Exhaust is done

JtC returned to fit the newly acquired exhaust bits and, so, finish up the exhaust side of things.

First, fitting the heat riser with freshly deleted valve (see previous) to the exhaust manifold...




and bolting up the exhaust pipes with the new exhaust flange "donuts"...




The removed heat riser tube from the exhaust manifold to the (now removed) choke mechanism left a hole in the top of the RH exhaust manifold, which caused an exhaust leak.

A quick rummage around sourced a self tapper which was screwed into the offending hole... complete with plenty of exhaust paste...




The job was finished with a couple of swipes of the angle grinder to take off the head of the screw to leave the repair flush with the top of the manifold.


Next job, repairing a leak at the entrance to the centre muffler. Wire brush to clean and exhaust repair putty to finish...




The last job of the day was to tidy up the exhaust mounts as JtC - the perfectionist he is - wasn't quite happy with where things were left previously. Here is the result...

Centre Hanger:




Rear Hanger:




Beautiful!

Held firmly, but with enough compliance and mounted high off the ground, but with plenty of clearance to the floor/mechanicals.

The rear brake hose is swollen, so time to source a replacement.

Shopping list:
- rear brake hose
- boot lock
- boot lock retaining clip
- brake pedal pad
- 4 x tyres

Till the next installment. J

Exhausting!

Based on Joe's findings from his disassembly work on Thu 20/10, I went shopping...



I grabbed 2 x exhaust flange gaskets ("donuts") and a heat riser flange gasket. Plus I took to opportunity to acquire another generic exhaust hanger to finalise the hanging of the exhaust in a neat and tidy fashion.


The heat riser gasket mount holes were ever so slightly different to what the Chev had, so a quick massage with a hole cutter and voila!...



A perfect fit.


Finally, Joe made a mod to the heat riser valve...




He cut off the shaft and extracted the butterfly, then drilled out the hole for the shaft and inserted a bolt/nut assembly to blank it off (see photo above).

This shot shows the complete bolt. The final install had the bold head ground down and exhaust cement to help seal.

Till next time,

John out.

An Open Door Policy

Joe is back and today's mission was to open the LHR door...


Easy!

The latch return spring was stuck, so a quick spray of WD40 did the trick.


Next, boot latch adjustment. One of the bolts was stripped so time to find a replacement...



The result? A much better boot fit...




Last task for the day, start hunting down the source of the exhaust leak (leaks?). Off  came the exhaust manifold to exhaust pipe connection and out came the heat riser valve...




Time to source a heat riser gasket and a couple of exhaust flange donuts.

The list is getting shorter!

Electrics #2

Joe is back today to continue part 2 of the electrics saga. Today's installment... the rear of the car, namely reverse lights and number plate light.

The Chev came with a blown reverse light fuse. Replacement of said fuse and re-testing simply blew the fuse again, so there is a short.

Breaking out the test light and tracing the wires back from the reverse switch showed we had power all the way to the back of the car.

Once at the back, we could tell the car had been in a minor bingle in a previous life as the LHR brake light bulb sockets were non-original (and badly fitting, incorrect replacements!) c/w splices in the wiring.

It wasn't long before the trouble shooting super powers of JtC came to the fore when we found a short in the RHR indicator bulb socket...


The good one (LHR) is shown here, but the photo shows the live centre contact (live) that was bent in the dodgy one and was touching the bulb socket (earth) itself - which was depressed into the plastic housing - and, hence, creating a short.

After removing this short - and a quick test - we (thankfully) found that this was the only short. Nice!

So the decision was to run up to Auto One and see if we could source some generic replacement bulb sockets that would fit for both the dodgy LHR stop lights and both rear indicators.

A quick search found these:
Narva 49828 (Single Contact Bulb Housing)
Narva 49838 (Double Contact Bulb Housing)

Both were a perfect fit for the indicator and tail lights respectively. A HUGE win! We grabbed some spare stop light bulbs, spare indicator bulbs and spare fuses.

We also grabbed a replacement number plate bulb as a quick test at home showed it was only a replacement bulb that was needed. Simple fix.

Once home, soldering ensued...



Finally a picture (or two) tells a thousand words...





A HUGE day in the hunt for a Blue Slip! not much left on the list now.

Seats

Time to bite the bullet... the 60's car seat covers are coming off!

The rear seat base and back rest have been out of the car for ages (to enable access to the boot without a key) so it was there that we made a start.

As you can see, the frame is in great condition for a 40+ year old car...




...and the covers are held on by C-clips.

(if I clip on a new cover, I must remember to dig out by C-clip pliers used during the garage build for constructing the sediment fence).

Under the seat cover, the cover's foam backing has completely deteriorated leaving a fluffy foam residue that can (mostly) be brushed off, but will need some sort of cleaner to get rid of the remnants.




Besides the very top of the back rest - which is perished from exposure to the sun - the seat is in darn good nick.



More tomorrow!

Electrics #1

JtC is back! And I had the day off as annual leave, so it was a perfect day to Chev.

With the Chev on stands, it would make an awful noise if dropped into drive. JtC suggested it was tailshaft brushing the exhaust with the rear axle and gosh darn wasn't he 100% right... phew! I had images running through my head of some exy repair.

Next, idle mixture adjustment...




Both idle mixture needles were 1.5 turns out of the seated position, so Joe set them both to 2 turn out to give a slightly higher idle speed.

Then it was electrical time. First project, LHF indicator.

The test lamp showed no power at the bulb, so we traced the prob back to (most likely) the indicator switch... and that meant steering wheel removal.

Banging and pulling with hands didn't do anything so we had fabricate our own Driver-patented* steering wheel puller...





A few twists of the socket and voila! Steering wheel off.

Digging into the bowels of the steering column soon revealed the indicator switch where we discovered a weird arrangement where a plastic spigot would push a strip of metal onto another to make contact... ok, so not so weird. The weird part was the strip would make contact and complete the rear indicator circuit first, then continue its travel and make further contact to complete the front indicator circuit. Weird.

It was at this point we found the strip could not quite travel enough to make the second contact (i.e. active the front indicator circuit) on the LH side.




A quick adjustment with needle nose pliers...




...and double voila! We had the LHF indicator!

We noticed the outer component of the indicator switch had a crack through it, so time to source a new one and replace it before we return the steering wheel to its rightful home.


*may or may not be patented.