Sammy1222

Carbs fully in and tuned! Were quite fidgety things to get in, but running a treat. Had to adjust fuel lines a bit to keep them clear of exhaust manifold.

Took her down to mission bay for a hoon and some pics..

Exhaust sounds sick..

Have got panel work and paint in the back of our minds for sometime soonish. Anyone know anywhere good+cheap?

might be worth fitting a blanking plate to the gap between the shroud and new radiator? fan may be drawing air mostly through this gap rather than through the rad? path of least resistance

Yea good call, will have a look at welding/bolting another piece to the shroud. Running below 90 in heavy traffic and heat though so not too worried about it anymore fortunately

Sprayed the shroud and mounts a metallic black and then chucked the rad in on Friday. Cruising around in the high 80degs so seems to be doing the trick (hasn't made anything any worse so that's a start!). Will keep the electric fan off for now and will see how she goes in traffic for the next few weeks before making a call on whether we need that too. Using another beer can (premium ofc) for the overflow tank which does the trick!

In other news, the suspension looks&feels like it needs a bit of a pump up - carrying passengers is a bit of a mission with the tyres rubbing the fenders lel. Will hopefully hit up GWA sometime soon to suss that (cheers m8). Also found that the carpet in the front passenger foot well was a bit wet. Looks like its coming from below through a small hole so may need to do a bit of cutting/welding at some stage. 

Been searching for a while and have finally found a reasonably priced Nardi wheel! Picked this up off TM and also grabbed a BMC adapter boss for fitting. Suits Maggie's look pretty well and the restored wood really pops (guy we bought it from been sanding it for 10 hours ).

Been a long time coming but Mags is finally back on the road! 

Took her for a quick spin round the block. Running with a bit more grunt than before and the new clutch was definitely a good call. The overheating issue is probably the next focus - the gauge shows H pretty early on, although we don't really know how accurate this is. We recently chucked in a new temperature sender - does anyone know the normal resistance range on the temperature sender for these cars (i.e. normal running temp resistance)? Will probably look at getting a new radiator at some stage too as has a bit of wear and there's room for a larger one which will definitely help things.

Probably should grab a wof + reg too lel.

Took the head into an engine reconditioners. They said that the hole in the head was too close to the gasket surface to be bored and plugged - there's also hardly any metal there.. He said our options were either getting it metal sprayed, welded or new head..

Does anyone know of any places in auckland who would do this sort of thing? 

Also just as a last resort - does anyone have any good condition 1300 heads up for grabs?

Thanks heaps, had a quick re-read over GWA's thread - never realised he had pretty much the exact same issue ! 

Will get that done asap.

Cheers!

We took the head off and have a few questions about its condition... 

Found that one of the holes in the head is an oval shape and is getting pretty close to the cylinder. There isn't a corresponding hole on the block either... What's up with that? 

The cylinder adjacent to the ugly hole in question is also looking grosser than the other cylinders. 

Any help appreciated. 

So we finished taking the engine out..

All went pretty smoothly, although taking off the wheel hubs was a bit of a mare without a ball joint separator. But with a bit of patience we eventually cracked them. Planned to put the engine straight on the stand but couldn't find any bolts suitable - need 4x 5/16 thread about 4 inches but seems most places (repco, mitre 10, bunnings) only stock them to 3 inches. Anyone know where we could get our hands on some?

Put it on a pallet for the mean time.

Been having a bit of a jam this week and are 90% there with taking the engine out. Our $8.50 Hayne's manual has proven its worth, the pretty picture instructions have made it easy enough to follow for us first-timers.

Few pics of the process -

Pea-shooter off

Carb off

Current engine bay

Bought a cheap engine stand from save barn and are borrowing a hoist over the weekend to get her out. 

Been a bit quiet recently post-wof. Trying to enjoy it as much as we can when drivable! 

