Sunbeam

I took her into the paddock today and did a skid. It was awesome. This is when the fuel pump decided to start working, spraying old petrol wildly around the engine bay. I E-stopped it and did a field repair literally in a field which is cool. I thought if the fuel pump is working why not hook it back up to the carb? I had suspected there was water in the fuel tank and the droplets visible in the filter confirmed it. I worked on the assumption that the watery stuff had already been pumped out all over my paddock so I went and fetched some new hose and a new filter and hooked it up. It still ran mint, so the fuel is not completely stale. Speaking of water, there was also a robust quantity of it in the sump so I have drained it and given it two oil changes so far. I’m waiting for a new bypass filter to turn up from Rock Auto because nobody local had a listing, so I have a years supply of filters for the whole fleet coming. 
Pic of milkshake:

I have also emptied the car out and taken stock of the bits and bobs. I have two sets of hubcaps, many headlights and headlight bowls and a set of surrounds, two taillights for a Fiat that is definitely not a 1500, and a bunch of interior door handles and window winder handles. In the back seat was a windscreen and the boot contained:

A pair of BRAND NEW front doors. N.O.fricken S! Score. 
 

With the interior empty I gave it a thorough vacuum. I’m considering weighing the dust bag in for scrap. The car is definitely lighter now as a result. I also cleaned the windows which immediately makes the car look less derelict. Second impressions are that it’s more solid than it looks. The boot is mint, all the floors are great except for the driver’s which is quite bad. There is obviously a LOT of surface rust but actual perforation is limited to only a few structural areas. I have lifted some big scabs off the roof but no holes underneath, though I guess the steel is now rather thinner than it should be. 
I should be parking it to concentrate on other things like getting the 125 legal, but I feel like it’s a good idea to do some preventative pre storage tasks before burying it in the corner. If you have any ideas about slowing the rust let me know in the discussion thread. Thanks for reading. 

Dear reader, 

When confronted with an inexorably increasing stack of projects, none of which are complete, what does the sane protagonist do?….

Why, MOAR CARS!!! what else?

Let me take you back to a time when we cowered from the Bat AIDS in our homes and became listless and dare I say bored. This delightful wreck pops up for sale deep within Covidistan (a locked down Auckland) The first thing my brain said was BUY IT so I did. Well the lockdown dragged on, couldn’t get a ferrry when it finally lifted etc, so a deal was done to un-buy it.  Got my money back, the seller was free to re-list. 6 months later he contacted me to ask if I still wanted it, it’s free to a good home and you seem like a retarded nutjob you would provide that home, but please come fetch it soon because the car is now stored outside and I’ve sold my house and need to be out in a month. No worries. I flew to New Plymouth, borrowed my mate’s Hilux and trailer and picked the car up from muggy salty Kaukapakapa. Thus:

She was put into storage here:

One year and six months later, I suggested to the family that a trip to our old home of Taranaki would be a good idea. Oh, and since we’re going anyway we might as well collect the old Fiat. Foolishly everyone agreed. Now, what to do about a trailer? We were planning to be away for 6 days and that makes hiring a trailer expensive. Therefore I did what any sane person would do and bought one. When we arrived at our objective we decided that since the trailer lacked a winch, it would be much easier to get the car to run and drive it onto the trailer.

A charged battery was produced along with a can of Start ya Bastard! The points were levered to ensure they weren’t stuck. A fuel feed was rigged to the carb..

Brake fluid was tipped into the (bone dry) clutch reservoir and much fluid was spilled in an attempt to bleed the system. Eventually we had clutch! Then a thing happened.

She purrs like a kitten!! No stumbles, rattles or misfires. Back to the trailer. I did indeed drive the Fiat straight on to the trailer and a problem became evident. You see, the previous owner had just put brand new wheels and tyres on the trailer going from 13 inch to 14 inch wheels. The tyres were sitting hard on the inside of the guards with the 1000kg Fiat on it. This led to some bush mods in the pouring rain involving a battery drill and prybar to raise the guards. I’ll tidy this up at some point. Then we were on the road back home. 
At this point I wish to make an aside to extol the virtues of a 16 year old 375,000km BMW X5 as a superlative touring and towing vehicle. I still had power in reserve to accelerate up transmission gully. We covered 1650km at an average of 65km/h and 11.2 l/100km.

And home…

Astute readers will spot that the trailer axle is well forward of the centre of the deck. This struck me as odd but for most front engined vehicles probably results in a reliable proportion of the weight being on the towbar. Anyway I’m very satisfied with how it behaved.

Discuss

I can’t catch a break on this thing. I had a WOF booked, so I had to quickly fix the exhaust leak. It turns out there were two leaks, a small one at the manifold flange and a larger one at the first slip joint. I reached in to undo the flange nuts and 3 were easy and one was not. SNAP… Broken stud!! WOF booking cancelled. Did I mention I like my hoist? 10 minutes to achieve this:

Removing the manifold takes a bit longer. Firstly you to drain the cooling system. For the umpteenth time… because the pipe off the back of the water pump has to come off to get to the last manifold nut. Then if you remove the battery and turn it just so you can slip it out past the brake master cylinder. 
The plan of attack is to soak in crc for a day and then attempt stud removal. I’ll replace all 4 while I’m this deep. Before I wind in new studs I might get the sealing surfaces planed to ensure flatness. Then the universe, I think, is telling me just to replace the whole janky drinking straw sized exhaust system while I’m at it. It won’t be cheap because the downpipe will need to be remade as well. The lesson,dear reader, is don’t waste your time and effort on something you know needs replacing to hasten the point at which you can go for a hoon. 100% I will ignore my own advice in the future.

After nearly two months the driveshaft is done. Shiny:

looks new, but then it should for the price of the job.

My wallet:

Installed and hooned. Success I’d say. But now the exhaust is leaking and the voltage regulator is only intermittently working. 
Getting close!

To address the tyre clearance issue I sent the rims off to Elite wheels and they took 3mm off the mounting face.

Still clears vital components on the rear, though I can’t check running clearance yet because the car is immobile. I also had 2.5mm skimmed off the disc hat so the rear wheels are now tucked 5.5mm further inboard. The fronts however don’t clear the calipers no more! It’s less than 1mm, so I put the stock spacers back on and it’s happy days. 
I sealed the water jacket cover with red rtv and today I put the gearbox back in (4 speed). What a mission! With the new engine mounts the engine sits just a fraction high and you can barely get the input spigot to line up with the spigot bearing because the bell housing at that point is jammed in the tunnel. Then the drama of re fitting the starter! There is little room and I couldn’t back the starter out enough to slide the nose into the hole, the back was jamming on the fuel pump. So I took the fuel pump off but then had to remove the oil filter so my hands could achieve the angle required to refit the pump! All up 2 hours of knuckle grazing.