project Broadsword's Fleet Thread

[Broadsword]

I would like to get an engine for the Herald before the Covid situation starts to restrict our movements, but that might prove problematic what with so much going on.

In other news, happily the XK8 has a fresh MOT. This coincided with me selling the number plate. The car is now P750SBH SBH. In the end the welding bill was not bad and the bits I mended were pretty cheap. Getting an XK8 through an MOT is not a task one would necessarily undertake easily. All in all it went well and the car is greatly improved as a result.

The the interior went back in the XK8 today, the leather being cleaned before that. Then I did the LPG service. I took my time, but it was pretty straight forward job. The liquid filter didn’t look terrible, but the gas filter was very bad. Glad I did the job.

The final thing I did today was swap the broken headlight on the XJR. That took only a couple of minutes and the little plastic bits holding the light on didn’t break, which was good.

I tired to fill the XK8 with LPG, but the big ASDA in York has partially closed down. I hope that is not a sign of impending issues in acquiring fuel.

[Broadsword]

What with the lockdown, there has been more time than usual for working on the fleet.

Starting off light with the XJR6. I attended to some very small details that nonetheless make a difference. It is very common for the paint along the rim of the rear lights to flake off, leaving an ugly mess. BL Carmime red is recommended to fix that. I have a large pot of bright red touch up paint from a Citroen C1 that did a great job. Then I just sort of kept going with that red pot of paint and fixed the faded red on the engine cover. Looks much nicer now with the letters JAGUAR in bright red, a badge of honour for the XJR. A small detail on the engine cover is that under the faded red lettering there was the usual green from the other models in the range. It seems that in the factory they just lightly dusted red paint over the green. Typical Jaguar. Again more paint was used to touch up some spots in the engine bay that were exposed.

Then I finally got round to adding the £2.50 R badge to the front grille. It is easy to remove if it doesn't look right, but I think it works. The only other small cosmetic thing I didn't get round to was to touch up the silver on the B-pillar badges. That can be for next time. Petrol is at almost a pound a litre, so the XJR was treated to £50 in the tank. Nice!

Next up the Triumph. I haven't secured an engine for it due to the current situation, but I have now got the old engine out. A crane was purchased to this end and it really made short work of it. With the engine out the gearbox was left propped up against the chassis and the old engine dismantled partially. It's a shame since it has obviously been rebuilt in the past, but there was quite a lot of metal in the sump and as I said the cam, and the bore for one cam followers is done. The clutch had to be chipped off the flywheel. The flywheel itself has a lip. The problem with replacement engines is that they have mostly been sitting in someone's garden shed for ages. There is no way to know if it works at all unless it's coming straight out of another car. Plans for paint are to do it with cellulose in signal red. The car was originally blue, but red is much better on it. Further dismantling for paint prep soon.

Then the Lupo got some much needed TLC. First up the front brakes. Long story short they were toast and the whole ares was quite corroded. I ended up doing the job across two afternoons. Getting the brakes apart was not the problem. Cleaning everything up took ages, and I had to do some rust killing underneath. Particularly the rear arch corners were trapping water. I think these have been saved just in time. Once again that magic pot of bright red touchup paint came in mighty useful for bits on the Lupo as it is a perfect match for that too!

Lupo discs were poor and pads critical, but the caliper pistons fine. Seeing fresh brakes and cleaned up bits is very satisfying, but the pedal feel is not that much better. This is either a characteristic of the car or something else needs looking at. Maybe the servo as it seems to be off the exhauster pump, or the brake bias adjuster on the rear. The Lupo also got a new fuel filter while I was at it. I noted some very small bubbles in the fuel line, but it seems to run perfect. No in tank fuel pump on these, it relies on the injector pump entirely.

Other minor jobs on the Lupo: replace rear shock absorbers, CV boots are starting to let go, check rear brakes, and paint the steelies with satin black. It continues to provide sterling service and always exceeds 60 MPG.

The Range Rover is back on the road and is running great. It continues to leap into life after all the repairs from last year. There was the small matter of the oil leak somewhere near the fuel filter housing to fix today. It was a drip while running, so a proper leak. I assumed there was some bigger problem since the whole area was covered in black silicon sealant. Armed with spare O-rings to seal the hard lines into the housing I scraped all the goo away. It indeed looked like it was just leaking slightly from the O-ring. 10 mm spanner in hand I set about removing the clamp to replace O-rings. Then I realized the nut was loose. Nipped it up smartly (access not great, but I have a good 10 mm spanner), cleaned everything down and after a running the engine hard it hasn't leaked a drop. I can't believe it was so simple to fix.

