Early Javelin Restoration

[Chris Spencer]

The B post retains the hinge hanger for both of the doors - the lower hanger had been messed about with and we just happened to have a new one in the botom of a box of hinge spares - they are alloy so they tend to desolve a little being encased in a steel B post - first I had to dress the apperture for the hanger where the sill / B post repair had been undertaken

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Jowett Car Spares had supplied the correct screws for the hanger

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The post hanger and the door hanger then have a small bush placed between them which completes the hinge setup once the pin is located

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[Chris Spencer]

So with doors rehung

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The reason for doing so at this point was that before I welded the outrigger to the chassis / sill - which in turn locates the final position of the B post - with both doors hanging from the post it is critical that the B post is in it's correct position - I had it central but should the post need to come away or towards the chassis then now is the time to sort it - I had braced both the B posts before removing the old outrigger so it should have been in it's original place. However, the car when it arrived had dreadful apperture gapping - you could drive a bus through some of them then again others were taking paint off the edge of the panel that they were closing against. First I removed any play out the hinges by changing the hinge bushes I then worked on getting the centre gapping between the two doors on the B post correct - this was always a wide gapping on the car from new - on the upper section the trafficator sits in the B post and operates between the door appertures - the car did not have these fitted as an option when new but we planning to fit a set on the car has part of the restoration upgrades

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[Chris Spencer]

Happy with the B post / centre apperture I addressed the the outer appertures - in order to do so I had to drop this side of the car off the chassis tilter - the car mounts to the tilter through the front & rear bumper irons - and the iorns travel through the front & rear wings - the wings have to be fitted temporary to obtain the apperture gapping - so a couple of axle stands later and with the nearside wings fitted - this is typical of the gapping problems

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It's easy to panic with appertures but my tip is to be methodical - establish a starting point (in this case the central apperture / B post) and work away from it - address each area as a seperate section but take your time - adjusting one hinge may well effect the doors alignment with several others panels - so stand back and calcuate what adjustment will effect what - whilst it may resolve the gapping in the area that you are working - does it throw out the apperture gapping that was correct eleswhere - then again can the area that is now thrown out be reworked to attain the correct gapping whilst the original area can not

[Chris Spencer]

I managed to ease the top of the door frame out slightly on the front door with a block of wood and closed the door frame to the apperture - same block of wood was deployed with a largish hammer in order to dress the roof gutter rail down slightly and in doing so closing the large apperture gap down to something more acceptable

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Moving on - the door / wing apperture which was corrected simply by moving the wing a few mm forward on it's fastenings - all the holes were originally elongated on the factory panels to allow such adjustments

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That just left a difference in the side alignment of the front door to wing - this can be packed out off the bracket on the A post when it comes to final panel fitting

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[Chris Spencer]

On the rear door the same methods were used to obtain the correct wing apperture but the waistline apperture was very tight - plan of action here was to dress / fettle the area to a good fit

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There was some original lead loading to the area in question so with with a quick visit from the flapwheel on the angle grinder and little hammer work I soon got the required result

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One last bit of advice when fitting / apperture gapping doors / panels - always take into consideration - door seals / rubbers / locks / striker plates / trims etc - you may have a perfect fit / alignment / gaps etc - but its no good if when your nice fitting & shiny painted door will not lock when closed or that the door edge and weather seal do not meet and the first time you wash the car the interior fills with water / always check - loose / trail assemble trims / seals / locks etc because they may effect the opertaion of that panel and the appertures. Yes it's a pain but no where near the pain of of having done all that hard work to have a car that with ill fitting panels in shiny paint and nice chrome etc (and it's the first thing that others will notice and freely point out to you)

[Chris Spencer]

Now happy with the apperture gaps on the nearside - the central outrigger could be welded into place

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Whilst working my way arround the outrigger with the welds - I kept a check on the apperture gaps to ensure that no heat distortion was effecting the B post location - if you take your time and just alternate the area of welding you should have no problems - you can also use compressed air and a blow gun to cool the weld down if you need to run a long weld in the same area

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So quite happy that the door alignment & nerside panel gaps have come together - some minor fettling will be required when the panels are refitted prior to paint.

