Great SC rebuild.......

[Jack]

More progress this afternoon, with Amy and Keith playing with window winder mechanisms, and I wanted to finish off the battery box lid - it was being held down with a bit of tape!

Anyway, after undoing all the bolts from the back shelf, again, it was off the car, and I managed to find a lock with the same key as the door - brilliant. Drilling the lid of the box was easy, being fairly thin aluminium, manufacturing the tab to make the lid lock was a bit more troubling, because I decided to make it from some of the stainless we have which seems to be made out of the hardest metal on earth. Half an hour later I had drilled the hole for it, after using a lot of fluid and having to sharpen a number of drills to get the right size that could get through the stainless, but at least the battery box will be secure! Anyway, it doesn't look like much, but I am rather happy with myself. It is neat, works nicely, and secure, so we can now use it for storage of tools, spares, and bottles of champagne in preparation for the Classic Car of the Year awards Please make sure you have voted!

Next job for me is to make a template for the carpet - the rear shelf will be carpeted with a flap for the battery box lid, and the floor currently doesn't have carpet which it will need sometime soon!

Amy also removed the front centre grille from the bonnet, and started stripping the paint off it - it had been painted silver which was ok from a distance, but this is going to be rechromed now for the million dollar front end the car deserves.

Hopefully we will get a bit of time to get some photos of the latest developments, today was a bit hectic so no time.

Jack.

[Forumadmin]

I have ordered some replacement toughened glass for the Jupiter doors at about £40 a pane, albeit cut and edges rounded. Apparently European regs now apply to motor glass!

Also took front grill for chroming; but the place where the SA was done now says that the grill has to be unsoldered to get the chrome down the sides of the slats and to be able to polish. So since they were starting a three week shutdown I will try somewhere else.

[Jack]

A quiet Sunday evening finally meant we could get back to working on the car a bit.

Only a few hours, but I have now made the template for the carpet to go on the back shelf - this will be to offer a bit of sound deadening, but also to hide the battery box from prying eyes, as well as finishing things off neatly.

Amy was under the car taking the nuts off the bolts holding the seat in, as this needs to be retrimmed (and that can't be done with it sitting in the car) plus the seat had to come out to sort the carpet for the floor.

The seat was removed, and the door cards are going to need a retrim as well, they have been recovered at some point with black vinyl fairly badly, and will be very visible when on the car.

No major challenges this evening, so hopefully work can keep going at a reasonable pace.

I also managed to find some bolts so that we can fit the Centenary Badge, hopefully this will go on next time we are in the garage, I need to make up a little plate to fit it to the starting handle bracket - let's face it we're never going to use the starting handle, and if it has come to that undoing two little bolts shouldn't be too much inconvenience. Amy has decided against a badge bar, apparently we're not going to have dozens of the things "hanging off" the front of the car

One thing - if anyone has pictures showing the correct colour of carpet for a racing green Jupiter, that would be great, so we can get the carpet suppliers on the case.

Jack.

[Forumadmin]

I have just discovered (very worringly) that the post on 16 Aug 2009 12:40 pm in this thread was missing 3/4 of the text. Luckily the copy of JowettTalk on the home server still had it on, so I have copied it back in the right place. This was the write-up in the Jowetteer of the 1980-81 Strip Show.

Please let me know if any if you discover similar losses; as it is hard to understand what has happened or if losses occurred elsewhere.

[Jack]

More rebuilding and restoring this evening, Amy is swanning around somewhere with some sort of wedding excuse, so the boys were in the garage playing at cars.

Door cards are now on the agenda, and the old ones were, well, not very good. They had a badly engineered speaker in one side, and a slightly odd but functional pocket in the other. Decision had been made that it was pockets both sides and no need for a stereo (I did want to "pimp our ride" but this was quickly put down as a bad idea. Plus we've got a large boot for the subwoofers

3mm marine grade plywood was the order of the day, Homebase came to the rescue with a mahooooosive sheet of the stuff which had been damaged for £12. Luckily the bits I wanted weren't damaged at all, conveniently. They also cut it to rough size for me, so we didn't have to play with a 10 foot by 6 foot piece of wood, like Rolf Harris on a grand scale.

