Sunbeam

In the finest O.S. tradition I spent all day cobbling together a rubbish broken exhaust from bits of other rubbish broken exhausts. Step 1 was to trim the mangled collector back to sound, round steel.

There was only just enough meat left. Then it needed a bit of pipe added which I chopped off another rotten downpipe that came with a spare engine.

Fizz fizz fizz

Next problem, the flange that bolts to the manifold was actually warped and also very thin. I addressed this by chopping the much thicker flange off the spare broken downpipe and welded it to the existing flange. This gives a nice thick flange that is hopefully less prone to distortion and also lowers the whole lot by 5mm which is winning.

The biggest headache was extracting the mangled remains of the collector pipe out of the slip join in the main pipe. Took about an hour and a half but got there in the end. I’ve hung the whole system back on and hooray! it fits at least 3% better! Well worth half a day of work. Also, it now clears the bell housing by at least 1mm. I’ll check for leaks when (if) a waterpump pulley ever turns up.

I worked hard towards firing it up the other day but this didn’t happen because the fuel pump started pissing fuel all over the floor. I’ve ordered another. In other installation related news, the exhaust suddenly doesn’t fit properly anymore. I blame the new engine and gearbox mounts for raising the whole lot up, but principally I blame a previous bodger for WELDING the front slip joint to the downpipe so adjustments are not possible. The whole exhaust wants replacing at some stage anyway because 38mm press bent pipe is not ok, OK?

In other news, this follwed me home on a trailer.

PARTS CAR! She’s a 1969 125 Special hence the stainless wheel arch trims and other bling. The above is its good side… 

bad side:

There are basically no usable body panels. A buddy of mine wants the front cut to use as a pattern for fixing his (apparently really bad with some bits missing so needs a sample to build replacements) The interior is mouldy and yuck but has decent perforated head lining and a cool centre console thing with gauges that only seem to appear in mk1 Specials.

Incredibly the dash top has fewer cracks than some road going 125’s I’ve seen which is some feat for having been parked in a paddock for 10 years.

Plans are to harvest trim, bumpers, door handles and catches, dashboard, window regs, any undamaged glass. All suspension, diff, driveshaft and 5 speed box (there’s no engine) and importantly the transmission tunnel which will aid future 5 speed conversion. The rest minus front cut will be scrapped.

Today was a big day in the shed. I put the engine and box back together and I was going to sling them into the car.

Fail.. I could not get sufficient tilt to feed them in. The car was on the hoist and I used a load leveler but I couldn’t get the angle steep enough. I have mentioned before these cars have a very short engine bay and while I am sure it’s theoretically possible, you need to tilt the combo beyond 45 degrees and this requires a lot of clearance under the car and also a high lift from your engine crane. My crane won’t lift high enough either I think. So I put it back on the floor, split the gearbox off and put the engine in. Easy peasy. Then I lifted the car and popped the gearbox on my super duper transmission jack, got it all lined up and FAIL! The bell housing jammed in the transmission tunnel with about 3mm to go. So the engine got lifted again, mounts removed, engine lowered gearbox slid on, engine lifted again, mounts reinstalled phew! 

I can’t fit the manifolds yet because the rubber elbow I ordered for the oil separator doesn’t fit (the joy of aftermarket parts). I need to find an oem one (edit: found several on ebay in Italy, waiting on a postage price) Speaking of garbage aftermarket parts, the new clutch fork boot also doesn’t fit worth a damn.

I have refitted the starter and that’s as far as I got today. When I lowered the car back onto its wheels I was expecting to admire the awesome ride height but it only sagged 10mm! It has gasser spec rake going on. How much do new springs settle? The only weight yet to go back in is the radiator and maniflolds and battery etc and of course the bonnet. I’m not hopeful as my 100kg pushing on the front doesn’t do much either.

eeeew

Rear is spot on but the guards will need rolling. I loaded all my humans into the boot/back seat (almost on the bumps) and the sidewalls just graze the lip. This is without the factory spacer. BTW it’s wearing 205/60s now and they look great.

Today I thougt I might clean the gearbox so it’s ready to go when the time comes. This culminated in spending 3 hours with Exoff, various scrubbing tools and the water blaster. I guess I had forgotten how truly filthy it was, I mean it would have made a Land Rover blush… Readers may remember I had noticed the crossmember and corresponding point on the chassis were a bit bent. Er, more than a bit it turns out. It’s amazing what you can see when stuff isn’t covered in greasy filth.

Yikes!  Also check out the gearbox mount. It’s about the consistency of cheesecake.

A combination of vice and large hammers got the crossmember straightened. It’s now in the acid bath for superduper cleaning. I made a tool for my slide hammer which in concert with my biggest ball pein carefully straightened the chassis rail. Great success.

And check out my shiny box.

Useless update time. It’s on its wheels. What I discovered is that the Fiat 124 shocks are close but not close enough for the rear. The eye sleeve has a 10mm hole in it, not a 12 as I require. The sleeve itself has a wall thickness of just over 4mm, so I thought no problem, just drill it out. Well, even in a vice etc and stepping up in 0.5mm increments, the bush moves around enough that the hole in one side ended up not quite on centre. Close enough for government work though.  Combing through kyb online catalogues though, I have found a couple of very close matches. FB RX7 rears would be perfect, but hardly anyone has any. A 1995 Kia Sportage is also bang on, but maybe too stiff for a light car? And lastly an NA4W Mitsubishi Grandis also fits the bill dimensionally. Leaning towards the Kia as they are readily available (cheap) from Rock Auto. 124 jobbies are in for now. 
Pointless edit:  I rolled her outside and the last couple of years’ worth of shed dirt got washed off too. Now using an indoor cover.

 I’m still waiting on some new gallery plugs. That’s the only thing stopping me from slinging the engine in although I might do the valve clearances on the engine stand too to save my back. I can’t fit my thinnest feeler gauge under any of the tappets, so some big changes required.

More goodies to pick up!

Custom made coils and reset leaves. 
 

New vs old:

And fronts installed! 

The leaf mounts need cleaning and painting, so aiming to have it on its wheels next week.

While it’s up in the air, I thought “why not give the underside a clean?” Because it would be a horrible job of course! So I did it anyway. The whole underside has a layer of gravel road dust on it for some reason.

Now it does not. Btw, waterblasting inside the shed doesn’t make as big a mess as you think as long as you’re careful with your aim and you squeegie excess water out the door before it can flow under your workbench/tools/other treasure.

Pagoda 280SL. In Sefton of all places. Excuse on the move potato pic.

I’m not very good at taking photos of my process of cleaning things up and mostly I think folks might find them boring anyway. Here are some after pics.

Uprights and stub axles

front suspension arms

New handbrake cable inner (thanks Digger)

Leaf spring mounts

And clean cross member. This hole is ready for an engine but the engine’s not quite ready for the hole!

Summary: New ball joints, all new bushes (polyurethane) re-booted tie rod ends and thorough de-scuzzification of components.