Sold Stanky's Geep - fire sale

[dollywobbler]

£18.29

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PAIR-12V-LED-REAR-TAIL-LIGHTS-LAMPS-5-FUNCTION-TRAILER-CARAVAN-TRUCK-VAN-98-LED/112337817325?epid=2145558383&hash=item1a27db0eed:g:gnsAAOSwjqVZNnKz

 

 

 

I saw a recovery truck the other day with those fitted. They're remarkably shit if you actually want a visible lamp.

[mk2_craig]

Makes sense. I know some old Fords did have a resistor in the system but I've never seen one with it.

From looking online it seems to be soldered into the wiring loom as a short section of resistance wire. To find it means stripping back the loom.

I think this was the setup on Fiestas with points ignition, from memory the resistance cable had a single bullet connector both ends. I put an engine with an electronic distributor into an earlier car, and can't remember if I unplugged/removed the cable, I might have simply bypassed it when chucking in the extra wiring I guess.

 

Anyway that isn't particularly helping, but those coils must be reasonably generic for Ford motors of the era?

[danthecapriman]

I think this was the setup on Fiestas with points ignition, from memory the resistance cable had a single bullet connector both ends. I put an engine with an electronic distributor into an earlier car, and can't remember if I unplugged/removed the cable, I might have simply bypassed it when chucking in the extra wiring I guess.

Anyway that isn't particularly helping, but those coils must be reasonably generic for Ford motors of the era?

They are pretty generic. I've just bought a new Lucas one for my Capri and it'll fit just about any Ford 60's to 80's. They're cheap too, which is good!

The only difference I've run into over the years with old Fords is wether there's a ballast resistor or not, the voltage they work on is different. I think you can use the standard non ballast 12v coil on either type of system but on a ballast resistor fitted car you need to remove the resistor first.

 

The other good thing with stuff like the coils is that since I've got two old Fords from that time period I can build up spares and easily use them on either car, Capri or Transit, both Pinto fitted too!

[vulgalour]

The BMW 2002 lights on the back of my Princess will be available once I get the Galaxie lights in, if they're of interest.  £50 for the pair to a shiter.

[Mally]

£50! You do know how much he has in this already?

[Alan_Green]

Blimey. Flashback city.  This is the Mahindra I had back in the day.

 

[Stanky]

I have the day off work today and since it wasn't raining I thought I'd keep the pace up and tackle some other bits from my list. Dan was kind enough to let me have a spare rad and coil he had so I set to replacing them and also to inspect the fuel tank.

 

I started with the fuel tank. As suggested earlier, the best way to get the lid off is to drift it out with a hammer and a punch. I don't have a punch, but i do have some old copper pipe. To start with I used a manky old paintbrush to sweep as much of the rotten plywood bits away as I could - I don't want them getting into the tank if I can avoid it.

 

 

I prepared the toolkit - rubber hammer and pipe drift

 

 

I gently went round all 4 cutouts then went round again with a bit more effort - to my amazement the fuel gauge lid thing undid without any drama, I gently eased it out as its a funny shape

 

 

I then carefully cleaned it up with carb cleaner and a rag as much as i could. Next, the moment of truth - was the fuel tank full of rainwater and holes?

 

 

 

Incredibly, no - it doesn't seem to be! It reeks of stale fuel and varnish and there is some crap in there, but hopefully I can get away with some in-line filters to get the worst of it out if i get it running. Its not very clean, but at least there is no rainwater in there.

 

Having done this, I wire brushed the edges of the lid, gave them a quick coat of copper grease in case I need to get in there again and then drifted it closed again.

 

Buoyed by the moderate success, I went round to the front and lifted the bonnet

 

The rad has a hole in it, and we diagnosed the coil as being FUBAR last weekend.

 

 

So out with more tools. It still wasn't raining which was good, so I undid the 4 bolts that hole the old rad in, undid the jubilee clips which hold the pipework on and the rad fell out the bottom, then vomited rank rusty water all over the drive.

 

 

With this put to one side, I carefully undid the coil from its holder thing. the new coil Dan gave me was about 5mm bigger so I had to stretch the metal strap out a bit, and file down the holes to allow the strap to go round the new coil and align the two bolts that hold the coil to the chassis so they can be screwed back in. This was a bit fiddly but relatively straightforward.

