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Lord Gruntfuttock's 1971 XY Fairmont


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  • Lord Gruntfuttock

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Quick summary, it sat unused for several years while I was at uni (ta mum) and I got her going again when she turned 40 (cheap rego). I ran it for a while but it started randomly overheating - had radiator checked, new hoses, thermostats, water pump etc etc and with no evidence of a blown gasket/cracked head and with new kids I sort of just gave up...

  • Bored .30 thou over
  • Holley 600 vac sec
  • Edelbrock RPM Air gap inlet
  • Pacemaker headers
  • MSD dizzy

I'm thinking I'll pull the donk, remove the stuck coolant drain plugs and flush the block, and rather than dick around with the cast heads I'll chuck on some alloy heads and roller rockers. Will mean I'll lose the factory look under the bonnet but the MSD has already sort of done that. Will update when hoist arrives and I've made some progress...

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No hoist (thought it may have arrived) but got a bit done.

 

vggqtfz2.rgd.jpg

 

Jacked her up and removed headers (sound but need painted) drained and removed radiator and hoses, starter motor and clips/pipes/wires etc. I cleaned up a few bits, 40-odd years of gunge washed off with petrol and a brush - I'll check bearings/brushes etc and paint these before returning them.

 

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I was going to leave the trans in, but there are a few drips underneath, might be just as easy to pull them out as a unit and separate to work on. The guts are pretty much ready to come out, we'll see how things go...

 

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Did a bit on the old wiper motor, as it looked a bit scody on the firewall and I think the washer mechanism had stopped working some time ago...

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Opened it up and looked like it should be repairable, pretty simple mechanical setup with a solenoid that engaged the pump for one rotation of a toothed wheel (13 squirts). All the rubbers looked good and I serviced the motor by dressing the commutator and checking brushes etc...

 

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Gave it a cleanup and discovered the solenoid winding connection had snapped off, which is why I had no pump. there was no way to pull it out and rejoin so I contemplated rewinding it, wouldn't be hard, just have to measure the wire gauge, buy some the same size and wind the same # of turns on. Cleaned the motor and pump mech bodies and gave them a quick polish...

 

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Then I had a Eureka moment, the squirter had always been a bit pathetic, so I wondered if I could remove it and run a separate universal pump with a bit more poke from the same switch. It looked easy, so I made up a blanking plate and started congratulating myself on a neat job - did away with half the unit making a tidier looking engine bay, and I should get a decent squirter setup for sod all...

 

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Then as I was admiring it and considering just what a clever bloody chappie I was, the motor body slipped out and landed on the floor, smashing the magnets. 

 

Fuck - back to square one...

 

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Had a quick look online for spares, shit reconditioned units are expensive. Anyone know of any fucked wiper motors I can scavenge for parts?  :-)

 

[edit]: failing that, being a Lucas motor, there must be other cars running something similar I can use...?

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Been busy this week, but trying to do a little bit when I can.

Not sure where the trans seepage is coming from so will pull it out and give it a cleanup and filter change while I have the opportunity. I removed the shift linkages, vacuum pipe, kickdown cable and neutral switch wiring. There's no easy way to drain these things, so just crawled under and cracked the pan...

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Thar she blows...

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Looks ok inside, and I must be getting better at this with age, only got oily from the wrists down this time.

(I love the smell of trans fluid in the evening)...

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And I chucked the pan back on and drained the torque converter too.

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Only really the driveshaft and main mounting bolts to remove now and things should be ready to lift...

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Great success.

The Valiant wiper motor I picked up for $30 was a Lucas Australia job too, and the magnets were in tip top condition. Just slid them out of their retaining clips and into the casing of my unit. The Mopar job was similar to what I am doing, no pesky pump mechanism, just a pressed steel cover over the plastic driving gear...

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I wasn't sure how the magnets were aligned (north south) so just colour coded a small magnet and aligned them the same way round to the cracked remnants in my case...

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And a good cleanup and lick of aluminium engine paint tidied it up. Won't know it works till I get the battery back in but looks ok... 

gixe0ttj.fyc.jpg

 

You can get repo factory style washer bottles with pumps too so should have a better than new system...   :)

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Stinking hot in the shed and I couldn't be bothered doing anything too hard, so I looked at the Alternator (Factory Email job). it worked fine but there was a slight knock and I just wanted to tidy it up a bit. First step was to mark the cases with a punch so it went back together the same way...

