Project Rusty Triumphs in Scotland - To gas or not to gas(less MIG) - 09/11/24

[captain_70s]

Aye the bronze wear material on the washers is pathetically thin and once it's gone it's steel on steel with very little room for wear until the crank is FUBAR.

Commercially available  oversized examples simply have a thicker steel section, so they don't last any longer. Making them out of solid aluminium bronze would likely be the best option as that way even if they wear excessively they won't cause any damage until they physically drift loose. It's easy enough to check the crank float periodically and when they wear down drop the sump and install new ones.

 

I think @Jikovron's assessment that the crank has been ground with filleted edges and is riding up on the block with excessive fore/aft movements and causing the engine to lock. Would also explain the suddenly changing float measurement, with the engine on the stand I probably never lent on the crank hard enough to drive the crank up onto the fillets, with all the heaving the engine out the crank was forced all the way giving the "true" reading. I then had a better levering technique the second time and was doing the same effort.

The oversized thrust washers should sort that problem as well by simply keeping the crank from ever moving far enough for the fillets to be an issue. We know it doesn't have any issues when working to the factory tolerance and only binds in one direction of travel, so we should be all good to go with Operation Custom Thrust Washer!

This also arrived today.

£60 for half of a cheap repair panel, but it's the best you can get these days and it'll make life loads easier...

As for rust prep the whole thing is being plastered in zinc paint and then drowned in wax. No box section or internal surface will be spared, on hot days it'll leave a puddle of rust proofing products oozing out of drain holes...

[vulgalour]

What an ungrateful little bar steward.  Still, you're stubborn enough that it won't win.

[sloth]

excellent progress, i dunno if its of help but heres a pic of the sill end and rear pocket on my 1970 2500. its original and unrestored and unwelded. the joys of a dry climate. might be of use when making panels. apparently theyre very similar in design shape etc.

[big_al_granvia]

another contact for you re engine, cammy gilmour... https://www.facebook.com/CameronGilmourEngineServices/?__tn__=kC-R&eid=ARBS8GsMYytYL4hk52A9mKWXc4EeYnPmCEDBgsXRrpl5IbnXaBt5x0cIF3BiQubIlghUhgKwcElH5Mye&hc_ref=ARQenupPE3igctiILsiaAB8F0b_4qtafTML9htyj8Ip-q2vRu94hHdvtsMwbthIRbls&fref=nf&__xts__[0]=68.ARCo_1FT2N5230gwbm4bpPktNrrf96ZIHXxCgZA7bcq6__3Q862pTOGqxLQG6Kc3_9HK6gd3SAFA5_Xh7faCkBg6XCCeY46rMRjq1AowcCLUJND2PSbKdj8TFtdMXCIWrByuh-6oV0tuGaVe27U4_J9DdIBWVqO6yyJ_5X3CdHTwFjjM-SE7cLr-fz3Xgmp-EmQ_q59elI8uCA9T4-LnHceaDCv8oM19nHNEXSm5MbyMX8CtrXkChYZAPVDWR1nRvGu6m0oxUBr55dzni2zHjgbzuhTJRNkr6kpXDYOmXMU-a9QgNF50xywsToNwFAm33nG4PCsYGfHdh2RdCEMaJgNUiZa9B1wZYTHBlIye6aah4uB8DBtASfiWQw&__xts__[1]=68.ARDgGPi4A0ugf9NmK7bnUe2s_SZzMvfEwKv5HzYsITHwWcIpp9DuXnR1JQKIao-4n3oQ7Tk2WWBq08Pg4Q-3vOK7f_2vWPij3SWxc5aycU8ToroVcWqbl90XbyR66NTIAkz-Krug-txice7Dzn3w5XWBBH70DzHgKaNm04_CcqD1S0HAv6kmGzTPGdNx3RdELDBXLakpKgcMqP3xUigqSH2YKr5xt9XiD16GA4nXDI__bdOGqZS5I7xgCrhfPP2zjPChYVAOOjqb92oLS8y416LSaURgf1T4g2mw8Wql-kOGLja8SlsR2HzBtdQQrsc8LtBGlvDzK9XH2yL0OPb-BaQNcQ6o-whB7bU3GPsDewn7Z19sQKvFL9hiDA

good bloke, builds a lot of the smrc classics racers engines

[captain_70s]

Right, updates! Apologies in advance, my camera has died to death so my good photos are all trapped in a non-functional device until I can fix it...

Doloshite 

Engine - Machine shops aren't keen on making washers, probably because it'd be a faff for fuck all money. We're going to try shims. The way the washers sit with the shims behind they'll be taking no rotational wear and will have no way to escape past the washer unless the washer has already fallen out anyway. We can also shim to keep the crank as central as possible while removing the most crank float possible. If it doesn't work I'll build another engine I guess, so stay tuned for that. ?