 

 

After taking the old coil to the garage it seems its seen better days - note the rust in the king lead connection

 

 

There is a yellow cable with a label on it saying 'Unknown?' which attaches to the positive side of the coil - the new coil has smaller threaded extrusions than the old one so I'll probably need to chop the end off the yellow cable and crimp an eye onto it (like the negative side) or possibly solder a bit of earth wire with an eye onto the cable (we have shitloads of them at work which are always being thrown out) to fix this, and then put a nut on to secure the eyelet. Something for another day.

 

Then for the new rad

 

 

Dan said this was aftermarket as it had plastic sides on it, rather than being solid metal, but was 100% good. You can see in the pic that the new rad is a bit taller than the old one...

 

 

this is the hole it needs to go in - width wise it was fine, but the extra height meant it couldn't slide down far enough to connect the pipes back up. I scratched my head.

 

After a bit of thinking I noticed it was catching on the lip of the GRP body - sort of the front valance I suppose. Since this is glassfibre I don't have to worry about rust, do I? Lets get destructive!

 

I fetched the junior hacksaw to make some modifications to the valance bit - I reckoned if I could saw out about 2" of GRP the rad would slide down at least 3" further which was all I needed.

 

saw saw saw

 

 

This took about 40 minutes to do as its a funny angle and my junior hacksaw is shit but I got there in the end

 

 

I used a rough file to grind down the edges so they were smooth and shouldn't damage the rad as I slid it into the brackets. The holes in the new rad didn't line up quite right so I took the rad back out again and used a needle file to elongate two of the holes in the new rad so I could bolt it into place - this went fine too and I did the bolts back up without a problem. Its only held in with 2 bolts now - rather than the 4 it had before - but it seems secure enough for now. I left the system empty of coolant as all I have is some new OAT stuff which might cause bad things to happen to an engine this old, or water which might freeze and break the new rad. I'll get some cheapo bluecol stuff at some point soon.

 

This was how it all looked now

 

 

 

Thats as far as I can get for today, its very cold out and my back is hurting from leaning at a weird angle for ages but progress is definitely being made.

 

Next on the list is to get a good battery for it, and a universal filler cap to replace the plastic bag stuffed in the filler neck, oh and fix the mystery wire to the positive side fo the coil.

[Zelandeth]

Wire from the coil could well be the sense line for a rev counter, which in your case obviously isn't needed as your instrument panel doesn't have one.

[danthecapriman]

Nice job there. I didn't think the new rad was that much bigger than the old Escort one tbh! It's quite a bit bigger isn't it! Looks like it fits well now though with a bit of modification. Definitely use bluecol antifreeze though.

Did the top and bottom hoses fit the new rad ok?

 

The fuel tank, I'd take out personally. Flush it out with some hot soapy water. That orange rusty mank will block something up even with a fuel filter if not. That's the same crap that I was doing battle with on the Mercury!

It killed the fuel pump and blocked the filter the first time, then blocked the carb up the second time! It'll get worse if you start using the car too as the movement of sloshing fuel will stir up all the crud in the bottom of the tank.

 

Great work so far, fingers crossed for the start up!

[John F]

+1 on flushing the tank out.

[darkfour]

Drop the tank, throw in a several feet of metal chain and some water. Seal it up then shake the heck out of it.

[Stanky]

Ah ok no problem - it looks easy enough to drop it out so might have a go at that tomorrow as I'm off work again. Thanks for the pointers!

 

Top and bottom hoses fitted fine - just had to position the rad right and they slotted in perfectly.

[spartacus]

Nice work, 84/10 for being out in this cold. I'm looking forward to seeing this up and running, it'll make a great summer car, possibly an even better WBOD.

[danthecapriman]

If you use this as a WBOD your a loony, and a hero! No roof (or even doors) and sub zero temperatures + wind chill sounds like fun*!

[alf892]

That coil wire......

 

If it is wired for a ballasted system there is a wire from the starter solenoid to the coil so that when cranking it gives the coil a full 12v for a nice fat spark.

[PhilA]

I thought it was tradition to strap the tank to a cement mixer, with the tank full of nuts and bolts and chain and stuff?