Tomorrow I really want to fix the driver's side electric window on the Rangie.

[Shirley Knott]

Cracking update!

Your current fleet has a really diverse range of cars, always interesting to see what you've been up to.

[GingerNuttz]

Is the bore for the lifter totally knackered ? 

[Broadsword]

1 hour ago, GingerNuttz said:

Is the bore for the lifter totally knackered ? 

I’m afraid so. I tried to put a good lifter in and it was trying to stick pretty bad.

[GingerNuttz]

Shame as i have a spare camshaft i swapped out of my GE engine when i upgraded. If the lifter bore had been usable you could have had the cam

[Broadsword]

2 hours ago, GingerNuttz said:

Shame as i have a spare camshaft i swapped out of my GE engine when i upgraded. If the lifter bore had been usable you could have had the cam

That is indeed a shame. Thanks for the thought though!

[somewhatfoolish]

Are there any workshops local that could sleeve the tappet hole for you?

[Broadsword]

On 4/15/2020 at 11:23 PM, somewhatfoolish said:

Are there any workshops local that could sleeve the tappet hole for you?

I think that would be going down a rabbit hole. If I take it to a workshop they have a blank cheque on the price. Say they ask for £200, that would be a disaster. Once done there is still no guarantee that the engine will run right. It would need the tapped hole repair to be successful, then new rings, shells, new valve springs and the new cam in. Bolt everything back together, put the engine in and you have no guarantee the engine will run right after that investment of money (unknown amount) and time.

The Range Rover has had some more attention recently. With the oil leak fixed I turned my attention back to the non-operational driver's side front window. To recap it goes up and down with a direct 12 volt feed to the motor, no response from the window switch other than "front window not set" when pressing up. There seems to be power to the plug weirdly nonetheless and I can't find a break in the wiring. I swapped the outstations round between the front doors, that didn't help either (passenger side window works). I have in the past tried another switch pack. Still no dice. This is an infuriating fault. To rub salt into the wound both front windows are missing the front felt runners, so they shake when down. Since this is never going to be a show car, I've decided I want to run the power for the driver's side rear window to the front window and fool the car into lowering the front window that way. I can live without a passenger side rear window going up and down.

From its time sitting the car has started to produce steering wheel shake intermittently when braking from 60 mph + hard. I've now looked at the front brakes on both side and think the driver's side caliper is sticking on one of the two pistons. I'll have another go freeing that off. I did clean the front brakes up while inspecting. It really needs the brake accumulator sphere around now. If anyone has one spare, let me know.

While underneath the car I had a good prod around. It's remarkable solid. Plenty of surface rust, but it's really thick metal. I'm perfectly happy with it. The front tyres not so much though. The date code was only on the inner sidewall. Turns out they are 20 years old! I'm on the lookout for a deal of used wheels with decent tyres as a way of keeping costs down. Again if you know of a set (anything that fits if fine, Disco wheels fit), let me know.

Finally the engine viscous fan is partially seized. It has always been like this, but I hadn't really appreciated it before. The engine likes to roar a lot. Upon inspection on a cold engine the fan rotates with significant resistance. No free spin at all. I have a contact for the fan, who hopefully can be persuaded to post the item to me.

All in all not that much wrong with the Rangie at this point (for a P38 at least) if you view it as a tool rather than something to make shine (which I don't want with this, I just want it running right and driving nice). It's fairly close to where I want it. Once everything else is done, it should really have the RONBOX fitted as the benefits are pretty good I read.

[Broadsword]

I worked on the P38's driver's side brake caliper some more today. One piston is slightly sticky, hence the random shaking of the wheel at higher speed I think. Worked it in and out a load. I think it has helped. With all I can do on the P38 done till more parts are acquired, I put it away and retrieved the XK8. I need to paint where the sills have been repaired and work on the HVAC issues. That will be next weekend's job. Inbetween this I set about taking the Herald to pieces some more. This is remarkably simple. A few bolts hold the roof on. Same fore the doors and boot. In less than a hour everything was off. So much easier to paint something like this.

