The only reason I was going to use the yamaha engine is the diff from the LEGEND race cars have reverse and I can get my hands on a complete setup so no real manufacturing of parts, just make em fit im going to use a Motogadget blue for the body control module too so most of the original electrics is being swapped out for PWM (pulse width modulation) . Already fitted several of thes units to bikes and will work perfectly for the herald Here’s a pic of the bike I just built, hopefully the herald will be to the same standard

Cheers Pete, I build custom motorcycles, I work for a Legends Racing Team and I’m a mechanic/MOT tester so I have big plans for power and suspension which I think I have all sorted in my head (headache) but I want to keep the body as clean and standard as possible, the engine is being swapped out so there will be plenty power but I will need to plant that power down to the road. I want to keep the body standard so I really don’t want to be cutting the body so the widest wheels I can get will be a good start to help get the power down The plan is to fit a Yamaha XJR 1250 engine, Legend Car rear prop and diff. The legends use a Toyota rear drum setup and shafts. If I have to I will get J&R to make me some custom shafts but this may all change once I have it on the ramp but that’s the plan