Bodywork - Firstly, the Mk2 Golf inner arch was fitted on the O/S. The repairs ended up continuing northwards as the metal was too thin to weld to properly. The door jam had to be cut out again for access and then welded back in again once the repairs were done... The rot also extended into the boot with patches over filler over patches over rust...

Needless to say the welds aren't being ground back on panels that will hopefully never be seen again... The beige paint is industrial zinc primer.

The 1/2 a repair panel I bought was a shit fit, as expected for what was a cheap pattern part from the 1980s but the swage line matches and that's what we needed it for...

Arch in. Distortion kept to a bare minimum, a bit of action with the dent puller sorted the worst bit. It'll still need spot welding to the inner. Needless to say I was not the one welding the above bits...

I was around the other side of the car hacking into the other arch...

Needless to say it was quite rough... At the trailing edge of the inner arch a huge plate had been welded over the top of the original and leading to both panels being completely rotten

This was most evident in the boot.

Not that the leading edge of the arch was any better...

After cutting along the top and sides of the sills I pulled the rearmost section off by hand without even touching the bottom. Aside from one rotten patch the whole lot was crafted out of fibreglass...

For good measure I also cut off the front edge of the sill and lower bit of the front wing...

Much like the opposite side the jacking point was rotted out along with the sill reinforcing panel and trailing edge of the front arch. This side was actually quite a bit better than the O/S in that the base of the box section jacking point and the inner sill was also not utterly fucked.

I now have my own MIG welder courtesy of @Tickman so hopefully this weekend we can get double the welding done as I can make an utter cunt of the sills and jacking points while @GingerNuttz does the good work to the arches etc.

Here's a bonus shot of the front end of the car covered in primer to stop flash rusting while we work on other areas. It really shows how the shape is coming along despite still containing way too much filler that needs to be sanded away.

 

[vulgalour]

Truly heroic work on an utterly thankless old heap.  Top stuff.

[captain_70s]

Acclaim

It actually used some oil for the first time ever (probably due to my newly frequent 70mph runs to Motherwell) Its also nearly eaten through it's front tyres, the rears still look brand new.

Volvo

The newest fleet member. Collection detailed here:

Now back from holidays it can get some well needed tinkering.

Firstly:

Roof bar delete:

-5 Practicality

+5 Fuel Economy

+2 Noise and Comfort

Overall +2. WINNING.

Then I set about checking various service bits.

The plugs look pretty fresh.

Dizzy cap and rotor arm were far from the worst I've seen.

Cleaned up decently with the rough side of a sponge and some WD-40 Equivalent.

There is mild pitting but nothing compared to what I've pulled out of the Dolly/Acclaim before. It also looks like somebody has been playing with the ignition timing so I'll have to dig out the strobe light to double check that's correct.

The air filter looks pretty much new. I also adjusted some excess slack out of the kickdown cable.

Tyres lacking a date code = Best tyres.

The one on the opposite side (rear) is from '09 and is identical, the fronts are from '11. Great tread, perished to fuck. The car will kick it's tail out on hairpin corners going up steep hills locked in 2nd. Ask me how I know...

I peered through the steelies to check there were pads. There are. The brakes squeal. I'll need to take the wheels off to look. Another day...

 

So, it needs:

Tyres x4
PAS pipe
Welding to rear of sills
Various electrical maladies sorting
Work out why the starter motor won't always engage and just clicks at the solenoid
Source cause of lumpy idle/misfire when warm

The functional cars section of the fleet is actually looking not too bad...

[Fumbler]

Fantastic progress as always.

[big_al_granvia]

great work on the dolly, really impressive stuff

[Tadhg Tiogar]

48 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

...Here's a bonus shot of the front end of the car covered in primer to stop flash rusting while we work on other areas. It really shows how the shape is coming along despite still containing way too much filler that needs to be sanded away.

 

You're not far off scratchbuilding an entire bodyshell...

 

[somewhatfoolish]

Truly noble work; wobbing of the 7th dan going on there. What a terrible heap the Doloshite is, will it be renamed 'Patches' after this, or perhaps 'Bride of Gingerstein'?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Truly noble work; wobbing of the 7th dan going on there. What a terrible heap the Doloshite is, will it be renamed 'Patches' after this, or perhaps 'Bride of Gingerstein'?

Probably quicker to build a new shell from scratch; yer man's already part of the way there!

[GingerNuttz]

Fingers crossed the passenger rear arch isn't as thin up towards the shock mount and we don't have to replace a shit ton of steel. 

