Great SC rebuild.......

[Forumadmin]

My morning fitting the petrol cap (having assembled it the previous night) was interrupted by a phone call saying my mother had collapsed again. She was taken to hospital in the week having suffered a heart attack (so we had my Dad staying with us) but returned yesterday and so Dad returned to their flat. Luckily a friend was with my Mum and called the ambulance and me.

The day was also interrupted for lunch so an extremely grumpy northerner was in the garage after our return from a late lunch. No amount of tea, cakes from Amy and warm water for his rubbing down bucket from me dissolved his grumpiness, until that is he sacked me as tea boy and promoted Jack to tea boy.

[Amy]

I have, I'm afraid, done shamefully little to the car today. As reported by Jack, I returned from my work trip to the South West (having taken in Brixham, Plymouth, Penzance and Newlyn in the space of 3 days) rather tired, and promptly fell asleep on the sofa last night whilst Jack went to work on the car

I went round Clements Snr residence today to embark on car things to find dad absent taking car of Grandpa and chaos ensuing... suffice to say I managed to get about an hour or so's work done on the car (more t-cutting) before Granddaughterly duties once more intervened, and by the time I'd finished I was told I wasn't allowed to do anything on the car as Chris had been doing some more touching-up on paint.

So, a long day in the garage is due from me tomorrow, further family emergencies allowing...

[Amy]

Oh, and the link to the Watford Observer article is here:

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/8 ... _the_year/

[Jack]

Another day of work on the car, made a bit easier by Amy turning off all my alarms, leaving me asleep and going to work on the car. At lunchtime I woke up totally confused, and promptly got myself some food and round to get on with the car.

First job was to deal with the trim above the windscreen - after some tweaking I managed to get these to look acceptable. That's about as far as I could get them with the time available, they look ok but when we've got more time I want to get these properly finished off.

Image shows them while we were busy fitting the seat base, dodgy phone camera and not much light at that time of night:

DSC_0254_sized.jpg

Next up was the steering column and gearstick gaiter. Chris' wife Sharon had made a very nice copy of the original, which was held together with old tape and disintegrated a fair bit when taken off, in vinyl matching the rest of the interior of the car. First important job was to fit velcro strips so that this can be removed quickly and easily if required, then to get it attached to the car. Luckily this job was a lot quicker and easier than last time, when it took half a day and a lot of swearing to get it anywhere near fitted. Once this was on, Keith put some sealant around the inside from underneath the bonnet, to avoid any water getting up and in and rotting the carpets.

Finally big job was to get the seat in that PJM had recovered for us. It took a lot longer than planned to get 4 nuts on the ends of the bolts, but after a bit of pushing and shoving the base was in. A little afterwards the back of the seat was attached, so the car is now driveable again.

More dodgy phone pictures, but at least you can see the colour of the seat:

DSC_0257_sized.jpg

Final job was to test the car would start again and that the battery was charging - previously an issue that we'd not dealt with. With a bit of a boost the car started, however it seems we are not getting charge to the battery, issues with the regulator in discussion and potentially fitting an alternator and/or fixing the regulator this week is Keith's only and main focus before Thursday.

There was an issue with paint, that we are going to be tight to sort this week. The paint that was used to touch up the boot and door, and repaint the door caps seems to be more yellow than the paint used to paint the car originally - tomorrow's important job is to find a paint supplier that can match the paint and supply in cellulose before Tuesday, as the paint needs to go on in order to get it flatted and polished for Wednesday. I was wondering what our last minute panic would be, hopefully this should be fixable but it is tight to get paint made up and on the car in time.

Paint issue is just about visible on this photo, top left of the boot:

DSC_0263_sized.jpg

Amy took some photos of the front of the car for insurance purposes, nice shiny new grille:

DSC_0261_sized.jpg

And the engine bay in all its glory:

DSC_0259_sized.jpg

Jack.

[Chris Spencer]

More tasks completed - my main aim was sort out a couple of problems with the paint on the boot and O/S door, I could not get these to a point I was happy with so decided to locally spray them in and that is when the bigger problem appeared. When Keith bought the car all those years ago - the paint came with it - 15 litres of British Racing Green - so by the time I painted the car the paint was heading on for 30 odd years old - well past it's sell by date. However, following a batch mixing to bring all the pigments together in one vat (all the pigments had settled to the bottom of the tins in a semi solid mass) - I trialed the paint and it went on a treat and looked great, but now we are paying the price - I can not get what we had left of the paint to match what we put on the car several months ago. So we now have two mis matched paint areas. Keith's mission tomorrow is try get a paint supplier to mix a fresh batch of paint to match what we have on the car - he is taking a sample of the paint to the motor factors. My misson then is to attempt to get back from Winchester where I am presently working and to Keiths (about a 85 mile trip) for a couple of evening sessions in order to correct the paint issues. Other items that did get done were the completion of cutting all the paint on the remaining panels with Amy's assitance and the wax coats were being applied as I left early to attend a concert in London of one our favourite bands from the 80's.

