Early HPE restoration

[peteracs]

Mild steel metal tube arrived over the weekend and made up a tool to remove the original nits from the top of the front struts. Annoyingly the tool I made for the rear struts is bigger, so new tool now made, nut removed and old strut insides removed. Just need to clean the body up, give it some paint and install the inserts I bought from Mark.

One comment on removing the nut is that they needed to be ‘shocked’ into loosening, rather than trying to force with constant pressure. ideally I would have welded a nut to the tube and used the impact gun, but not having a welder, I used a bar and a hammer to achieve the same result.

Peter

[SanRemo78]

Remarkably similar to the tool I made for the same job Peter! I noted the the tube tops had been slightly crushed at opposite sides to prevent the nut accidentally loosening. I fitted a nylon bush on the top of the tool to prevent damage to the rod should it have slipped when a pipe wrench was used. More important on reassembly obviously.

[peteracs]

Hi Guy

Yes, noticed the small crimping on the top of the tube which I lightly loosened. I have replacement inserts and they normally come with a hex nut style top, so should not be required hopefully.

Peter

[peteracs]

Bit of a fail today. I finished putting together the power steering rack with the two boots left loose so I could see any ATF leaking, which turned out to be a wise decision. I hooked up the electric power steering pump with the rack on the bench and fired it up. Result was ATF all over, it does make a mess. Amongst the many seals on the rack are two chunky ones with wire springs to keep their shape. The one in the shaft, which is the extension of the column, is easy enough to fit and that appears ok, the one on the rod where the steering arms attach is not so easy. It lies at the bottom of a longish tube and I had used a socket on an extension to push it home, I obviously did not give it enough as the movement of the rod had loosened it. I guess if it is in place correctly the pressure of the pump will make sure it locates permanently, but on first firing up, if there is a gap, no pressure will be built up. So after an good hour or so cleaning up the mess and stripping that part of the rack, washing out the ATF soaked boots and having another go at pushing the seal home, I packed up for the day. Will see if I can drum up the enthusiasm to have another go tomorrow.

Peter

[peteracs]

Reseated seal today and put it all back together, attached pump and no leaks thankfully. I am not 100% sure this electric pump will do the job, but I guess that I will only know when I attach the rack to the car and with wheels on I try to move the steering wheel. So for now the rack can go on the shelf until that time comes.

Peter

[peteracs]

Another thing ticked off the list. I picked up the 5 wheels from Simply Wheels in Lincoln. They were the only place reasonably local who advertised acid dipping etc, rather than most of the tyre places who probably just pass to them over to these guys. They have had them for some weeks now and rang to say they were ready. End result was ok, not brilliant or as good a finish as my Spider wheels. They were not expensive at £60 inc vat per wheel, just wish the finish was a little better. I would suspect that due to them being seriously busy the attention to detail is not what it should have been and I had to take the view having the odd one redone would not necessarily have improved the situation given the issues are pretty minor. The car is also not a show car, it is to be used. If it annoys me too much I have a 1 year warranty on them.

One thing which has been sort of solved was the odd one out wheel. When I bought the wheels I bought 4 identical rims from one seller and later one from Ebay which also had a tyre on it. This one had different positions for the labels in the casting and the shapes of some of the edges were slightly rounder than the other 4. I also compared them with similar rims on other cars and they all were the same as the set of 4. I now have just the rims and noticed the odd one out has what looks like steel inserts where the bolts fit (see photo). Also the set of 4 weigh around 6Kg each, the odd one less than 5Kg, so I suspect the odd one may be Magnesium, the others the normal alloy which explains the difference.

Peter

[Clifford]

Overall they don't look too bad for £60 quid a shot.

[peteracs]

Hi

Just to avoid confusion, that was £60 for the refurb, the rims cost me £50 each.

Peter

[peteracs]

Currently out in France. I had a delivery yesterday from La Poste. It was a parcel originally sent the end of May from Italy to one of our neighbours here in France. When it arrived they were away for the week so it went to the local post office. When they callled at the post office it was closed for two weeks due to holidays! So as the parcel was not collected within two weeks it was returned to sender. The returned parcel took 3 months to get back to him and arrived back just under two weeks ago. He contacted me and I paid a second shipping and it arrived here after 5 days. The parcel had two new headlight surrounds still in their dusty packaging.

We were also supposed to be here during July/August but the dog decided differently and had to have an op, she is fine, but scuppered our visit. I had organised a n other package to be delivered and had to organise it to then be delivered to a different neighbour to the above (I thought they would not look on me kindly if this one causes hassle). Fortunately all went well and they have kept it for me since. I recovered it from them today. The package has front seat mechanisms which I have, but importantly the outer silver coloured plastic covers on mine are badly marked and these are pretty good for nearly 50 years. I do have some later black ones, but wanted to fit the original silver.