[SiC]

Notice the uptick on the share price around the end of July and early August? Checking the dates on the thread, coincidence I think not.

[blackboilersuit]

Amazing work as always. I now know from the most recent dollomite pics what my toledo should look like around the headlamp mounts so I'm forever in your debt for that.  Not much original material to go on in that area on the wee car but thankfully it's the only crispy area on the car.

I have a couple of nearly new 185/65/15 tyres in the lockup that are yours for gratis if they're any use to you. Google suggests they're one of the many different sizes fitted to these Volvo's as standard. 

[Talbot]

On 8/31/2020 at 8:28 PM, captain_70s said:

Oopsie on the door there with the grinder!

This is superb work and clearly a herculean effort.  Have you got plans for what it will be used for once working and on the road?

Also, what brand of welding wire are you using?  I need to buy shares in them pronto.

[Spiny Norman]

Papped! ?

Got to say that's a fine looking old Lolvo for the money, Captain.

[captain_70s]

FAEM!

Yeah, I caught the door with the grinder, after spending fucking ages trying not to. The rear edge of the wing doubles back on itself to be come a flange to weld onto the shell, I couldn't get the grinder in far enough to get at it and eventually I got impatient and sliced the door... A couple of blobs of weld and you'll never know! ?

Mine isn't the worst Dolomite I've seen restored, although it is probably one of the least valuable examples to have such major works carried out. This sort of work is really reserved for OHC cars...

 

[big_al_granvia]

reckon the volvo would look epic in this wrap https://drivetribe.com/p/battle-tank-1994-volvo-850-estate-T7XgN89RTfyG27raHpObQw?fbclid=IwAR1VS3SBOysOfxejzhO4zyAK56HfaY7UUV2GeH1Qo2A10T7GZFc3Op6jHrE&iid=TV8k0l9UQm-l-v1yA9IQfQ

[captain_70s]

Only one inappropriate livery can be applied to white cars.

Although I'm also far too lazy to do any such thing outside of Photoshop.

I was graciously donated a pair of tyres that can go on this thing to replace the cracked death rings on the back by @blackboilersuit, which also gave me a good opportunity to drive his newly acquired Toledo!

It's pleasant little thing, rusty in all the usual places but with repairs made of metal rather than wob. Will be a fine wee car for pottering in no time at all.

On Saturday we were back working on the Dolly...

The new +10 thrust washers were shimmed out with washers shaped out of generic off the shelf jobbies.

Despite having worked out the exact amount of shim we needed we ended up needing far less. We suspect the shims available aren't all that accurate in their sizing as every one we've measured has been a different width which doesn't correlate properly to the apparent standard size... Regardless the crank float was brought right down to the minimum spec.

It was then filled with 30w and run up to oil pressure with the drill adaptor. All good, no leaks, decent pressure on a gauge.

Manifolds installed to give something to hold onto for lifting the engine into the bay.

Installed. Handily, with the new engine mounts installed you now can't take the air filter off without heaving the whole engine clockwise to give the bolts clearance to get in. It was always tight but once gain repo parts aren't quite right...

There is a fair bit of slop in the rotor arm, probably duff springs for the mechanical advance, that will need rectifying.

So, first start and break in on Sunday?! Erm, no...

Due to the odd mixture of pulleys on my setup (a small journal engine crank pulley but a large journal engine spec water pump pulley) we didn't have a fan belt that worked. A Herald one is too short, a Dolly one too long. Even a random BMC A series example from the Dolly's boot was tried and that didn't work either. Se we're now waiting on belts arriving.

The Acclaim continues to perform well as daily driver (the Volvo is too thirsty to use on the commute every day) and adds a touch of style to the street.

 

Oh, as a bonus my camera's lens died to death.

Something is jamming up the mechanism for extending/retracting the lens but despite some hours of fucking about with it I simply can't get access to the area where the problem seems to be. Chances of me getting it back together in a functional state are pretty slim so I'll have to shell out for a new lens at OMGMONEY. Bastard.

[Jikovron]

Phwoar nice work on rectifying what I bloody missed, It should be a cracking power plant by now so looking forward to hearing the standard motor company muscle!!

[captain_70s]

One day it'll run. Just a battle against Standard Triumph's inability to build an engine without a glaring design flaw.

British engineering at it's finest, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

[somewhatfoolish]

7 hours ago, captain_70s said:

 

Installed. Handily, with the new engine mounts installed you now can't take the air filter off without heaving the whole engine clockwise to give the bolts clearance to get in. It was always tight but once gain repo parts aren't quite right...

That would bug the tits off me; worth shimming the offside engine mount?

