Early HPE restoration

[peteracs]

I had a phone call on Saturday whilst at a local car show (East Kirkby aircraft museum) with the Spider. It was John the trimmer who has had the seats/door cards and headlining for what seems eons, in reality since late last year. They were all done and he sent me a photo. A bit of a shock as I had picked a leather and vinyl and asked for the seats to be all leather with vinyl on door cards and seat backs etc. The photos showed that he had simply reproduced the original layout of the seats substituting the old mustard material for leather and keeping the vinyl as was.

So, after calming down and getting home and consulting with better half we agreed that they actually looked very nice in the photos. On to today which was the visit to see them all in the flesh and overall very happy with the result and they are staying as is. He has a a couple of items which I took down to him to do, but the bulk of the trim is now done.

The big problem is that my better half who is much better at colours than me has said that the colour I had settled on, Opaline Green, is not going to work. We are now looking at something more neutral, so back on the hunt.

Photos are not great, the light was is not great in attic room where all the HPE stuff is stored.

Peter

[Clifford]

They look very nice Peter!
How was the cost?
C

[Neil-yaj396]

They look great Peter, probably better than your original plan.....

[SanRemo78]

That'll be a cracking interior Peter!

[peteracs]

Thanks for the positive comments. Just goes to show me and visualising things are not the best. Should leave to my better half.

On the cost it turned out better than I had expected. John had estimated £2300 for the work + materials and that was what he charged me saying it worked out at 8.5 days labour. Materials were £1100 which again seemed reasonable. So £3400 all in. There are a few bits still with him which will be a small amount extra but not significant in extra cost.

Peter

[Clifford]

Thank you for sharing the costs Peter.

[peteracs]

Hi

A bit more painting today on the suspension parts, seems endless at present, but will be good when finished.

I also bit the bullet on brake nuts/unions. I had been looking and bought one or two plated steel ones in the hope of finding some SAE flare compatible ones, but pretty much everyone seems to stock the 90 degree DIN style ones which are the standard ones over here in Europe from what I can tell. The original Lancia ones and more importantly the flaring tool I use is SAE and the only folk who seemed to understand what they have are Automec (https://www.automec.co.uk/) who are also normally at the NEC show. They only supply brass unions which are a bit on the expensive side compared to steel ones, but will not rust. So having given up on normal suppliers I put a search in for brass M10 x 1.25mm and came up with two companies who obviously supplied Automec products, one was a lot cheaper than the manufacturer, so order placed, followed quickly by a sorry we do not have stock and supplier has none available, obviously not true, but ok refund received and on with the next supplier. Order placed and I failed to do my usual, does the website give telephone and address on the website. An email confirming order was received though it did not have any address, though did have a mobile number. I then visited the website home page and was dismayed to read that the site was corrupted and do not place an order……..

So thinking the order would have gone down a black hole, I tried ringing the tel nos which did not ring, oh boy, however I did send a text and also a WhatsApp message and WhatsApp rang, but was not answered. I also sent an email and after no response started a recovery via PayPal. This was over Thursday/Friday and on Sunday I got a text back saying will sort on Monday. I then received a text saying posted Monday evening and they arrived today. So good result in the end, note to self check website before ordering. In the end these unions were over a £1 each less than the manufacturer which probably means he had old stock.

Enough rambling, latest supply problem is a new pair of light surrounds from Italy to our friends in France which due to the Local French Post Office being closed for two weeks due to holiday (!) the parcel was returned to sender. I now have to sort that out. Never ending sorting out parts at present.

[peteracs]

Had to abort (for now at least) going to France this last weekend due to ill dog. So managed to grab a few hours to do some more painting of suspension, loads still to clean and paint, but little by little. Also at last put my parts washer into action. First up was the sump. Not in bad condition, but going to be modified with one of Mark’s baffle kits. So after a quick clean, I drilled out the spot welds I could get to and ground out the rest to take out the existing baffle (early style) and the back to the parts washer. It will need a bit of tidying before adding the kit, but a pretty solid sump all ready to go. Also happy with the parts washer.