Still running a bit hot so took it to the radiator shop and he replaced the cap. The one on it when we bought it was spring-loaded but the radiator on her needs a flat cap to allow free flow from pressurised expansion tank to the radiator. The vacuum between the radiator and lower-mounted expansion tank wasn't enough to suck up all the coolant so the expansion tank was getting pretty full. Still running pretty hot so are looking at swapping the radiator out for a similar sized new civic one.

Have had play round with the timing and mixture, seems to be running a bit stronger now but diesels every now and then when you turn it off.

In other news, picked up a bike mirror in an antique shop in Raglan for 15d. 

Had to have a bit of a grind away to fit the second nut.

Seems to suit the car pretty nice.

so run some skinny tyres for wof then throw the wide ones back on?

Failed last wof on 2/4 tyres so they wouldnt pass.. But yea seems like they dont need a cert anyway 

Shame about the requirement to fit the guard flares to get a wof. I think they spoil the look a little bit. Would have been nice to just pump the hydrolastic up all the way and run it rebel if you could have got away with it.

Never fear, the flares were just some cheapys to pass the wof. Not exactly a long term option seeing as they aren't even for the car (were $5 escort flares). When we pass the wof and get our hands on something to pump the hydro up we may rethink our options, but i do think flares that fit and are same colour as body could look good

Quite like the colour, do you plain on reprinting the same colour?, flares could look good in black maybe?

Undecided at the moment.. i think we will paint it same colour as one of the 70s originals but yea the magenta does give it a bit of character so are siding towards that at the moment. Yea we were considering black flares, have had a bit of a play around on photoshop, but will probably end up spraying them same as body when we go for paint+panel

So went to drive out of my awkward (steep+tight corner) garage entrance on the way to the panel beaters to get the right front guard pulled out and the bloody slope did half the job for us!

A fair bit of burnt rubber later, and she was off to the panel beaters..

Pulled it out 15-20mm or so, which would be enough to get the tyre snug under the flares (which went on a treat).

A bit of a mission getting the car out of the garage again (front flare is a bit too low causing some rubbing only when turning sharp up a hill haha), but no problems on the road as yet. Think we will look into pumping up suspension a bit as the front now looks a little too low. Otherwise we were thinking of sanding a bit off the bottom of the flare? not too sure yet. By no means perfect but a nice temp, woffable (hopefully) look at the moment.

Next job, wof. 

Discuss

A little something to nibble on before bedtime.

Tyres on Sat. Running like a champ atm, lets hope it stays that way.

Discuss

A fair amount to update, and we're on the verge of getting her roadworthy... 

Compression tested the cylinders and they all look fine so that means no blown head gasket - next thing on the list is the water pump, radiator seems to be flowing ok but will take it in to get it double checked when we get a new cap. 

Broke apart the FR hub and got the bearings out (anyone know if we can just pick these up with seals from somewhere local? Otherwise there are some solid looking kits on eBay for $50ish).

Rims are looking good, sandblasted them at work and painted them a nice, fresh silver. As we mentioned before though, they are going to take a bit of wrestling to fit - 6.5in is damn wide for a little car like this. Rubber is on the way, hopefully have them all wrapped up by the end of next week. 

Picked up 4 (escort?) flares for 20d on trademe to solve the mexi-poke look, and they look just about perfect. Probably will have to wait until we get the whole car done to have them painted, so might look a bit scrappy for a while.

More updates soon, discuss here

ive got a mini book of lies if you want to use when you do the head gasket, same same

chur, will give you a buzz if in need, although got our hands on a Haynes manual which is pretty damn comprehensive

Don't bother flaring the guards. Just pump the hydrolastic right up and run it rebel. Most cops won't notice a tidy looking grandpa spec car like that. I've only been pulled up once in my Wolseley 1300 but lots of times in my Falcons. Love that replacement washer reservoir. To get the dints out of the bumper you might get away with just beating the fuck out of it with a hammer if the chrome plating is good and well stuck on.