The old ones were stripped back to the bare wood and foam, and used as a template. Some minor tweaking was required on the shape to get the gaps to fit around the front and back, but nothing too major.

Recommendations welcome on where to get the chrome door catch hole surround from - the ones fitted are different each side and one or the other isn't original.

Next Friday is D-day, with the door cards, seats and templates for the carpets going to the trimmers to be redone. It will be an expensive bit of work, but other than the door cards and carpet (the cheap bits) we couldn't really hope to get the right finish on things in the garage ourselves.

Jack.

[Chris Spencer]

'Amy is swanning around somewhere with some sort of wedding excuse'

Well done Jack it is about time you made a honest woman out of Amy !!!!! - but you are not planning the honeymoon in the 'Scrappy Camper' are you ?

[Forumadmin]

The lovebirds were AWOL today, due to wedding hangovers I suspect ; but Chris and I managed to remove the broken L pieces that hold the horizontal chrome strip on the quarter light (and make new ones). This was the newly chromed one to replace the one that was put in to save time prior to Wakefield. Both quarter lights were fitted with felt gliders using spray-on contact adhesive applied liberally to the felt and then this was positioned with a screwdriver the same width as the glass.
Also made up brackets to fix the window rear guide out of some very handy aluminium scrap that Jack acquired. Chris fitted the outer window seal using 5 small self tappers with felt facing window and rubber lip sealing against door panel.
Early in the morning I completed the winder mechanisms (Pictures follow) that have had their cogs replaced from Javelin ones. (This was thought easier than trying to replace more of the mechanism.) Both slipped teeth when wound down. The post that the cog runs on had also broken and had to be welded after drilling a small hole to locate and sink the weld into. The grips that hold the glass were also derusted and painted.
Hopefully tomorrow the windows can be completed and the door cards cut out.
Tonight I ordered door card fixings http://www.bresco.com/cgi-bin/ss000001. ... A&SS=16000 and 'Snapsac' sealing sleeve for assembly in 21/64" diameter panel hole and use with any of our door trim pad clips. General application. Ref: 12288P
Not cheap; but needs must.

[Forumadmin]

Tonight was spent completing the door cards that Jack had marked out and Amy had nearly completed yesterday. Amy did learn that the door lever slot on the passenger side is longer than the driver's side; but she successfully cut out and aligned all the holes.

The fixings arrived and after some learning on how to line them up, were fairly easy to fit. Needed to saw a slot to align with holes where they were not at the optimum distance. A thin saw blade was used and the fixing hammered in with a thin screwdriver to the depth required.

Jack had made a pocket out of wood. I glued up and fitted to door card.

Jack arrived and completed carpet templates, marking out rubber mat insert, and completing B post templates that Amy had started on Monday.

Templates, seat, door cards and the windscreen trim were loaded up for delivery to PJM tomorrow. Time has prevented us from completing this work ourselves. We are all working 15 hr days as it is, leaving not much time for Jowetts. Only 3 weekends left till Classic Car Show at the National Exhibition Centre.

[Amy]

It's very exciting sending things off for trimming! It's a shane that a combined lack of time and wherewithal mean we can't do it ourselves, but I reckon it's a pretty good effort if by the time Napoleon's finished the only bits we won't have done will be the carpets and leather trim

I'm really looking forward to seeing him with a newly-trimmed seat and doorcards. Having looked on Ed Nankivell's site, the BRG would most likely have been trimmed in a mid-tan; the leather I've chosen is a bit lighter than that, but the carpet and hood will be in the mid-tan range. It'll certainly be rather smarter than the current black-dyed and duck-taped seat and white hammerited floor!!

Dad's been fettling with window winding mechanisms whilst I've been doing door cards, these should all be in place by the end of the weekend and we'll really be down to finishing bodywork - I will only go near bodywork under Chris's supervision for fear if incurring the northern wrath - and minor details.

Amy.

[Amy]

'Amy is swanning around somewhere with some sort of wedding excuse'

Yup, I spent large amounts of my weekend with my head up the bride's skirt (well you trying putting a
wedding dress up in a bustle...)