[Broadsword]

This time on the merry go round: the XK8. A new issue was that it was refusing to come out of park. This is a known problem, down to a faulty brake light switch. Simple part, but a real pig to remove/install. It's basically just a microswitch. A blast of electrical contact cleaner on it and an adjustment to the plastic quadrant that actuates it seems to have sorted everything out. If it fails completely I'll replace the microswitch. A new part is pretty pricey, like £150.

The HVAC problem is that the passenger side blower motor is not working. The upshot of this is that not much air comes out of the vents. Either the blower motor is dead or more likely the resistor is broken. The blower motor is behind the glovebox, but it looks a bit of a bugger to get out (the resistor is bolted to the back of the unit). I think the airbag unit needs to come out so that I can access the necessary bolts. The workshop manual simply says "remove instrument panel", which is not very helpful advice. I'm not taking the whole dash out, I can't see it being necessary.

With some new wheel nuts arriving in the post I removed the final two hateful locking wheel nuts (they should be outlawed!). Then time for a wash and paint the bits of the outer sill that had recently been welded. I rubbed everything down 80 grit, then applied zinc primer. After this three coats of carnival red, followed by two coats of clear lacquer. Since it's the sill and already has rough finish, the results seem ok. I'm not handy when comes to paint. While I was working on the body, I applied some Vactan where I noted it was required and extracted a great deal of dried up mud trapped in the rear bumper. This thing catches mud like no other!

As a treat, an essential shopping trip was done in the XK8 this week. It is really quite good on some of the back roads. Pretty sure footed for such a big old thing and with more than ample shove. Going forward I need to fix the blower motor to get proper air conditioning. Then I want to jet wash the underside somehow so that Waxoyling can be done. The rear arches can be scrubbed and protected just with the wheels off. The last bit of rust treatment would be the rear quarters. I know they trap damp and rust from the inside out due to there being a fresh air vent at the bottom. I need to go in, dry, Vatcan, Waxoyl, seal the stupidly placed vents. Once all that is done I would think about a gearbox service.

Bonus footage from the driving on the back roads this week.

 

 

[Broadsword]

Progress on the Triumph front! A suitable donor engine was sourced and it magically appeared on the driveway this Friday. The replacement engine is the later 13/60 variant, which is supposedly slightly hardier. It was last running in the autumn and for the price I decided it was worth a punt. It also came with a good clutch and much better clutch release bearing, which has sped things up. What with the clutch bits being included it meant the engine could go straight in. A level one tidy of the engine block revealed it was a nice bright red. A lot of the bits on the old engine were in fact quire recent, so where it was convenient the good bits were transplanted to the replacement engine.

Getting the engine in was really difficult for some reason. It didn't want to engage on the input shaft and when it did, the engine still didn't want to quite sit on the bell-housing. Eventually it relented and popped into place. It was really hot outside, which slowed things down. Eventually all the ancillaries were buttoned up. A big problem is fasteners. You never seem to have quite the right thing and there appears to be a mixture of metric and A/F used in places. The exhaust was a pain to fit. It has a stainless steel jobbie and getting it to fit nicely was just hell in the heat. Quite late in the day everything was ready and a freshly charged battery chucked in. It cranks happily, has a working clutch and fuel is getting through. Oil pressure light goes out too. It won't fire yet, but things were called a day at that point. There is some spark, but the ignition timing is probably all wrong. When the weather is ok again some fresh fuel and a systematic examination of the ignition system are in order. I think it's pretty close to running now. Nice that the car has been brought back from the brink now despite the previous owner's best efforts to ruin it.

Other progress is on the P38 front. I've fixed the driver's side electric window, which is a major win. In the end I found a very slightly swollen wire, which turned out had disintegrated beneath the insulation. Fixed that and suddenly the window was fine. You can get quite lost amidst all the wiring in a P38, there is rather a lot of it. On the back of that success I thought I might reinstate all the interior light, of which three are many. The driver's dome light is a bit flaky and needs a block connector replacing to make proper contact, but for the past week everything has been working. Then I pushed further and decided to fix all the dash lighting as you can't see half the control switches in the dark. The main one was the HVAC panel. I have dismantled and sorted one of these out before. The same treatment was lavished on mine and as a bonus I cleaned up the track on the rotary dial for the fan speed controller. Everything works well now. Other than that some light switch bulbs and the light for the window control panel panel were done.