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I had visions of opening it up, replacing bearings, cleaning the slip rings and putting it back together all painted/shiny and good for another decade, but these things don't come apart very easy...

The pulley nut was pretty well stuck, and without a rattle gun I just persevered with tapping a spanner with the fins wedged against a block of wood till it came loose (will have to straighten a couple of fins). A bigger problem was the rear bearing wouldn't let go, so I had to remove the diode plates with the rotor in place, bent things to buggery and dislodged a couple of diodes in the process...

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And once that was out I could remove the stator...

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So finally in bits and a few repair jobs required rather than maintenance - but nothing terminal, and at least I can clean up the component parts now...

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Found this diagram in my 1000 page pdf parts manual that may help with the Alt.

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And I dropped into the local auto sparky at lunchtime to see what they had. Showed him a brush and he immediately knew it was from an old Email (kudos), then said I'd be lucky to find any parts for it (crap). 20 odd years ago they had umpteen bits for them but they're pretty much a museum piece now. The good news is they did have the old metal can diodes on the shelf, plus suitable bearings, so I grabbed them while he looked for any brushes that may fit - but nothing was even close. These could be a problem, they measure around 9 x 5mm and he couldn't find anything suitable in their database either. Bit of a bugger I broke one getting things apart really...

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Rather than buy some parts and potentially get stuck without brushes he suggested a new Bosch 70A replacement, but at $300+ I said no thanks. I'd rather persevere with the original as I'm bloody-minded (I've started so I'll finish) - not to mention cheap.

So I'll give it a go, I repaired this umpteen years ago and it is sound, and should go again all right, it's not like the old tape deck will draw enough current to stretch it. I bought the bits he had, then had a scout around on th' web. Eureka, 20 of these things ex Hong Kong delivered for around $10...

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So should have enough to get the old girl making volts again. Debateable whether I'd be better off just buying a new one, but it's not about that, eh... :)

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Won't have time to do much this weekend, wife's B/day plus taking the kids out to the crib to learn how to play in the surf, but had a look last night at why I couldn't undo the drain plugs - I've seen some rounded off heads in my time, but this is especially circular. Looks like a weld-a-nut-on job...

2buh54n3.gs5.jpg

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Decided to do a bit straight after work as it was warm and windy, so good chance to wheel things outside and get the water blaster out...
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Amazing how easy it is to knock the grease off with a decent blaster...
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Surprised how good things were under there, pleased I made the effort while the guts were out of the way...

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Flushed the engine block cooling passages today. Began by simply hosing through the heater manifold connection and catching any loose crap out each side's drain plug so I had an idea of what I was dealing with...

(This pic reminds me of a bloke at work with kidney stones who had to piss thru a sieve for a month to catch the gravel)...  :) 
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Didn't look too bad, a few large bits of loose scale came out...
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Thought I'd knock the frost plugs out while they were easy to get at - glad I did...
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Yikes...
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And after another flush the loose bits were gone, but little bits of crap were still in there...
wrn3aljd.ypf.jpg

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Gah, been crook, but did get back into the alternator. Started with the rotor.
The non drive-end bearing was stuck. Really stuck. Didn't want to lever against slip rings so had to cut it off with a dremel blade...
m1xytmq0.na1.jpg

 

And turned the slip rings smooth and gave it a clean up and coat of urethane...
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Then looked at the mangled stator. A winding had snapped off, 2 diode solder joints had come apart and one of the insulating spacers appeared to have melted, perhaps during a previous attempt at soldering on a diode...

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I unsoldered the windings from the diodes, and reattached the loose ones after testing them. Best way was to use a small lpg torch under the plate to get a nice pool of solder, and place a tinned diode on it. I held the wire with long-nose pliers to act as a heat sink to avoid koozing the internals...

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Then stripped the insulating coating from the stub of snapped winding...
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And attached a new lead by crimping on a small sleeve, plus solder. This was a bare bit of copper wire so added some heat shrink tubing, and tied it back in position before another coat of urethane...

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And machined up another spacer that I araldited in place on the cleaned up diode plates...
gnp1fn0f.dm2.jpg

 

And fitted the stator back in the non-drive end casing. All diodes test ok, no shorts and the winding resistances look right...
ghplrymz.ksi.jpg

 

And I'm pretty much stuck now until my brushes arrive. Still got to paint the fan and pulley but it's looking ok...
g1q0jrsl.gkq.jpg

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