 

Phil

[Slowsilver]

 

There is a yellow cable with a label on it saying 'Unknown?' which attaches to the positive side of the coil

 

Wire from the coil could well be the sense line for a rev counter.

 

Unlikely to be for a rev counter. They are normally connected to the negative (contact breaker) side of the coil as this is switched on and off by the points. The positive side is a constant(ish) 9 or 12 volts when the ignition is on, so no pulses to count.

If it is a cold start coil there should be two wires on the positive terminal. One is the resistance wire from the ignition which drops the coil supply to 9 volts during normal running, the other is directly connected to the wire from the start position on the ignition switch and bypasses the resistance wire during cranking, thus putting the full battery voltage, which is only about 9 volts or so when cranking, on to the coil.

Good idea in theory as a 9 volt coil with 9 volts on it during starting will give a better spark than a 12 volt coil with 9 volts on it.

The problem is that the resistance needs to drop 3 volts at about 2 amps all the time the engine is running, hence a constant heat dissipation requirement of about 6 watts. Not a problem for a decent metal-clad resistor with a good heatsink, but the Ford resistance wire is crap and can burn out after a while.

[Rod/b]

I’ve not posted here for ages but this thread is epic! Nice work so far, Stanky.

[xtriple]

YOU JAMMY FAT BASTARD!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please note: I am not aware of your parentage or waist size or liking for preserves but the sentiment seems apt!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jolly well done/good show/I am impressed and not in the least jealous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But then I do lie a lot   

[bezzabsa]

we need running!!!!!

 

 

 

Get going!!

[John F]

Not a hint at all, honestly*, but you could use a spare fuel canister as a temporary fuel tank so we you can see if it runs...

[Stanky]

Thats the plan in the short-term - first of all I need to make sure it turns over on the key, the coil should sort the spark but I need to get a not-broken battery for it now, and a helper probably in case we have to resort to plan B which was attaching 12v to the starter motor! I'll see if i can get it to fire on carb cleaner initially, then gravity feed it pez from a jerry can if we can get it running for a sustained period of time.

 

Tomorrow I'll drop the tank ready for cleaning assuming it stays dry outside.

[junkyarddog]

I used soda crystals and hot water to clean out cruddy fuel tanks in the past,

a handful of broken stone helps too,then shake and empty out,repeat until clean.

Then put a hotair gun in the sender unit hole to dry it all out.

[Guest Hooli]

I'd get the other two bolts to fit the rad. You don't want it shaking about & cracking once you're driving this fine* machine as a daily.

[richardmorris]

That coil wire......If it is wired for a ballasted system there is a wire from the starter solenoid to the coil so that when cranking it gives the coil a full 12v for a nice fat spark.

Or a suppressor?

Like mine......

[richardmorris]

Thats the plan in the short-term - first of all I need to make sure it turns over on the key, the coil should sort the spark but I need to get a not-broken battery for it now, and a helper probably in case we have to resort to plan B which was attaching 12v to the starter motor! I'll see if i can get it to fire on carb cleaner initially, then gravity feed it pez from a jerry can if we can get it running for a sustained period of time.

 

Tomorrow I'll drop the tank ready for cleaning assuming it stays dry outside.

 

I have two batteries if you’re passing J3 of the M3, but it’s going to be cheaper to buy a new one than make a special journey!

Ex fiat and ex Mercedes.

[Stanky]

Its a 037 battery that I need - they have sort of flat terminals that the leads bolt to - or I can chop the ends off and crimp 'normal' circular clamp ends on the leads. Apparently 037 batteries are hard to get hold of these days so I'm sort of tempted to get a new set of crimp-on ends from ebay?

[danthecapriman]

These are worth having too,

 

http://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/garage-equipment/battery-chargers-jump-starters/halfords-battery-terminal-adapters

 

Square to round battery clamp adapters. Saves trying to find old style square post batteries and gives you more choice of battery. I've got them on all my old Fords now.

[richardmorris]

One of these?

 

£40 free delivery.

 

https://www.tayna.co.uk/037-Numax-Car-Battery-P981.html

[Stanky]

Thanks Richard - I'll sort something out in January I think - for now I can keep myself busy with cleaning out the fuel tank and possibly the lavish expense of a universal fuel filler cap