[Chris Spencer]

Swiftly moving on to the rear I have this mess to deal with

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Very untidy welding that looks quite weak in some areas and a rear outrigger fabricated out of copper and braised on

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There is a lot of strength required here the rear lower mounting for the axle mounts at the bottom of this section - three skins of steel come together at this point - the exhaust pases through a tube in chassis close by - so lots of warm - then lots of cold metal = condensation and 3 skins of metal - only one outcome 'More rust'

[Chris Spencer]

To the inside upper of this section is the rear shock absorber mounting (which requires quite a bit of work) the tube through which the exhaust travels through in the chassis can be seen to the lower right of the image

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First cut of the over plate

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The single hole above the rusted out section is for the panhard rod and the larger mounting above it is for the rear torsion bar which travels horizontally behind the rear seat in the car.

[Chris Spencer]

Cut back to sound metal

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New section fabricated and welded in

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Cleaned back & dressed

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[Chris Spencer]

Next was this previous repair on the chassis at the rear of the outrigger

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Although it looked sound heres the justifaction for it coming out

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Plated over rust

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Completed repair

[Chris Spencer]

Before we got too much further I wanted to ensure that we removed the accessable surface rust in the area so with the help of one of Keith's recent investments

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Here is Keith making the most of the new blasting kit

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Cleaned up section

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Once completed I blew all the debris & dust out the chassis box section and then sprayed all the bare metal areas with a zinc rich weld through primer (readily available in aerosol)

[Chris Spencer]

Before packing up for the day I made this closing section up for the end of the chassis box to the factory pattern

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Welded in

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Once this is cleaned up (next workshop visit) the whole area is then overskined with a plate that comes down to weld in around the lower rear suspension link.

[Forumadmin]

Pictures added to the gallery in Peter Pfister's personal album.
TOPIC Three added of the car on the lift in Switzerland prior to the journey to Wales
TOPIC Two added of Peter looking through the empty engine bay after strip out.
TOPIC Not for the faint hearted! Two pages of pictures of Chris aligning the door apetures.

Drummond Black, Bill Lock, Chris and Sharon, Ken and Olmira Graham, John and Anne Blanckley, Amy and Jack came to my mother's funeral and wake and spent some time relaxing in the garage. Much was discussed and new sources of spares hopefully secured. Methods of refurbishment were also considered including the modified suspension system. Thanks all for supporting Amy and I.

TOPIC Is a new album. It shows what happened the next day when Drummond put 18 new 3/16inch balls in the gear change and repositioned the circlip and redrilled to take out play.

During the week I completed the soda and grit blasting cabinets.

[Forumadmin]

The soda blasting cabinet was tested today on the rebuilt gearchange column.



Soda is on the left and grit on the right.
An axial fan sucks dust out of both sides that are well sealed to prevent contamination between media.

Soda can be used on mechanical parts as it is non abrasive. Takes the layers of paint off without damaging surface. It cleans chrome and plastics to a lovely finish! Aluminium too so great on carbs.

Grit is used to shift rust and provides a rough surface for keying paint. Abrasive, so must be thoroughly cleaned off.

Results shown here.

[robert lintott]

For Chris

Are you doing anything to make sure the B pillar is strong enough for seat belt anchorages ? I do not have them and assume there are sufficient strong points in the floor/chassis, but the B pillar looks flimsy . I know there are many Javelins with seat belts and I would like to fit some , you have an opportunity to put in some strengthening, if needed and practicable , which might be of interest to others .

Brilliant work and pictures . I once had a Javelin where the B post had been wrongly positioned, it was just impossible to get both doors to fit properly so we had to cut it off and reposition !

regards Bob