Cheers for the post, may have to as going for a wof and sticking a good 50mm out.. surely wont pass. Well not where we went last time anyway. 

I found my 1300 overheated and lost coolant because the radiator cap was faulty new. I noticed it was very easy to install and there was no pressure against the spring. I did replace all my hoses and cleaned out the radiator also since I was driving every day and don't like having to fix things on the road.

Yea thats what we initially put it down to, but took it to a radiator specialist to have a look at and he seemed to think it was fine. Waiting on a compression tester to see if its a head gasket and would make sense

Look what turned up in the post today! 

Watanabe 14x6 +12p 

We are going to strip them down and repaint them. 

Probably go with a 165 | 60 | R14 just to keep the outer diameter the same as the old rims - these little cars have surprisingly little inner clearance especially at the back. 

And yea... might need to do some massaging of the fenders... 

Fixed the crack in the window washer tank 

Might be telling you to suck eggs but the castle nut is reverse thread so clockwise is undoing it.

Yea we got told to check that, but turned out that it wasn't reverse thread - anticlockwise to loosen

After a bit of advice we have attempted to fix the few minors for the warrant, but never as easy as it sounds (well for us beginners anyway). First of all trying to get to the front right wheel bearing - the castellated axle nut isn't budging at all. Have attempted to take it off using a big crescent but the wheel nuts are getting in the way when we try to crack it. Pretty clear we need a big socket (1 and 5/16 inch) but just interested if anyone else had this same issue with it seizing a bit? Have asked all around work and no one has a socket bigger than 32mm or 1 1/4 inch, and repco/supercheap dont stock sockets in that size..

The other issue at the warrant was a grease leak from the front left CV boot. The 'clamps' being used at the moment are zip ties, and we were advised to just get hose clamps. However once we went to put them on we discovered that the locking part of the hose clamp would hit the support arm when the boot spins (i.e. there is a small clearance between the larger diameter end of the CV boot and the support arm that allows for a zip tie to clear when it spins with the boot but not a hose clamp). What is the stock clamp like for these cars? or what do people have as clamps for their cv boots?

In other news, we acquired an ancient arc welder so have been practicing with that. Not exactly confident enough to take to the car with it yet though. 

Help us out!

Been a bit busy recently with end of uni and new jobs, but finally have some time to get stuck in. Took her for a wof as expired a few weeks back, weren't too optimistic.. sure enough needs a new set of back tyres, new wheel bearing and has slight leak at left CV boot. 

Tyres werent a surprise as had slight cracked tread, so went hunting for a new set.. quite pricey. Don't really want to invest now as still undecided on the current rims. CV boot should be an easy fix as will wheel bearing - hopefully. Brake pads will need replacing soon too.

Had a crack at the interior rust. Wire brushed, jenolited and primed.

Overheating seems to have settled itself a bit with the new thermostat, but we are still keen to get a new radiator cap as it occasionally leaks. May also look at flushing out the radiator and block. 

Will definitely look to increase the posts as we start getting our hands dirty over the summer

Discuss here

The carpets were rotten and gross, so we ripped them out (possibly a bit too enthusiastically)

Underneath was pretty nice except for a bit of rust in the driver and passenger footwells - plan to wire brush, jenolite and possibly cutout a bit of this, but overall not too bad rust-wise. No signs of structural rust anywhere, and some minor rust patches on the body, but for a car of this age its doing great to keep it out.

For the mean time, we cut up some old house carpet and threw that in - nothing permanent but it doesn't look half bad

Next plan is to try and suss the radiator, which is still leaking out the cap, (which looks like a new cap). Hopefully a better fitting cap will fix that and a few other issues it's giving us - may need some advice about this one. Radiator looks in good knick and has been flushed in the last year, but Maggie's running pretty much dead on high. Will have a look at the thermostat too.

Lots to do.

Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/44978-mtbtimr-sammy1222s-1972-austin-1300-discussion/