Straight 6 rebuild

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ajb403

Active Member
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404
Location
Somerset
I've owned my straight 6 truck cab for 2 and a half years and have only ever been able to work on it on the driveway (what I'd do for a garage at home!) but now I've got myself some workshop space with a friend, unfortunately it's 15 miles from home but it's cheap, close to a load of mates who are keen to lend a hand and has three phase.





'Yolandie' as the missus calls it.

The first job on saturday was to go and rescue my mates 1959 Sprite from his lock up and drag it to the workshop, he nearly rear ended me as we were gently slowing for some traffic lights because there was a girl at the bus stop eyeing him up so he did the same. Oops.





She's in and has a friend.



Last night a couple of us started unbolting/shearing/grinding bits off the front end to see what horrors lie underneath, the bulkhead has previously been patched and patched so I'm intending on cutting the rot out and sorting it properly. My welding isn't particularly neat but it's strong enough, hopefully will get a bit better after what is to come!





The passenger side is a lot worse than the drivers side.

My plans are to see what I can do to try and save the bulkhead as finding a 6 cylinder one to replace this would be a pig, then address the other issues - refurb the gearbox, find the leak on the steering box, replace the leaf springs etc.

Updates are likely to be pretty sporadic as I won't be able to work on it every night but will try to keep you up to date with any progress.
 
if the passenger side is the worst I should definitely think that bulkhead is saveable, looks like the widely available repair panels should cover most of it.

hopefully you or one of your mates is skilled at welding.

chassis looks good, or the bits I can see do.

good luck with the resto

indoor workspace is worth its weight in gold, like you I have only the drive to use, I do have a garage but when a car is in there is no room to move around it and the roof is too low to jack the car up much
 
Cheers guys, am planning on spending most of tomorrow there to sort a few bits out.

The blower is just a bilge blower that I bought off eBay, fitted nicely in the space though I should've got the next size up as it's still a bit asthmatic.
 
plastic seems a much better idea, least it won't rust, I need to replace mine, blower doesn't seem to work, I put the terminals straight on the battery and still nothing so I might rip off your idea and get a bilge blower :D
 
Spent a few hours stripping the passenger side sil, heater matrix, blower and dashboard out. Need to sort the missus' car tomorrow but might get an hour or two to do a few bits.



 
Picture of the driver's side for comparison:



After a quick look at the missus car to find out where it's leaking (again, bloody clios), I got back to the landy, removed the driver's side sill, passenger side floor pan and then started drilling out the spot welds on the passenger side footwell. I ended up cutting the bulk of the footwell out so I could get better access with a cold chisel to separate the spot welded bits, still got a few bits to remove but had to leave it at that as we'd been invited round for dinner. Of course I turned up straight from the workshop, filthy and covered in rust and metal swarf...



 
Going to try to keep the momentum up, I earned some brownie points with the wife over the summer by spending three weeks of my holiday allowance laying flagstone floors in our house and decorating the downstairs so now it's time to concentrate on my own project.
 
Got a few more hours work in last night, got the last of the footwell spotwelds drilled/chiselled/cut to leave what remains of the door pillar in place



I knocked up a piece to replace the area of rot on the transmission tunnel, will get that welded in either tomorrow night or at the weekend.



I then had to make a couple of small cuts to get the replacement footwell to slot in, I'll need to re-drill the holes where it bolts to the upright chassis bracket as they're 1/4" off as it stands.





It fitted a lot better than I was expecting for a bluebox part. Will probably get this welded in over the weekend.

In other news, I bought £450 worth of bits yesterday - new door pillars and feet, drivers footwell, top corners, rear chassis crossmember, forward and rear spring hangers for the rear leaf springs, bulkhead to chassis bolts, door hinges. Got myself a bargain on ebay too, a NOS sump for my straight 6 to replace the old one, 20 quid :D
 
While you're at it I'd inspect and patch your rad panel - they take a bit of rebuilding if they go - might as well while you're at it.

Looks like a fun job...and get that engine nicely tuned you'll give the spridget at run for its money!
 
The radiator panel is on the to do list, the previous owner has filled the bottom rail of it with filler so I know the bottom needs cutting off and replacing. One job at a time though!

An engine rebuild is on the cards at some point but finances may not allow right now, we'll have to see. I helped a friend strip his 2.25 diesel a few months ago, he was adament that it ran beautifully with no smoke and when we lifted the head one of the swirl chambers fell out and three of the pistons were hugely cratered. So as and when I address the engine it may (will!) be an expensive job, I had to stop myself looking at how much engine bits are for it, for example £100 a piston...

My mate finally committed to doing something with the sprite after many years just looking at it and not doing anything, he's planning on getting the body stripped and blasted/etched, new 1.3 litre engine to replace the non-original 1 litre one that's in there currently and a reconditioned gearbox as the last time he did an oil change a tooth came out with the oil.


 
Spent a few hours at the workshop last night, got the bit of rot cut out of the transmission tunnel, a new piece welded in and welded in the new passenger side footwell.





Also had a chuckle at my mate's repair manual for the Sprite, the section on repairing bodywork damage recommends using a putty of wet asbestos on the shell before heating! :eek: They don't make them like they used to...

 
Looking good wish I had replaced the footwells on my series 3 but they have been repaire by someone before and are serviceable if not pretty!
Keep at it cheers
 
Spent Saturday in the workshop trying to get the new door pillar to line up with everything else, which it doesn't. First job was to get the door to hinge on it properly with them on the bench, I ended up needing the fabricate a 5mm spacer to get the door to not foul on the pillar as it opened and for the profile of the curves to match.



Then chopped the old door pillar out, amazingly the bulkhead bolt actually came undone with a breaker bar on either end, was expecting it to be a pig and needing to cut it and drift it out.



Discovered another gift from the previous owner left in the door pillar.



As the new footwell and the return on the door pillar were parallel but spaced from each other by 4 or 5 mm I needed to get them in contact before welding so I drilled a load of holes for 4mm bolts to bring them together before tacking the two bits together, removing the bolts and seam welding the edge and plug welding the holes.







New door pillar partly welded in place, I'm trying to keep the lines along the tub and door matching hence the G clamp supporting the door in place. As there's no adjustment on the door hinges this does mean that there's going to need to be a bit of jiggery pokery to get the wing to line up nicely as well, I think I may need to put in some sort of spacer between the door pillar and the wing where they bolt together. I'm going to offer up the wing next time I'm there to see how far off it is and whether the flex in the wing will take up the slack or not.

As she stands currently.

 
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