Spyder restoration - long time coming

[peteracs]

Hi

Ok, bit more of an update, managed to get regular time on the car now, even with the cold temperatures (not too wet thankfully), I have to work with the garage doors open so pray for light winds.......

Jobs done since the last update, again bound to miss a few, but here goes. There are some much better photos from a real camera attached of the engine bay as of today.

Tidied up the wiring loom in the cabin around the steering column. Had to drop the column as where it passes over the column support was very tight. Found that it had previously had a small 'mod' done to the two indicator wires , they appear to have been cut and a piece of wire inserted (maybe due to chaffing?), the method of connection was twist the wires together, tape with insulating tape and hope...... Replaced with soldered joints and heat shrink, then the whole lot loom taped up to where it emerges into the engine bay.

Installed the steering column bulkhead seal when I worked out what it looked like, then put the steering column and rack all tightened up (after I sorted the foot brake and clutch mechanisms, see below).

Installed the fusebox support and started installing the fusebox and nearby relays, however need to get a decent blowup of the wiring circuit made as there are way too many red wires..... and there is little slack in the wiring at this point. The wiring in the engine bay as you can see is a complete rats nest at the moment, will need to have the tape taken off all and relaid out then taped up when I have the fusebox and relays installed.

Jobs now turned to the engine bay.

Removed, painted, greased and replaced the clutch and foot brake mechanisms. This is a right hand car, so a bit more to it than left hand ones I think. Clutch cable greased the best I could. A pretty fiddly job for the foot brake and having the column loose helped.

Removed the clutch cable tripod piece on the gearbox, cleaned and painted, then found it was twisted, so had to start again with one of a spare engine..... Removed, cleaned and painted the gear lever on the top of the gearbox, also removed the clutch activation lever which was and absolute pig. It has splines and they were rusted, had to leave soaking in WD40 for about 5 days, eventually it came off. Now cleaned and painted. Bothe the clutch and gear lever have had Copperslip applied so they should come off easily next time....

Clutch cable installed with its protecting grommet near the battery box.

Installed the already cleaned and painted cowling for the radiator, the radiator and the electric fan. Checked out what pipe work I had and ordered some new stainless jubilee clips. Still need the odd pipe to replace poor ones, but will get around to that soon.

Installed the already painted bonnet stay and the spring loop for the bonnet.

Installed the bonnet angle pieces which go from the strut tops to the front of the car.

Then a major event. I had previously installed one of the update kits for the gear linkage and now actually installed all the gear change items from the gear lever in the cabin to the gear lever on the gearbox. This includes the swivel arrangement just below the rack at the back of the engine. I thought I may have to take the rack out, but thankfully there is just enough room. Various parts were cleaned and painted along the way and plenty of grease applied to the swivel and the metal joints of the connecting bar supplied with the kit. All looks very tidy to my eyes (see photo).

That will do for now, but next up are getting the hubs back together, that is for the next post......

Peter

[HFStuart]

It's really coming together. Don't forget to connect the reversing light switch while you can get to it!

[peteracs]

It's really coming together. Don't forget to connect the reversing light switch while you can get to it!

Hi Stuart

Thanks, yes easy enough with the side panel off and no battery tray.

On that subject the guys who restored the body actually welded the battery tray onto the supports, all well and good unless you want to get the engine out I think, so that is why the supports are a mess, I drilled out the welds. Have to trim the supports and sort some sort of brackets for the battery tray. I have a fresh one all painted ready to go on when the time is right!

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi All

A wet Sunday here, so what would normally be a garden day, has been swapped for a car day (the garden day is now Monday, i.e. today....)

One of the jobs I was least looking forward to was tightening the hub nuts up tight enough. I know the effort required to get them off which resulted in a visit to the local garage. The main issue was how to fasten the hub with putting strain on the gearbox etc. So.... I dreamt up a framework using angle iron, in the end all I actually needed was a decent piece of old angle iron (the remnants of one of my neighbours gates as it happens) drilled to accept two of the hub bolts and relieved so the socket would fit on the nut. This was fastened using some old hub bolts which were packed with washers and I used the spacer which goes in front on the disc normally to pack them out so there was just the thread showing and did not stick out the back of the hub too much. Then you could tighten it all up nicely. Photo of it in situ below. I could then apply a load of effort to the nut with out undue strain to the drivetrain. I am lucky enough to have a monster torque wrench (see below) which just goes up to the required torque. With this all in place it was a very simple job to torque up to the correct value, a great relief all round.

