Steve's unexpected Series 3 rebuild.

Best thread on here...

great work.

This is what 40 odd years of wear from the return spring can do. Welded up and re-drilled.

Henry_b said:

Best thread on here...

great work.

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Probably the longest anyway. Good to hear from you.

After all that I wasn't going to be able to get them clean of rust so took them for shot blasting. They also kindly epoxy primed and painted them.

Master cylinder sort out now.

It's nice to sometimes be able to sort things with just soap and water.

Even the pushrod in the brake master was bent. Managed to get it straightened out.

I also cut slots in the end of the pushrods so you can hold them while adjusting. Also cut a hole in the pedal tower to be able to get a socket onto the nut for adjusting. One of them (brake or clutch) has a hole and the other doesn't as standard. Both have now. Also replaced the bolts where you put the oil in to lubricate the pedal with grease nipples.

Don't look too bad after a quick external clean
Insides are a bit gloopy

With the seals removed the bores feel smooth and serviceable.

The seals felt quite good and were proper Girling ones but I didn't want to take any chances. The seal kits were a real problem to get hold of. Britpart ones available everywhere for a couple of quid but the TRW ones were like hens teeth and about £15. I'm sure the difference will be worth while.

Once they are all assembled using Steamwally and Britannica restorations videos on youtube to stop me forgetting anything they really feel good. Thumb over the outlet and a press of the pedal gives really good pressure.

Seam sealer on the bulk head now. I'm using bilt hamber dynax seam and I did loads of tests to make sure it's compatible with all the paints i'm using. My plan was to mask round the area, paint on the sealer then remove the tape leaving a lovely straight edge. I made a right mess of this to start with. It goes off really quickly, it's skinned over in a minute or two so you've got no time. In the end I did an experiment on a bit of scrap and tried taking some masking off after half an hour then a bit more after a couple of hours then longer and longer up to 24hrs. In the end 24hrs is fine so that's what I went for. The bits I messed up were all going to end up out of sight in the end and it's a good job as they are a bit messy. The bits I did after i'd sussed out the system went very well.

Truly stunning and consistent work - I'm really impressed, and really pleased to see both

I use BH stuff myself, and find it exceptional.

As Henry said, above ( and I agree ) - best thread on here

Disco1BFG said:

Truly stunning and consistent work - I'm really impressed, and really pleased to see both

I use BH stuff myself, and find it exceptional.

As Henry said, above ( and I agree ) - best thread on here

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That's really kind of you. Thanks so much. I just keep blundering on trying to do my best. It's really encouraging to hear that you're enjoying the thread.

You've made so much progress since I was on here regular Steve. Well done! Lovely work! Looking forward to seeing more as you do it now as I'll be around a bit with more work upcoming on mine..

scottonthefen said:

You've made so much progress since I was on here regular Steve. Well done! Lovely work! Looking forward to seeing more as you do it now as I'll be around a bit with more work upcoming on mine..

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Good to hear from you. Thanks for that. I keep plugging away. We'll get there in the end.

Oy. Have you dun nowt this weekend or what? This pig ain’t puttin it’s own lipstick on ya know.

Bobsticle said:

Oy. Have you dun nowt this weekend or what? This pig ain’t puttin it’s own lipstick on ya know.

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Sorry mate, not much to update at the minute. I'm just battling with painting the bulkhead. I thought i'd try roller and brush. I can't afford someone else painting it and I haven't got the kit or space to spray it myself. Unfortunately it turns out i'm really bad at painting things with brushes and rollers. Add that to the fact that i'm a bit of a fuss-arse and don't want it to look like I painted it with a shovel and i'm in a bit of a quandary. Much experimenting to be done.

Shirley someone local can lend you a little compressor and a gun.

You could borrow mine if you were closer. Be a shame to cock it up now. Spraying is easy.

Maybe. I'm stuck for space as well though. I've got a little compressor but at 7cfm it isn't up to it. I did a little test bit with brush and roller ages ago when I first got the paint and it came out lovely. On this latest bit I think my prep work wasn't good enough. Also the bulkhead is such a complicated shape. I'm preparing the bit where the front number plate goes as my test piece and doing a proper job on it. We'll see then. I think the bigger flatter areas will be ok.

More experiments with the paint this evening. Not gone at all well. Got some serious thinking to do there. If I can't get it right it's going to alter my plans a lot.

And now for something completely different.

For some reason i've been looking forward to this bit for ages. I just had a feeling that if I take my time I could do a really nice job of it. I don't think it's as bad as many but even so the bottom is rotting and rust is expanding it all out of shape.

I bought the repair section ages ago. I needed something to get an order with Paddocks over £50 to get the free postage so it was just the job. It arrived and I stashed it away upstairs in the corner of the spare room (or spares room) and forgot about it. Then recently I came to offer it up and found that it doesn't have the little returns round the big holes or the strengthening piece along the bottom. I could have made the strengthening piece myself but those little returns would have been a bit too much. Because of my legendary speed on this job I had by now had this panel for 2 years. That's a bit longer than they usually allow on returns but we were having a weekend away near Matlock so I thought i'd go and plead my case. Paddocks were brilliant! I turned up on a Monday morning to discover that they don't have a counter service any more so I called them. A lady came down from the office, I explained what I was up to and as the part was just as it had arrived with one of their stickers on she said I could have a credit note! I couldn't believe it. She would have been well within her rights to tell me to jog on. It's not the first time Paddocks have gone out of their way to be helpful to me so i'm a big fan of theirs. Anyway next job was to get a top notch panel with all the right bits on from Tony Wood. Lovely fella. It's a bit more expensive but it is a world apart from the other one. I've learned a bit from doing that bulkhead and I wanted to make sure I could get this all correct so i've knocked up this little jig.
Which holds the panel like this and the repair panel like this.
The dotted line across the middle is where the panel comes to and the solid line below it is where I made the first cut in the big panel to make sure I hadn't cocked it up.

The 'too late to worry now' stage.

But it did end up looking about right.

That will have to be it for now as I must get the bulkhead painted as it's holding up the whole job.

Have you had a look at small sprayguns ? I bought one off B@nggood for spraying Fertan .... it would probably be a pain to paint a BH with a small gun, but just an idea ....

How far away are you from Buxton ? I have an old compressor with a large tank you could borrow if it would help..