[GingerNuttz]

Just go twin carbs and don't shim the engine mounts, problem solved ?

[junkyarddog]

No lick of paint for the engine bay then?

 

[alf892]

RE thrust washers.......aren't they the same as the 1500 ones? Moss do them for the 1500 midget engine up to 30 thou over in increments of 5 thou.

Mind you oversize ones shouldn't be used to take up wear.....not wanting to teach egg sucking but machine shop should grind the thrust faces as required and go from there.. If you try to take up wear chances are that the wear pattern on the crank will pretty quick take the new ones down.

if thrust faces are fkd you can get it metal sprayed and machined back to standard

[Jikovron]

The machine shop did grind the thrust faces, and unfortunately only a +10 is available for a pre 71 1300 engine which realistically would have been absolutely fine if the crank journal radiused fillets werent ground bigger than stock and thus unknowingly at the time of build binding on the center main bearing however as you say a post 71 1300-1500 use a larger thrust bearing available in all of the sizes! 

[captain_70s]

13 hours ago, Jikovron said:

The machine shop did grind the thrust faces, and unfortunately only a +10 is available for a pre 71 1300 engine which realistically would have been absolutely fine if the crank journal radiused fillets werent ground bigger than stock and thus unknowingly at the time of build binding on the center main bearing however as you say a post 71 1300-1500 use a larger thrust bearing available in all of the sizes! 

WHS.

Parts in that level of oversize aren't available for my particular variety of engine. 

In real terms this is the last hoorah for this lump, it's machined up to the hilt and can go no further. Not that there is anything wrong with the work that's been done, but there isn't really any scope for more cylinder boring/crank grinding - It'd already been rebuilt once when @Jikovron acquired it!

Even if I only get 30,000 miles or so out of it (with a yearly replacement of thrust washers) that's still 6 years of motoring. The monetary cost of this engine is still pretty low (likely sub £500), so it's still mega-cheap if it works at all... If it blows up I'll find another engine, although all the examples I've acquired over the last few years (3!) have featured similar levels of ridiculous end float so the challenge will be finding decent core...

[captain_70s]

23 hours ago, junkyarddog said:

No lick of paint for the engine bay then?

 

Paint is a very long way away....

Primary concern is finding out if we have a usable engine, with the bonus of being able to drive the car in and out of the workshop if we do. Once the car is ready for paint we'll decide whether the engine is coming back out or whether we're just going to strip the ancillaries and paint around it...

[captain_70s]

Last Sunday tried to get the engine run in. Starter wouldn't work, kept sticking. Tried adding more power with jump leads, no help. Smacked it with a bit of wood, moderate improval. 

Replaced that with the old starter motor off the Herald. The engine span!

And wouldn't fire. Not a sausage.

So turned out we had the ignition timing out by 180 degrees. Correcting that got it to splutter a bit. Spark was pish, points in the dizzy were sitting wonky for a start.

Then we did a compression test, 25psi per cylinder... Ah. Either we've fucked up the cam timing or somebody has sneaked into the workshop overnight and nicked the pistons.

Fuck it, problems for another day. The car was relegated to outside under the Cover Of Shame as @GingerNuttz has restarted working on the Herald during the week.

So. On to the Volvo.

On my last run back from doing Doloshite related stuff it started making a horrendous grinding noise from one of the front brakes. It'd always squealed a bit but it was a distinct "no pad" type sound... This meant I'd have to investigate the brakes, which I finally got around to doing today after work.

Mmmm, crusty.

Not exactly the most even pad wear, the disc was corroded on the edges on the inside. The piston wasn't fully retreating but it wasn't binding. I greased everything up, cleaned up the back of the disc with a wire brush and threw it back together as I lack any rebuild kit or anything useful for actually improving it.

On to the other side...

Ah, yes. That'll be the grinding noise.

Pistons jammed fully out, seals fucked. Woo. 

I looked at this bleed nipple the wrong way and it rounded. At this point I started having PTSD style flashbacks to the Civic...

Anyway, I raided the many boxes of assorted parts that came with the car and found some mildly used brake pads, so I nicked one of them and with a lot of effort and brute force managed to get the pistons retracted enough to fit two pads...

I took it a spin around the block and it no longer scrapes like a bastard. There was also no signs of the caliper binding and the wheel didn't get hot so it'll do for now.

Caliper rebuild kits are £60 a pair and I dare say they'll go again. They aren't even the originals, it had a new set of calipers and discs 7 years ago but long periods of sitting around and sea air have taken their toll... You may also note that the O/S has matching pads and the N/S had a mismatched pair. Perhaps it's been eating it's inside pads for a while...

I also got a new (second hand) lens for my camera so could get some better photos...