Peter

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

Tidy work and glad the parts washer is giving good service. On the sump I would be doing the sandblasting next to have it paint ready once the welding is done and much more importantly you can be certain you have all the sand out before baffles are in the way. You also find out if surface rust is really pin holes needing welding.

Enjoy

Eric

[peteracs]

Hi Eric

Thanks, good idea.

Peter

[peteracs]

The final part of the trimming is the addition of the metal strips to the door cards. On the actual door cards I have ordered some plastic chrome adhesive strip which is similar to that on my Spider which has lasted well and looks the part. The rear cards however are stainless strips which are attached with bits of cut steel. Original attachment clip piece is in first photo. No idea if any were available, so I bought some steel sheet, using a pair of tin snips, made the 18 I needed and finished them with etch primer. They are not pretty, but are functional and will not be seen. I still have to polish the stainless strips before installing them. Second photo is a few of the completed clips.

Peter

[Nigel]

It's always quite satisfying making things like this, especially
knowing they're not available.

Well executed!

Nigel

[squiglyzigly]

Nice work Peter. I like little challenges like this. I’ve given up trying to find the plastic ‘X’ clips that hold all the side mouldings to doors, boot
, wings etc, and now I make them out of stainless sheet with stainless m4 studs welded on. My trims are now bolt-on which is a little fiddly but they last forever and are infinitely reusable.

Ian

[peteracs]

As if planned the plastic chrome trim arrived the day after I finished the clips, 6mm wide, 5m long and should do the job of lifting the look of the front door cards a treat.

Peter

[peteracs]

A parcel arrived today from Vehicle Wiring Products who I bought my Spade terminals from for the Spider. This time as I aim to completely re-wire the HPE from scratch, I have bought some cable. My intention is to use as much of the original colour coding for cables as possible eg pink/black for the brake pad/reservoir fault cable. VWP have all the mix of colours that I needed, not too bad pricing, decent quality and thin wall, so all the requirements I wanted. My first pass on buying was to buy all the low current cables, 15 reels of 30m and when I get around to actually creating the loom, to use some old cable to measure the lengths I need for the higher rated cables which are naturally significantly more expensive. VWP sell by the metre as well as by the reel which is useful for the expensive cables.

Peter

[Neil-yaj396]

Are you going to build the loom on a board on the wall? This was the method used by Andy Tate when he did an Aurelia loom. He posted pictures on the LMC Forum I think. Obviously your HPE loom will be more complex.

[peteracs]

Hi Neil

I did consider if I could do that, but given a complete change of relays and fuse box I decided it was way simpler to just run the wires on the actual car after I have located any fixtures such as relay box. Some parts will obviously be pretty much the same such as the rear lights etc, but around the dashboard it will be completely different. One thing I hated on the Spider was the mass of wires which go above the steering column on the (early only?) right hand drive cars.

I am hoping that this thin wall cable will also make life a bit easier.

Peter

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

When I did this for my VX Beta Spider I had the loom out of the car and removed the loom tape using not fully tightened cable ties at the branches to keep the shape of the loom (what the pins do on a pin board) I then replaced a wire at a time always leaving a little extra if in doubt. Be aware you pattern might have areas shortened by previous owners like the door switch wires. Also some terminals like those to the Instrument cluster PCB are a real problem to get so you might have to join to original loom sections for this area.

A Peg Board approach is probably quicker but involves a LOT of measuring.

Eric

[peteracs]

Hi Eric

Yes a strip down of tne original loom would have been a way to go if I was using the original fuse box etc, but I am not and most likely changing location, so original loom will be of limited use. Simpler to start from scratch on the actual car.

Thanks

Peter

[peteracs]

Here is a selection of parts which have been wire wheeled, rust inhibited, primer and two coats of Hammerite done over several weeks. Still plenty more to do, but getting there. Still have to clean paint form threads and any surfaces which need to be flat, but that will be done in due course.

Also started re-assembling the Power Steering rack. Using a seal kit from Mark which comes from Transtec the main source of these parts for old ZF racks. So far found a couple of missing/wrong parts in the kit which I will list once I have finished assembling it.

Peter