At this point there was no beeping from the dash anymore to say WINDOW NOT SET and all the controls were illuminated in the dark, bar the hazard warning light switch, which seems quite hard to remove. Next up was the wipers. They don't work on speed 2. Relays, wires and fuses and switches checked I had to remove the wiper motor. The conclusion was it needs a replacement wiper motor. That is sitting on a desk for the right moment. One slight reversal is that the driver's door keeps giving a false door ajar warning at the moment. It is maddening and will cause a battery drain so I'm just going to bypass that by jumping the appropriate wires for now. P38 electrics are a real battle. Finally a replacement engine fan has been ordered, that will cure the excessive roaring. Overall progress on the P38 has been quite good and it's driving really well.

Lupo hasn't seen much action. It wouldn't start the other day. Hit the starter motor with a hammer. Works a treat once more.

[GingerNuttz]

The distributor seems to be out by a mile compared to mine. Good chance that's why it didn't fire but very easily fixed and congrats on getting it buttoned up 

 

[Broadsword]

Thanks for that. Yes, mine is completely out isn't it. I was kind of hoping the distributor was still roughly in the right position on the donor engine for a quick test, but the only way forward now is to start the engine timing from scratch. I did just for the hell of it just now try rotating the distributor roughly to the correct position, but that didn't help.

[garethj]

See this?  I did some of the design work on this

It looks like there’s some corrosion under the clickers so I’d suggest lifting the adhesive sheet and checking for rust stopping the contacts working.

Use a fibreglass pencil to clean the oxidation off and the reapply the sheet again.

There are air channels between each of the clickers so if there’s rust below one, it might be on any of them.

Just to make sure you win the P38 trivia quiz, the thing that makes the notch-feel position is a white nylon slider with a brass roller and a coil spring.  For reasons I forget, that coil spring had to be extremely long, probably to get a low spring rate for large deflection.

The problem with a long coil spring is that it can buckle rather than compress in a straight line, to fix this there’s a thin plastic pin down the middle, called an “anti-buckle” pin.  For the full two points in the trivia quiz, the name of the sales engineer to Land Rover at the time was Andy Buckley so the pin was nicknamed the Andy Buckley pin.

Fucking hell, Engineers are sad.

[Jenson Velcro]

3 hours ago, GingerNuttz said:

The distributor seems to be out by a mile compared to mine. Good chance that's why it didn't fire but very easily fixed and congrats on getting it buttoned up 

 

I’m guessing that the engine can run with the distributor in  four different orientations as long as the plug leads are moved around so the rotor arm is pointing at the right one at tdc?

[GingerNuttz]

 

5 minutes ago, Jenson Velcro said:

I’m guessing that the engine can run with the distributor in  four different orientations as long as the plug leads are moved around so the rotor arm is pointing at the right one at tdc?

Yeah the distributor drive gear can be put in at any position with the first cylinder on tdc and it would run but the vac advance canister will foul the block when trying to adjust the ignition timing 

[Broadsword]

30 minutes ago, garethj said:

See this?  I did some of the design work on this

It looks like there’s some corrosion under the clickers so I’d suggest lifting the adhesive sheet and checking for rust stopping the contacts working.

Use a fibreglass pencil to clean the oxidation off and the reapply the sheet again.

There are air channels between each of the clickers so if there’s rust below one, it might be on any of them.

Just to make sure you win the P38 trivia quiz, the thing that makes the notch-feel position is a white nylon slider with a brass roller and a coil spring.  For reasons I forget, that coil spring had to be extremely long, probably to get a low spring rate for large deflection.

The problem with a long coil spring is that it can buckle rather than compress in a straight line, to fix this there’s a thin plastic pin down the middle, called an “anti-buckle” pin.  For the full two points in the trivia quiz, the name of the sales engineer to Land Rover at the time was Andy Buckley so the pin was nicknamed the Andy Buckley pin.

Fucking hell, Engineers are sad.

Thanks for that info, and for the trivia! I tested continuity of each circuit, pressing down on the pads individually and everything was fine. Ideally this is the sort of item you would have in stock (P38 ownership should go with a disclaimer to have a half shed worth of spares within hands reach). Normally this would be fine as I live very close to a scrap yard, but that is no longer an option. Anyway my verdict on the wiper switch was that despite the grubby appearance, it works. We will see how wrong/right I am when I put the replacement wiper motor on.