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

Back from France and visited John the bodyman’s place today. I wanted to collect a couple of colour samples and offer up two interior panels which I had overlooked when giving the parts to the trimmer. These fit above and behind the rear turrets and are sheet steel covered in foam and vinyl. As I suspected at least one was deformed and was good to offer up to the body before I get them recovered. Also the good news John is finally on with the job, windscreen has been sorted and he had asked for my spare front dash as the mounts need to be transferred over from the original front. The early dash has completely different mounts to the later as well as having bulkhead holes for the fresh air vents. There will also be a few changes to the front to accommodate the old grill and the radiator, but hopefully not too many. I did not get any photos this time, but will on my next visit.

Peter

[peteracs]

Another visit to see John as he asked me to come over to see the scale of the job as they have now started the work in earnest…….

So a few photos and explanation. First up is they have finished where the new front meets the old back section on the windscreen surrounds and repaired the area at the lower corners of the screen surround which is often rotted out. The repair section for the corner came from the donor car.

[peteracs]

Next they have now cutout the complete sill under the door, both top, lower outer, middle and some of the inner.

[peteracs]

Now we have a big gap, we need something to fill it, the outer cover sill I had already bought from Mark, the top part of the sill under the door John visited a friend over the way from him who makes guttering and he bent up the steel to suit (photo), John then formed the curve to suit the rear edge. He is also going to ask him to make the lower sill part from under the car. John has also made the middle sill panels with the stiffening holes (photo), he is also going to reproduce the indentations of the originals.

Whilst all this looks fairly scary it should go back together reasonably quickly, it is all the small areas of missing metal, of which there are a fair number, which is what is going to take the time and also the patchwork quilt on the rear turrets. All this was mainly revealed after the dipping, good to know, but would I have wanted to start from here? Perhaps not…..

Peter

[SanRemo78]

The 'screen repair looks familiar.... Great progress, the only way to deal with the rot.

[peteracs]

Hi Guy

Yes, nice job, am not however looking forward to the bills which will be coming along over the next few months………

We have decided (I think!) on a colour for the car. After some very long consideration with the management and going through a number of paint books, we have decided on a VW Caramel metallic which tones well with the interior colours. Because it is almost impossible to get a decent representation of the colour in a photo, and the colour varies hugely with how the light falls on it I am not going to try to post a photo. Not quite what I had in mind at the beginning, but the result should be worth the wait (hopefully!).

Peter

[SanRemo78]

The colour for the Coupe is decided for me. It's the metallic grey of the VX cars, appropriate given it'll have a VX interior. I've even acquired the paint code sticker for the boot lid. And like an idiot I forgot I may have a choice of boot lids so should have bought two....
Guy

[peteracs]

Not sure I see you swapping boot lids when it is finished?

[peteracs]

A little more progress on the cleaning front.

Stripped down the drive shafts with the inner CVS on them. Thoroughly messy job and have been putting it off for ages. I aim to reuse the inner CVs and have new outer ones. The olde parts now just need a good wash in the parts washer and reassembly after inspection.

I also stripped down the seat runners. What did surprise me is the variations with them. My Spider runners use completely different regal/rubber bobbins, much larger than on the HPE or Coupe, however the runners on my HPE are most likely different to the runners off the Coupe in that the seat retaining/adjusting mechanism is only on the outer (door side) , there is nothing on the inner slider to stop it moving. On the Spider and the Coupe there is a retainer/adjuster on the inner slider which links across to the outer via a wire. I can only assume this was a hang over from S1 seats? The seat tilting mechanism is also different to the Coupe. Also the inner slider has a series of ball bearings as well as a couple of large bobbins (different again to the Spider).

One thing which amused me on the Spider and also on the HPE runners was that some of the bobbins were missing. Given how hard it is to get some of them out and not sure why anyone would have messed with them as all original material. Maybe missing from new….?

Photo shows one of the HPE seat runner set

Peter

[Nigel]

Hi Peter,

You're correct about the lack of double latching, which is standard on almost all
seats. Yours must be really early.
If you retained any bits from the Coupe, these are the stuff you want.

I do have a couple of rollers spare but, as you say, sizes differ. Let me know.
It would obviously be better if you could fit double-latching runners for more seat security.

Nigel

[peteracs]

Hi Nigel

I have plenty of the roller/bobbins thanks.

Changing over to the Coupe runners is not trivial. A quick comparison the central mounting hole for the seat bolt is in a different position, which is not the end of the world., however the whole seat tilting mechanism is completely different. Sadly the Coupe runners and tilting mechanism is in a poor corroded state and would need a lot of refurbishing, whilst the original is in great shape, so for now will stick with original. As you say it would be preferable to replace with the later runners having both sides lock. If I come across any in good condition, I would be tempted.

Peter