[peteracs]

After that it was fairly plain sailing to assemble the new disks, spacers, brake yoke and the already rebuilt calipers using Copperslip on the wedge pieces to hope keep them from seizing in future. Both sides completed by the end of the day. Only job now are the brake pipes and final connection of the roll (sway) bar. Altogether a satisfying day.
 

[smithymc]

Inspirational stuff Peter- keep it going!

Makes my fiddling with window regulators and Rev counters seem pretty minor- not that any of it has been successful- yet.

Mark

[mangocrazy]

Very much liking the 'special tool' to get the hub nuts tightened up, Peter. Using the mass of the car as mechanical advantage (or disadvantage, depending on your view). Must try and remember that one. We had a similarly wet Sunday, which I used as a carb, thermostat and exhaust day (but motorbike, not car).

[peteracs]

One thing I forgot to mention was the wishbone ball joint. As with the CV joint, different suppliers/manufacturers, all saying for the Beta.

I already had a new one from a few years ago which fits really nicely and looks like the originals on the car, the second one I ordered end of last year and it was a Delphi part TC195 which according to info is 100% for the car. It fits into the hole just fine and locates on the hole in the hub again perfect, the problem is that when tightened the stud part protrudes too far and interferes with the CV joint, not too useful. In the interest of actually making progress and the next one may also have issues, I cut just over 5mm from the top of the stud part, now fits perfectly. If you need to make this mod, do not forget to put a nut on BEFORE you cut the thread and then file down the rough edge. This makes putting the nut back on a whole lot simpler. On the ball joint there is obviously no spanner point on the stud, so I used a bit of an old rubber pipe wrapped round the tapered section and held it with grips, that way you can screw/unscrew the nut without damaging the taper.

Peter

[dommorello]

Great work Peter! Awesome progress. In our experience great to get thinks fitted but as like your issue with rack ya can't get to excited once something has been fitted as it is most probably going to come off again to fit something else. Keep up good work!!

Sent from my HTC 2PS6200 using Tapatalk

[peteracs]

Not much achieved recently as had some work work and refurbishing a kitchen and cleaning a flat to do, all very boring and getting in the way..... Still they do bring in some useful cash.

Anyway enough of my moaning. I made a little progress to date.

1) Ordered and received the T pieces for the heater pipework mod, see photo. Going to refit the heater before I sort out the pipework.

2) Installed the new HEL brake flexible hoses which I ordered ages ago from Camskill. The original ones were incorrect, had to return and send a pattern. The replacements are spot on. a couple of points -

           a) They do not have the small locating dowel of the originals which locate on the calliper. I do not think this is a big issue.
           b) The end which attaches to the inner wing have a round profile with a nut at one end, the original Beta ones have two flats for using a
               spanner. This means the locating bracket on the inner wing are also not fully round. The solution is a small amount of fettling with a round
               file to make them fit. The original retaining clips are a perfect fit on the new hoses.
           c) There is a retaining clip on the strut for the two hoses. I reused the original rubber grommet, but the hoses are much thinner than the
               originals, so I used some old inner tube to pad out the hose and make it a snug fit. I also had to slit the old rubber grommet to get it off
               the original hoses, so I used a ty-wrap to hold the long thin end together. End result I think is quite neat and should do the job.

[peteracs]

One thing I did manage to have a play with last week, which is my next task, is to look to replace all the brakes pipes.

Never have tried this before, so leap in the dark. I have a Bubble flaring tool by Sykes Pickavant which I was given by my father and have bought a couple of bending tools, pipe cutter and a number of screw ends. Until I started looking I did not realise there were different 'flares' used on brake lines, the 'Bubble" being the one used on moderns normally and older European cars from what I can understand.

So far results have been 1 x really good one, several average to poor ones made. I need to get some more practice before I go for broke on the long lengths. It looks like I need to measure the length and make up one end before I start bending as some of the routing will be a challenge and will not leave much room to flare the end after bending in situ.

Here are the two bending tools, happy with the yellow one, will have to go carefully with the blue handled one which is handy when there is not a lot of room to effect a bend.