[garethj]

It’s not necessarily just go or no-go with these things. It might light up the continuity test on a voltmeter but the switch resistance has to be low or the BeCM won’t read it correctly.

It was the same problem as with the Jaguar XJ40, the first car to use low current switching.  Great when everything is new but after a few years and contact resistance has gone up, readings to the black box can go squiffy.  

Some parts are even worse because they have a resistor network in the switches, I remember the bubble Rover 200 had it in the steering wheel cruise / radio switches.

Maybe the way to check with this is to unplug the harness from the wiper motor and see if it’s got 12V going to the 2nd speed wire.  Then at least you’re testing the switch, the BeCM and the harness.

[Broadsword]

Great news! The Triumph is running!! Ignition timing was very off, unsurprisingly. It leaped into life after some systematic working things out. Lots of fettling to do but it sounds healthy to my ear!

 

[Broadsword]

Other fleet updates. Swings and roundabouts. The P38 got a new viscous fan for the engine. It was necessary to move a few things out of the way and cut a piece of angle iron to hold the base of the fan while undoing the 32 mm nut, but it soon came off. The engine is much more settled now with a properly functioning fan. The old one was nearly seized on, hence the roar. Brand new part, should outlive the vehicle. To shut up the door open false alarm on the passenger side door I jumped the appropriate wires on the door latch (inside the latch are micro switches  to signal when the door is open or locked). No more beeping!

Then I replaced the wiper motor. Picked up a used part but it turns out the motor was indeed the problem. Not the switch. Result! Happy with my efforts and the P38 faring well, just brakes and tyres left on the agenda. A quick wash and I was done for the day. Cue the next morning and there was a crack on the bottom right of the windscreen. Damn! Saving grace is that my insurance policy has windscreen cover. This is good because I’ll get a new heated windscreen for the price of the excess (old one only worked in part). Every cloud and all that, I’ll take that!

Then to the XJR. Replacing the door catch cable was pretty easy, only took 10 mins. That and the inside door handle surround were replaced. All good. I was looking forward to another easy little fix tackling replacement of a few dash cluster bulbs. Today, however, hottest day of the year, the A/C compressor seized. Bigger. Can’t really grumble though, it was still the original unit!

 

[Broadsword]

The weekend was a bit of a write-off with the stormy weather. Saturday saw an opportunity to get the Herald serviced. Some LiquidMoly engine flush was employed with generic 10W-40 after dumping the old, very black oil. Once that had been run for 10 mins, the filter was changed and fresh 20W-50 mineral oil went in. Minor fettling with the carburetor and the ignition timing, and it now runs much, much nicer. There is a very slight bit of hunting at idle, but I haven't made any real adjustments to the carb yet and it has very old fuel it in it. My feeling is that the engine is rather good. This is by far the oldest car ever to grace Broadsword central and everything has a different feel to it. The engine sounds and feels like a real proper mechanical thing if you get my drift. Quite nice. Attention now turns to getting the bodywork prepped for paint!

Today the weather was excellent so it was time to give the Lupo a good once-over. The starter motor seized temporarily not long ago. I had fixed it once before, but a new one was less than £25 on ECP, so I got that and swapping it was pretty easy. While rooting in the engine bay I noticed a vacuum line to the EGR valve was collapsing. 1 min fix for that. Then I fixed a couple of pinholes on the CV boots (I don't fancy swapping them out entirely yet so rubber cement and rubber self-amalgamating tape was attempted as a temporary fix). A quick check of the front brakes I replaced recently suggested all was well, but the passenger side strut top was moving slightly. Nipped the top nut up and now it seems fine again. This thing shakes so much I'm not surprised of the odd loose thing. The Lupo has been running the narrowest 13 inch tyres in the range since the winter and the fronts have been wearing a bit fast. I still had two very good wider tyres from the previous set which suffered two punctures (i.e. only two good tyres remained from that set), so they went back on the front to take the weight of the SDI lump. YEP, I'm running staggered tyre sizes on a Lupo! Problem was the wheels were silver and the others black. It was a good enough excuse to give all the wheels a lick of paint since I was planning to inspect the rear brakes and suspension anyway. Painting went fine and I even treated the rear drums to some high temp matt black. At this point I was on a bit of a roll.

