Great SC rebuild.......

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Call from Drummond to say he has a spare bonnet support and possibly the filler cap fixing that I can copy / replace. So all I have to do is get Napolean started. Drummond offered some encouragement which I needed!

[Jack]

Well, I got back after a few hours in the car driving from Weymouth, managed to survive three days of diving despite the best efforts of various mates who ended up using up a whole lot of gas I had quite definitely planned to keep for myself!

Anyway, round to the garage and the car is looking more and more like we are going to be ok as time goes on.

I spent the evening working on some minor electricals, got the rear light wires pulled through and earthed, fixings in place in the boot for the wires to keep them out of the way.

Back onto the dashboard, and the panel lights are now wired up - the dashboard has a dimmer switch which is not original from what I can see, but is a convenient way of freeing up a switch on the switch plate that could be very useful. Reused the original wires and bulbs which seem to be from when the car was stripped in 1981 - still all working!!!

Back round to work on the car shortly, going to get some food in me first to keep me going until dinner time. Had to take the day off work to make up for missing the weekend Hoping to have all guages in the dashboard today, connect choke, and finish off the wiring for indicators at the front and back.

Jack.

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TOPIC

[Jack]

A busy day today, I have just been allowed a break for dinner and then back round to finish off a few little jobs.

Big news of the day - WE ONLY RUDDY WELL STARTED IT!!!

Keith spent about 5 minutes playing with the timing, and after a bit of playing with it said he was ready to give it a go. We tried it first with a battery connected directly to the ignition, and it started first time.

We disconnected the battery that was direct to the ignition and tried it again, and it worked - started first time on the button.

I was rather impressed, and we are now well on our way to a working car.

We now have brakes adjusted, so it should go, and it should stop. We've still got a lot to do, but we are on the home straight.

I spent most of today working on the dashboard to try and get us finished on that front - the rev counter went in, including the bulbs and wiring for panel lights I did last night, the bulb for mainbeam warning is in and wired up, the speedo is in with bulbs and wiring - currently clock not connected but it is earthed in anticipation!

Next job is to connect the cables for the rev counter and speedo which make them actually work, as whilst they are lovely and decorative, they need to work at some stage (though I don't believe either is necessary for MOT)

I fitted the choke knob, though I think the cable might need a bit of use to ease up properly with a bit of grease in there. Currently rather stiff, but useable.

I have now also wired up the heater to both the heater switch and dimmer switch - means we can put the heater on and off as well as how powerful the fan will be. I also tested the heater motor again to make sure it was working, and I'm pleased to report we have one working heater. I'll be connecting the earth for the heater before the end of tonight, and that should mean almost the end of the electricals in the dashboard.

Last job before the dinner break was to fit the left hand side panel which in our case has a radio hole in it. Now the hole seems to be too big for an original Jowett radio, but we have a pretty old radio which doesn't look particularly out of place now fitted. It won't be wired up for the rally unless we get a lot of free time at the end of the project, plus the radio is postive earth which our car isn't. At some stage in the future I'll be looking into getting one of the fancy reconditioned radios you can get which have modern internals in a retro housing. For the meantime Amy is going to have to put up with her Ipod and battery powered speakers for the drive to Wakefield

Anyhow, no more time for progress reports, got to have some dinner and get back to it.

Jack.

[Amy]

Well, I spent most of the long weekend in the garage, foraying out for (another) wedding on Saturday evening.

There were quite a few long days and late nights put in by all the team (well, apart from Jack who as Chris has said was AWOL) - I was there from Thurs - Monday (I had Thurs and Fri off work so could do more on the car).

We do now have wired-in headlights and horns (after cleaning and painting), most of the rear lights (which Jack is finishing/has finished), a working fuel system and a nearly-watertight cooling system. We also now know where all the various leaks are in the cooling system... (that'll be the Y-pipe then - dad should be welding up the holes this eve).

I have also re-done the HT leads on the distributor what feels like about two dozen times, learned how to take the carbs apart and adjust the timing belt and feel like I have cleaned just about every Lucas component on the Jupiter.

Fluids please!
So, earlier in the weekend we tested the cooling system... the first few drops of water went in and all was good. Then we were up to about a litre or so. Not so good - the bottom hose clips weren't tight, although the drain plugs seemed good. Hose clips got tightened, then more water.

All was ok until the top hoses started feeding the water pump - water everywhere from the hoses on the Y-pipe, and then suddenly the offside drain plug started spewing water! I stuck my finger on the drain plug (the tap is quite stiff) whilst dad fetched pliers. With my other hand I found a screwdriver and started tightening the hose clips... which led to the discovery that Dad's lovely Y-pipe was actually the main culprit and needs some holes welding up.

On your marks, get set, start!