[peteracs]

Hi All

Well, long time since I posted an update and in reality a long time since I did any work on the car. Reasons were mainly down to all change at home. We decided in 2017 to move house i.e. downsize and I was going to reduce my hours of paid for work (I work for myself) and was spending a fair amount of time getting into road cycling as well. We moved house eventually back end of 2018 which entailed not only a house move, but moving all my Beta spares and garage contents to my parents house, putting all my work computer stock into a large rental container (we bought and sold second user computer gear). Then we started making the mods to the new house which has taken just over a year. Part of this means I have sorted out the new (double) garage to be reasonably draft proof via a roller shutter door which makes winter work most acceptable especially with a small space heater, changed all the strip lights to LEDs ones, which was a great result, reduced the doubles to singles for essentially the same light output as the old fluorescents and sealed the concrete floor to reduce the dust.

The Beta was moved across early in 2019 and has been just covered up until recently.

Middle of the year I had to do a large service on the Saab which was due including usual oil change etc, but also included the cam belt, brake fluid and auto gearbox oil replacement, none of which I had done before on it, so big learning curve especially the cam belt which involves a fair amount of parts to be removed. It would have been easier if I could have moved the Beta outside, so pretty cramped. Eventually all sorted and the Saab is now outside under a protective cover when not in use which is most of the time.....

So around November last year I managed top start work on the Beta. I still have the water pipework to finish, but decided to start on the last big job underneath which is the rear suspension. So there followed several days of trying and eventually succeeding in removing the rear hubs, brakes and struts. The retaining bolts between the struts and the hub proved to be very hard work, some taking a good hour or more to remove with liberal application of easing fluid and a pry bar etc. The end result was everything was removed except the rear suspension arms which attach to the centre of the car. On inspection the bushes appear good and replacing one of the bushes in these arms was an absolute pain, so they will remain as is. The other item which was not really worn, just old, was the rear disks, which were just rusty, but no obvious wear, unlike the fronts.

The rest of the items including dampers (original replaceable type fortunately), hub bearings, callipers, spring top metal plates and hub retaining rings are to be replaced/resealed. I was fortunate to have a couple of the rear callipers which did not have the bleed nipples sealed and look ok. I also have a new seal kit for them.

One item I almost left alone was the rear brake balancer fixed to the rear anti roll bar. This adjusts the effort to the rear brakes when the car 'lifts' at the back. I decided to remove it and very pleased I did. There is a plunger in the unit operated vi a bar from the anti roll bar and covered with a rubber boot. Under this boot I guess it should be filled with grease, but on mine after 40 years, this was just powder and the plunger was completely stuck. I was considering referring the unit with new seals, but failing to be able to open it up and then finding these are still available new and only costing £14 from a seller on Ebay, I just bought a new one. These are used on some Citroen cars apparently as well as Fiats.

I have spent the last 3 months therefore removing, cleaning and repainting where necessary the rear suspension. A few still to do and I still have to clean and paint in the wings, especially the top of the turrets which are not too bad, but need some protection before I reassemble the whole thing.

I will post some photos of the parts as I have them now when I get chance to line them up!

Peter

[mangocrazy]

Good stuff Peter. Life does unfortunately get in the way of Beta fettling. Glad to hear you're back on the refurb again. Sounds like it's fairly close to completion?

[peteracs]

Hi Graham

Close!!!!

No chance, still have the full interior to go back in and I have never had the engine running yet.......

Peter

[peteracs]

Here are some photos of the parts removed, cleaned and painted. A few more comments -

As mentioned the rear brake balancer is operated by a lever which you can see at the bottom of the photo with the springs in it. This lever runs through a rubber bush fastened to the bottom of the car. Tnis bush was in perfect condition, just needing a clean from the slight rusting of the bar. The end of the lever which attaches to the anti roll bar has ring into which goes two opposing bushes and has a metal spindle through the bushes. There is an identical ring/bushes/spindle on the part which is fastened to the anti roll bar and the two are connected via two plates with holes in and fastened with bolts. These 4 bushes were totally degraded and pretty much crumbled on removal. They are also found on Fiat 124s and are available from a few sources, I ordered mine from Mark W.

The ends of the anti roll (sway) bar are different on these early Betas in that they attach to the hubs via a ball joint arrangement rather than the bushes found on later cars. The two are not inter changeable either bar or hub. The removal of the ball joint from the anti roll bar was an absolute pig, necessitating the effective destruction of the ball joint. Fortunately I found a couple of NOS ones in Italy at not too silly money, which is a welcome change from a lot of Italian sellers who seem to want a fortune for ‘special’ pieces as I cannot imagine these were used on any other vehicle. The new ball joints can be seen in the photo with the new brake balancer.