Well done Jack it is about time you made a honest woman out of Amy !!!!! - but you are not planning the honeymoon in the 'Scrappy Camper' are you ?

Actually, I'm planning on hiring the Love Bus out as the perfect wedding vehicle. All it needs is a bit of a paint job and then it'll be ideal. So, Chris, when you've got a spare weekend or two...

[Chris Spencer]

Amy - Get Jack to mask the windows off and then drive past the end the of the road on Saturday (it does not matter if the windows are masked up with Jack driving - it will be an improvement on his driving skills if he can not be distracted by other road users) I will throw a bucket of paint over the love bus as it passes - Jack can pick the flies out of the paint afterwards.

[Jack]

Quick update - the seat, carpet templates, and various other bits of trim have gone in to the professionals to get made. Amy was in charge of colour selection, the carpets a very sensible tan colour, and the seat is a lighter shade of brown.

I think I have worked out what to do on the hood, just a few more little jobs to do and then we should, perhaps, have a complete car.

The windows were looking good, with glass in place on the passenger side, drivers side in progress at the moment.

I am hoping to collect the front grille from the chromers on Monday, so that can go on while we wait for carpets to be done.

Jack.

[Forumadmin]

Watch out in the Practical Classics mags this week for news of the Classic Car Competition!

[Jack]

More car stuff today, with the chrome strip for the bonnet going on, now needs to come off for a minor adjustment, but it was looking good. Should really have taken a photo, but will get plenty of those soon enough

A template was made for the carpet behind the seat, unfortunately we didn't get this done before I visited the trimmers this week. Luckily we can post the templates up there for them this week.

Chris and Amy spent the day working on the bodywork, the boot looks completely different to before, all the marks and lines are coming out of the paint as planned. I think we have a couple of wings to get done and the drivers door, but not too far to go now with this.

I fitted the Jowett Centenary Badge to the front end, it's the only badge that is going on the front for now, right dead centre and looking good, I did have to make up a bracket to mount it securely.

Lots of playing with windows going on, several challenges that Keith will be able to explain. Not a simple thing to fix but gradual progress happening on that front.

Jack.

[Amy]

Chris and Amy spent the day working on the bodywork

We did indeed. I hadn't done anything to the bodywork as I daren't without Chris's expert tutelage, but at we were both present and (almost) correct today I resumed the mantle of bodywork apprentice. Pre-Wakefield we had flatted, cut, polished and waxed the bonnet and nothing else as we completely ran out of time; the rest of the car has been awaiting attention.

When I arrived, Chris was flatting back the nearside panels and I was soon put to work cutting the passenger door - the paintwork on this door had suffered due to some bubble wrap being put on it when it was drying and had unfortunately marked the paint; Chris flatted it, I cut, and then we did it all again as the marks were still showing. It's now been flat and cut twice and whilst there a very few marks remaining Chris assures me that these will disappear with the T-cut and wax stages of the process

Chris has flatted the nearside rear wing and the boot, and I have started my way down the wing with the cutting. I did also find myself cutting the inside of the door panel Well, it didn't seem right to be doing all the other panels and not those...and after all, you will see them when the door's open! I am blaming Chris for infecting me with this level of pedantry about bodywork.

I'll be continuing with cutting this week, and we're all hoping to be able to put in a full weekend next weekend which should see the back of the main work on the bodywork.

The bodywork side of things is still very new to me (hence not daring to do anything without my superviser being present!) but it's an immensely satisfying process seeing the paintwork transform from a relatively rough coat into a beautifully shiny finish. It's hard work (I suspect my hands are going to be sore tomorrow), but it makes a huge difference to the car and it'll be well worth all of the effort that will have been put in.

On other things, the Centenary badge and bonnet chrome looks really nice and the front of the car will really look the part with the newly-chromed grille once we have that back from the chromers'. The strip went on rather easier than I suspect we anticipated (this is a Jowett we're talking about after all), but the ease with which that went on was more than compensated for by the trouble dad was having with the windows - Clements snr can tell you all about that.

Amy.