On Sunday I returned to the garage with 20 litres of petrol and goodies from Maplin to carry on with the wiring. Whilst there I'd found a very compact jump start / air compressor combo which is very neat, and will fit very well in the Jupe (not that it'd ever need a jump start, oh no!).

The plan was to start Napoleon on Sunday - we'd checked the fuel system with air and changed the petrol pump so all should be good. Somehow when adding the fuel Dad got to hold the funnel whilst I got to hold and pour the 20 litres into the car from the jerry can. Hmm.

The good news is that the fuel gauge seems to work (hooray!), and after a couple of minutes of tinkering around the petrol pump, it seemed that fuel was getting through the system.

I'd wired up the dizzy in an earlier session, and we had pretty much everything in place, so decided to try starting the car:

P5020088_sized.jpg

Despite my best efforts at coaxing / swearing at the car, he refused to fire.

This heralded two days of me and dad trying to work out what on earth the problem was. First suggestion from me: "do we have a spark?".

Answer: no. We cleaned the points and it promptely sparked.

However, we also had to adjust the valve timing, the timing belt, check the compression, re-wire the dizzy (at least twice, I've actually lost track) and various other efforts to try and isolate the problem. Oh, and take the carbs apart - twice - to check needle valves / float chambers, check gap on sparkplugs, ponder the crank and swear (lots) at the ridiculous design of the distributor cap (I mean, who on earth thought that those screw attachments were a good idea?! ).

So a rather frustrating couple of days; Monday drew to a close with the car stubbornly refusing to start. I was getting rather disheartened as I'd spent a lot of time with dad trying to get it to start, and so hadn't made much progress on other areas.


And then there was light!

I have however [mostly] done the main lights. We puzzled slightly over what sort of boot goes on the back of the rear lights, and have settled on using some of the rubber boots from the sidelights - will pop pics up when we're doing it. This does leave a gap between the light assembly and the body, which I think should be filled with a thin o-ring (which we will need to source as we don't have one of the required thickness). We could do without, but that'd mean it'll be open to water seeping in and corroding, so may as well prevent that.

I've also wired up the headlights, which are now in place and ready to have the actual lamps put in - they are the Jaguar ones, so have left them in a safe place until we're ready to fit them!!

Michaelangelo?

Whilst dad and I were busily swearing and pondering, Chris was in the Land Behind the Blue Curtain transforming the main body panels from the tatty stripped metal we'd reduced them to into smooth panels which bore barely any resemblance to what we had but a couple of months ago. OK, I know it's not quite the Sistine Chapel, but I swear it's a magical process, and the finish on the panels just prior to the paint going on was absolutely amazing, a remarkable testimony to the both the amount of time Chris has put in, and also the skill and care he's lavishing on the bodywork.

I can't wait to see the finished panels when they're on the car, which should hopefully be later this week / at the weekend, once everything's in a state where it can be handled.

Combustion!

It really does feel like we're on the home straight now; my major concern was the engine refusing to start, and it was with great joy that I took a phone call (whilst at a service station on the M4), which was Jack - he told me they'd managed to get the engine started, and indeed I could hear a Jowett engine (albeit a rather lumpy one!) running in the background.

We might yet make it to Wakefield! (There was some discussion at dinner last night that I may have to drive the Jupiter whilst wearing my drysuit, as we currently have no hood for the car... let's hope for dry weather!).

Amy.

[Jack]

Quick late night update - more work on the engine from Keith, which he will have to explain in detail as I was busy under the dash trying to finish things off.

The heater earth was promptly wired up to the earth on the loom, so now heater is ready to go. Wires tidied up a bit so they won't get caught on any stray feet in the footwell.

The large braided sections of the wiring loom needed to be tucked out of the way, so a couple of clips and a couple of bolts later and we had a nice neat(ish) appearance to the front of the dash.

I connected up the cables for the rev counter and speedo, and these should now work. I think. Quite hard to test these, but we should know very quickly when it moves if they don't!

All other lights and connections in place ready for checking, so far no weird symptoms seen when we started the car, and no issues when the battery was connected. Fingers crossed, but I am confident we won't have any electrical gremlins from the dashboard at least.

One thing we had noticed was that we don't think the Dynamo is charging, Keith is going to be working on things on that front, so we should be in safe hands.

Another night of work on things tomorrow should have the gremlins on the horn sorted - seems to just be a slightly loose fitting on the bracket holding the steering column, we will pack this with a strip of rubber and all should be ok again. Once that is done I will need to check the switch in the horn on the actual steering wheel - if working we will be fitting a very nice custom made wheel to the car which looks great. Photos to follow, once I've fitted the floorboard and bench seat we should be heading for a complete, if a little tired, interior - retrimming the seat will have to wait until after the rally and will really set off the interior.