As mentioned above I managed to end up with two decent rear callipers. I managed to separate the yoke piece from the main body again with some difficulty. There is a small 4mm pin which in theory you press in, not on these, I ended up drilling them out and have bought some 4mm pins to replace them. After this it was a case of a fair amount of hammer time to separate the yoke from the body as corrosion builds between the cast of the yoke and the alloy of the rest of the calliper. Cleaned up they slide on easily.......

The yoke needs to come off to allow you to remove the main cylinder and hence renew the seals. Also you need to remove the rear screw arrangement which is part of the hand brake assembly. I managed to find a NOS handbrake cable locally which was handy.

The last items I am finishing off are the struts. As per normal on stripping down the metal plates which sit on top of the springs were non existent, just a distant memory with a rust colour on the upper rubber support. The 4 rubber supports wee not in bad condition, though I replaced the worst one with another I had spare. One of the original dampers appeared very stiff so I made up a tool to remove the retaining nut and removed both of the inserts. One appeared ok, the other had very cruddy oil so obviously dirt had been getting in. I bought some time ago a pair of sealed replacement gas inserts, so I am going to paint the strut body inside and out and use them. Handily they come with their own retaining nut which does not require a special tool, just a large spanner.

[peteracs]

Another couple of photos. First is of the rubber parts of the struts (+ the yokes from the callipers which I missed off the earlier photos). The rubber parts were cleaned and then finished with Autoglym vinyl/rubber restorer which gives a nice finish to parts. I have used it on various of the rubber and vinyl parts in the car and makes a tired old part look cared for. It was especially effective on the rubber matting in the boot which came with the early Spyders.

The second photo is the parts from Mark which had perished/rusted away. two spring support plates, 4 off bushes for the rear brake balancer mechanism and two rear bearing retaining ring. The spring supports fit superbly onto the spring and rubber, I assume they come via the tool which Matt had made many moons ago? Also the rubber bushes are very well shaped (slightly conical) with a small shoulder and again fit perfectly.

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi All

Been a while since I posted and even with lockdown not managing too much time on the car, but doing a bit each week, so will get there eventually.....

Since the last post I have built up and fitted the rear struts. The rear hubs proved to be a learning curve on replacing the bearings. Removing the old bearings was not too difficult, only removing the hub nut as usual was pig. Use of a puller did most of the rest. On removing the bearing it will split into component parts which was not an issue as I was replacing them. The big issue was installing the the new bearing. I initially enlisted my vice to press in the bearing into the hub which was not so easy, but doable in absence of any press. Then came the problem of how to press the hub onto the stub axle. At this point I relented and press go on buying a cheap Chinese 6 ton press from Ebay.....

The side story here is that it arrived pretty promptly and I assembled and tried it out, whereupon the bottle jack failed within 5 seconds.... All very frustrating. After some Googleing, I found that they can get trapped air in the jack and there is a technique to bleed them which involves pumping the jack with the valve open and rotating it as well. Pumping with the valve open, no problem, rotating another story as the bottle jack is held in the 30+ kilo frame by strong springs. This was solved by use of a ratchet strap to allow the jack to be removed, duly pumped and rotated and that solved the problem immediately, a good result.

So back the hub and I soon wished I had bought one of these presses a while ago as it made light work of the hubs and has been put into use for various jobs since. One faux pas was when I reassembled the second hub was to put it onto the stub axle the wrong way round, end result one wrecked bearing prompting buying another....

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

You are doing well and I have a long way to go to catch up! I agree on getting a press. Not a lot of money for jobs you have o do on Beta and Montecarlos as service work.

Cheers

Eric

[peteracs]

Hi Eric

Thanks, it has been a long time, 10 years and counting and still a lot to do. A few jobs I am not looking forward to do yet, including the headliner install.

Another post to update to current state to come later today hopefully....

Peter

[mangocrazy]

I must admit that I'd really like to find space for a press in my shed/workshop, unfortunately it would have to contend with the Startrite pillar drill I am restoring, the horizontal bandsaw, the compressor, multiple motorcycle stands, a parts washer, a workbench, some racking and two motorbikes all housed in a 3m x 4m space...

How much was the press you bought, Peter, and what are the approximate dimensions? I suspect that buying from China would be cheaper than buying the steel and welding it up yourself.