[Amy]

I left Jack catching up on a few winks this morning and arrived in the workshop this morning to find Chris and dad hard at work.

Jack had told me yesterday that he'd fixed my rear view mirror, but I wasn't quite expecting the 'fix' to look like this:

DSC_0252_sized.jpg

Having made due comment I got down to finishing the t-cut whilst Chris fettled the paint that he'd been touching in. This continued until lunch break which we took just after the spraying that Chris has mentioned. The driver's door doesn't look to bad but the boot is quite noticeable To be honest though, whilst it's not the best, I wouldn't mind going to the NEC as we are - it's a home restoration which has been done under really quite difficult circumstances at times and whilst the car isn't perfect, this time last year it was in a thousand or more bits with completely battered bodywork; to have come as far as we have is little short of amazing and I'm going to be very proud to have the car on the stand at the NEC.

That said, we will be trying to source some paint matched to the car - if anyone knows of any suppliers in Herts / Beds / Bucks / N London that could do this and turn it around in a day or less, please do say so (we have a supplier but time may be an issue so all suggestions welcome).

Aside from the small areas of paint which need redoing, I have now t-cut and double-waxed all of the panels bar the bulkhead. The paint has come up beautifully - pictures really do not show the finish - and I'm really pleased with the result. It's been a tremendously satisfying process to learn how to finish the paintwork and the results really do justice to the time we've put into it.

Whilst I was doing that, Dad and Jack got on with the interior which is now all present and correct. I've not yet sat in my new seat, but I was doing a lot of admiring! I think it looks absolutely smashing

Now to bed...

[Robin Fairservice]

Over here the better auto body shops have computers that can match paint chips.

[Forumadmin]

Some have spectrometers; but I suspect the human eye is more critical. We have managed to buy paint from two sources so will compare tonight to see which is the closest match. One 'matcher' even got down to the statements like ' since it will be on show under flourescent lights I will add a bit of yellow' .
Must go, the workers have arrived.

[Jack]

Well, Jack won the paint match competition - the paint made up at http://www.carpaintco.com/ was deemed to be the closest match we had got. Amy had sourced some made by eye at another paint specialist, so we had a backup plan either way.

Chris was already hard at work when I got down to the garage, preparing the boot and drivers door for repainting. A little while later the paint gun was out and he was spraying.

The results were impressive - the colour is a much closer match than the "old" paint that we had, and the panels are looking massively better. There's still a way to go getting the finish done, but hopefully tomorrow evening it can be cut and prepped. With that done and a bit of wax on it, I don't believe anyone would be able to see the difference. Panic over.

My main job this evening was to clear out the massive amount of stuff that had accumulated behind the car. Everything from spare window mechanisms, tools, loads of offcuts, scraps and rags, as well as all the bits we had taken out of the boot to fit the carpet and stuff from the Rally in May and other trips.

I then spent several minutes picking up nails, screws, sharp bits of wire, and other instant puncture objects from the floor - hopefully now we can safely reverse out of the garage on Thursday!

In the cleaning up and running through the stuff we'll need for the NEC I turned up two little bits of brass. Not any old bits of brass. The fabled headlight motifs that we've been searching for over the last 2 weeks. What a difference a bit of tidying up makes...

Keith and Amy were working on the regulator to try and sort out why the battery isn't charging. The regulator has now been ruled out as the problem we think, so just the dynamo to sort.

Final preparations tomorrow for the rest of us while Chris is working on the paint - we are now down to tidying up the little things and picking at the very very minor details that we can improve. All I need to do now is get to the chromers and convince them to turn the headlight brass around in 24 hours, and get the Dynamo problem sorted.

Jack.

[Chris Spencer]

The main part of my task for this evening was simply getting to Keith's - I currently have a large contract underway with the day job, and I am also in the process of just bringing another two projects to the point where we shall be commencing them in the next few weeks, throw into the mix that there is a couple of smaller contracts to get through at the same time along with the fact that the projects are spread over a large geographical area to the west of the country and you may obtain some idea of my very busy day job.