Jack.

[Forumadmin]

Amy forgot to mention she helped a lot checking the valve timing, reading the dial micrometer and keeping the push rod tight on the cam whilst I turned the camshaft and the crankshaft. She also made the decision on which hole to put the dowel in when aligning the camshaft with the sprocket wheel. This was after a lot of explanation about what we were doing and the four stroke cycle and degrees of rotation on the cam lobes so that we started on the base circle and was measuring the start of rise of the inlet valve on cylinder number one.

Why not ask her to explain it to you at the rally after a few drinks!

[Drummond Black]

Parcel of bits on it's way

[Jack]

Another evening on the dashboard for me - well more the steering rack and gear change column, and we had some fun with it.

After trying to get the horn to work, we established that the brass insulated ring on the steering column wasn't showing through the hole in the outer tube. So we loosened off the bracket which holds the steering rack and gear change column to pull the outer tube up slightly and turn the outer tube so that the handbrake was in a sensible position.

Unfortunately at some stage in this process the plastic fitting which holds the copper finger in place cracked. I am fairly sure it must have been when we tightened up the U bolt which holds the bracket in place under the dashboard, and the two tubes pushed together.

A solution was found by clamping the plastic fitting in place with a jubilee clip and a piece of rubber to insulate from earthing the copper finger, it's not perfect but it does work - very amateur job on this at the moment but we can work on making this look pretty when we get back from the MOT station and the rally.

Last couple of jobs on the dashboard are the glovebox, which I managed to just about get into the gap by disconnecting the bullet connector on the copper finger for the horn, a bit of tweaking to do to get this properly fitted but it's a fairly simple job. Luckily the original glovebox seems to be in good condition, and no significant damage around the outside edge where it attaches to the dashboard. Note for all SC drivers - don't put too much weight at the back of the glovebox, there's really not all that much holding the box in place at the front!

Amy spent time learning about the bodywork stuff from Chris, and progress seemed to be good on the wings they were working on. They can tell you more about what they were exactly doing there.

Keith spent a lot of time on the horn relay, which had disintegrated into about a million bits of old rust. I think we have now found a working relay, and if we have we can wire this up fairly easily and get the horn working. Everything from the wheel to the relay is working, and we know that the horns themselves work fine, so this should be a fairly quick job once we have a working relay sorted. Photo to follow of the amount of rust that came out of the thing!

Jack.

[Chris Spencer]

The panels painted on Monday were inspected - odd fleck of dust in the paint but nothing that will not polish out - to prove the point I selected the worst area and flatted it back with 1500 grade wet and dry with plenty of soap & water then went on to polish with a grade 3 compound and T cut - the paint finish from the spraygun is very good now dry - but once polished it looks the part.

carried out some further repairs on the bootlid before teaching Amy how to flat out with wet & dry - the primer on both of the front wings was completed by the end of the evening - the weekend should see more paint being applied.

Spirits were quite high in the workshop tonight - with the engine now running there was the odd banter getting used from one end of the workshop to the other - with Keith twice being the subject of a scalding from Amy !! It was nice to see the humour of the team refecting through what is still a huge task in order to get the car to the rally.

More soon

[Forumadmin]

It was actually battery, from Amy. I have instructed my solicitors. Having fought with the Jack, Amy informed me she has no problem fighting me now.

Early in the evening I once again tested the engine. I bled the heater as the previous night the water seemed to explode out of the rad when the cap was taken off. The small heater entry on the rad (made in the USA) is probably the cause of it not self bleeding. However, when I again ran the engine without the rad cap secured a gush of water occured after about 5 minutes of running. Could it be the thermostat opening? Could it be the bleed holes in the thermostat are too small?

Anyway worried that it might be head gasket, I checked the compressions. 220 to 230 psi on all cylinders on starter cranking. Very impressive. I had also checked for bubbles in the header tank and there were none; before the big gush.

The water pump is still leaking. So if it does not improve will need to replace the seal or perhaps face the seat. I can accept a drip, but not proverbial Manneken Pis.

Also checked the regulator which did not seem to give charge. Pressing the cut out caused the dyno to turn the same way as it does when driven. Volts were 13.68.

Since it was 25 years since I last set up a regulator I went to get some manuals. Then everybody arrived, so was diverted. Will test again tonight.

The horn relay was really pretty on the outside but just all rust inside. I had tried to test and assumed it needed a load to function. It needed a load of miracles!

[Tony Fearn]

This has been and still will be fascinating reading. Slowly re-furbishing 'Mary Ellen' has been re-classified as 'a doddle' since following your epic saga.

Chris, as a matter of interest, how many litres of primer, thinners, top coat, gun-wash etc do you expect to get through before 'Napoleon' is finished to your liking?

I've a feeling that my efforts at spraying leave qiite a bit in the environment rather than just on the panels.

Last Sunday I picked-up a 25 x 4 metre roll of heavy duty polythene for a fiver at a local boot sale which should help with the paint dust problem in the lock-up.

Tony.

[Jack]

This has been and still will be fascinating reading. Slowly re-furbishing 'Mary Ellen' has been re-classified as 'a doddle' since following your epic saga.

Chris, as a matter of interest, how many litres of primer, thinners, top coat, gun-wash etc do you expect to get through before 'Napoleon' is finished to your liking?

I've a feeling that my efforts at spraying leave qiite a bit in the environment rather than just on the panels.

Last Sunday I picked-up a 25 x 4 metre roll of heavy duty polythene for a fiver at a local boot sale which should help with the paint dust problem in the lock-up.

Tony.

Tony, great to get some feedback, and nice to know that members are following our exploits online.

I can't help on the paint volumes, Chris should be able to tell you, but I was amazed at how little paint was required for covering so much of the car. Chris does seem to be very efficient in his use, though there was some banter that he would need to paint the rest of the floor in the garage at the end of the project!

I went back through the first couple of pages, it is amazing the difference now vs the state of things at the beginning - so many hours spent just working on cleaning and painting parts, not really knowing what they were or where they were going, now they all fit into place in the huge jigsaw that is the Jupiter.

I have to admit that at the rally we went to previously in Crieff I didn't have all that much interest in the workings of the cars, and was wandering around the field interested in other weird and wonderful models on show, having a look at the paint job, vaguely sticking my head under the bonnets. Having come through this project I seem to have developed some understanding, and from it some interest, in even the most normal (as if such a thing exists when it comes to Jowetts) models and will now be looking under the bonnet with a bit more understanding and will be discussing with members how they went about certain bits, problems with fixing things, where they have sourced interesting parts or additions.

To some extent we all have to recognise that the club is an aging population - I feel like working on the car has put at least 5 years on me and I'm not the youngest 27 year-old out there - but also has taught me and Amy lots of the things we will need to know to keep the car running and on the road. We have to accept that at some point in the next 30 or so years Keith isn't going to be in the garage fixing things and identifying problems, hopefully we will be more self sufficient and I hope other members of the club encourage their families to get involved in projects like this. It always seems to be a shame when somebody has to sell a car or worse their family has to sell their car because nobody knows how to keep it on the road and deal with the issues that come with owning a 1950s car. If their family had been involved in a project like this it seems all the less likely, and given a little time and support from other members it doesn't seem all that hard to work with what is fundamentally a simple car by comparison to modern vehicles - even compared to my 1986 Capri it is easy to work on and understandable.

On the tarp front, we ended up with metres and metres of plastic pond liner which is largely surplus to requirements. If you'd like me to bring a load of it along to the rally just ask, as I can't see it being put to good use in our gardens in the near future and I doubt very much that it is watertight any more regardless.

Jack.

[M S G Benning]

Read with interest Amy's comment about cleaning all Lucas parts! Went to Bristol Classic on Sunday & amongst the 'freebies' given out was Classic Car Buyer(www.carandclassic .co.uk)dated 050510. that included on page 5 'a collection of Lucas Prince of Darkness jokes' that was originally sourced from The Austin Apprentices Club. IF & WHEN you have 5 mins take a look.
On a further point, congrats to both Amy & Jack for tackling this rebuild & also Alan(Bartlett) & both Rachel & Sarah Young, along with many others I'm sure who may now be slightly older but still show a keen interest in the marque. Exactly what we need WELL DONE

[Forumadmin]

We forgot to say in our previous report that an hour was spent cleaning and greasing the choke cables which are a tandem pull type. They 50% work, not quite closing the throat.

Started the evening adjusting the tappets by the move each one in turn to fully open, then one full turn and adjust method. Set to 3thou inch inlet, 6 thou exhaust when cold.

No bark back through carb now and much smoother.

Dyno is charging but need to adjust, though need to be careful with modern batteries that they are not overcharged.


Jack arrived and completed fiting the glove box for Amy's white gloves.

Jack cleaned up the 3 tubes we have for bonnet support and painted the outer one.

Ran the engine for 5 minutes but it overheats with a lot of water still escaping from water pump.

There is not enough flow through heater pipe union into the rad,so expect I will have to bypass return to rad and feed into crankcase inlet pipe. Another test for the welder!

Jacked a rear wheel up and tested gears. Second needs some adjusting as it jumps out. Speedo works, went to 35mph!

Finally tested panel lamps which are very dim; but they do all work. Horn still needs a helping hand.