The M25 motorway nearly foxed my plans but I managed to cut around the lanes to complete my journey - once there the task was easy enough, carefully mask up, degrease with panel wipe, check the paint for closest match, mix the paint and apply. I have blended in the repairs with paint - so rather than paint all of the panel - I have just sprayed in the repair areas - this should ensure a closer match with the surrounding original paintwork. It was only about 5 degrees outside so I have set heat lamps up to speed up the drying process. I demasked the car before leaving and now just need to get back tomorrow evening to undertake the polishing of the new paint areas along with some final detaling.

[Forumadmin]

How to test a Lucas dynamo

A quick test below or the full test in the Gallery . Javelin has C39 PV dynamo. Jupiter has Lucas type C45 PV4.

To test a dynamo, you need a multi-meter which can read 30 volts DC (Direct Current). Any cheap meter will do this job, as you will normally either get the reading you want, or no reading at all.

Before testing the dynamo, check the two cables connected to the rear of the dynamo. Gently pull on the spade connectors to ensure that they are firmly soldered or crimped to the cable. Any loose connection here will play havoc with the charging circuit.

Repeat the check at the other end of these cables which is at the voltage control box.

WARNING: The following procedure involves working in the engine bay with the engine running. Ensure there is no loose clothing and keep your hands and the connections to the test meter clear of the fan blades. Have an assistant available to switch the engine on and off.

This procedure assumes positive earth. Reverse multimeter connections if you have changed to negative earth.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Disconnect both cables from the connections at the back of the dynamo.

Set the meter to 30 volts DC.

Connect one lead from the meter to the chassis or body-work. Ensure a good electrical connection is made.

Connect the other lead of the test meter to BOTH terminals on the dynamo. You might need to twist a bit of wire around both terminals before connecting the lead from the test meter.

Start the engine and let it tick over. Connect the multi- meter's negative cable to the dynamo. Connect the meter's positive terminal to earth (somewhere on the car bodywork).

A reading of between 20 and 24 volts should be seen on the meter. This will vary depending on engine speed, but as a guide at about 750 rpm you should see about 15 volts, rising to over 24 volts at about 1,000 rpm. There is no need to rev the engine above 1,000 rpm when testing a dynamo. If the voltage reading is not present there is a fault.

* A reading of about 1 volt indicates a field winding fault.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Confirm a field winding fault in the dynamo as follows;

Set the multi-meter to Ohms and measure the resistance between the field winding terminal F and the dynamo body. Make sure you get a good connection between the multi-meter probe and the dynamo body. The resistance reading should be 6.2 ohms. If the reading is different from this suspect that the insulated coils are touching the dynamo body OR that the field coils are disconnected.

There is really nothing you can do about that except replace the dynamo.

* If the reading is 4 or 5 volts the armature windings may be faulty.

* If the reading is zero then either a dynamo brush is completely broken or there is some break in the testing circuit. Repeat the test.

If there is definitely no voltage reading then the dynamo needs new brushes or must be replaced.

If the reading is within the ranges indicated (15 - 30 volts) but you still suspect a problem in the charging circuit, test the voltage at the control box end of the F and D cables. (Remember to replace the F and D cables to the dynamo). If the voltage is other than 15 - 30 volts then there is a problem in the wiring loom.

[Forumadmin]

I have been told not to talk about this; but the dynamo was checked, regulator was adjusted as per the Lucas manual in the Gallery, the ignition warning light bulb was changed and suffice it to say the battery now charges.

Lots of polishing by the team tonight who are still hard at it 11.30 in the night. Lots of details such as shortening bolts, triming bulkhead stiffening bars, touch up paint work, refitting rev counter...

But Napoleon is good to go; just contemplating whether to miss the severe weather on Thursday and travel up Wednesday. Heh, is there anything worth doing that is easy?

[Srenner]

So I'm killing time and snooping around eBay and I find a set of headlight motifs ready to go!

Item number: 370453778575

Someone in Ely, which is northeast of London. A club member?

[Forumadmin]

Great thanks will chase up. Jack hopes to get your ones back from chroming tomorrow.

[Chris Spencer]

late night for me - but got the repaired paint areas sorted by flatting back, compound cutting - elbow grease and waxing. Some minor odds of paint touching in, the others will advise in seperate blogs as to what they got done. The car is as ready as it ever is going to be for the show - and looks without any doubt 'Bloody Fantastic' - Amy, Keith & Jack you should be without question very proud of your committment and effort to acheive what is very much a headturning car from a pile of near scrap and in such a short timeframe. It also needs to be said that unlike most restorations this project has not been the subject of an open cheque book - and the complete car has been restored on what most owners of a classic car would spend a decent paint job alone.