The rear drums come off very easy on the Lupo, just the one retaining screw. I've had a feeling for a while that the rear brakes were not doing much. Funny thing is that the brake shoes are pretty fresh. The rear wheels spin very freely though and pushing the pedal it seem that there are nearly no rear brakes at all. I'm not sure how it passed the MOT like that. I was encouraged by this though because the brakes have always felt spongy, so the answer most likely is related to the rear brakes. Obviously the next step was to try and adjust the rear shoes out, but the Lupo has a strange arm and spring self adjuster. There is no cog you can turn to adjust it. The self adjuster seemed reluctant to move at any rate. You can ping the adjuster back to it's innermost setting to unstick it, which I did. I think this has improved things, but I didn't hear it click to adjust afterwards, although by hand it felt like the rear brakes were gripping better. Unfortunately on the test drive things didn't seem much different. Brake fluid is fresh, front discs and pads new and rear shoes excellent. Everything has been cleaned up, and the car stops fine, but the brake pedal lacks a certain sharpness. The only other thing that comes to mind is the brake bias adjuster on the back, but it seems to move ok. I'm open to ideas/experiences of small VW brakes. In general the system design is not great though so maybe the brakes are meant to feel spongy(ish).

All in all I was happy with the progress today on the Lupo. It deserved the attention and health checkup. It's a hardy little thing indeed! I should find some rear shock absorbers before the year is out though as they are starting to leak slightly. UPullit opens tomorrow though!

[Cooper1]

Great work there ?

[Broadsword]

Time for a fleet update. First a new addition to the fleet, a car familiar from here. It's the Porsche 924 formerly of @inconsistant. Many thank to him for the utterly trouble free purchase. It was a long way away but the car drove back without any grumbles. I saw it up available and decided this was the only time there would be a realistic chance of getting a well-running example for not silly money before they become unobtainable. It's a very different car to drive from what I've had around recently. Quite an interesting one. The plan is to improve it cosmetically as mechanically it's in a decent state to begin with. I've already fixed the broken passenger side electric window and the clock. The oil pressure gauge is behaving quite weird, but I think that is a bad wire along the way. The fuel pump is on it's last legs. Easy to replace, but I want to replace some section of fuel line either side of it so just trying to source the right parts now. I'm also looking for a new seal for the Webasto sunroof to sort that out. The brown interior is amazing, and it's a practical* hatchback!

In other news I have finally started to paint the Herald. Prep takes a long time, but the boot was ready to go yesterday and the weather was perfect to get going. I'm painting it signal red with cellulose paint using a paint gun (yes you have to be careful using one) so yes it's very much DIY, but having never done it before yesterday let me know what you think of the result! The rest of the car will be done in sections. One per sunny day. Bonnet, roof, doors, then the tub. I learnt a great deal with this initial run and conclude, yes the job is doable. The paint on the bootlid will be left to harden a week before compounding and polishing. Having looked at it after sitting overnight, nothing has reacted or gone off, so I'm quite pleased.

The P38 is getting a new windscreen next weekend after the sudden crack, so I thought all was going well. This was until I got to the farm today to check/startup up the fleet. The XK8 now has a crack just like the one on the P38. Nothing has touched it, it has just happened. Lightning has struck at the same place twice. Bugger! Except this time I think there is a clear reason. I think the screen has been replaced once already, but very badly. I've checked for rust underneath, it's clean, but the crack starts where you have that horrible white residue. My question to anyone out there who knows fitting windscreens game, is what do you think of the de-laminated look there? To me it looks like someone just slung a replacement windscreen in very quickly, not prepping properly and trapping moisture in there.

[Shirley Knott]

On ‎5‎/‎26‎/‎2020 at 12:06 AM, Broadsword said:

 

I'm open to ideas/experiences of small VW brakes. In general the system design is not great though so maybe the brakes are meant to feel spongy(ish).

Never great IME. I've driven a few Lupo's/Arosa's and they pretty much all felt a bit wooly TBH.

The Porsche looks amazing BTW, very envious of that!

[Isaac Hunt]

Well done on the Porsche.  I saw that up,for sale some time ago and it struck me as a good example that deserved a good home.

i've done a lot of painting with cellulose with a small compressor and a small gun, only hobby equipment, but it is possible to get fantastic results. As you have said, the key is in the preparation.  If you can see. 'Blemish in primer' it will look several times worse in gloss.   You are looking to get a good even coverage of paint.   When it has hardened off, flat it back with 1200 wet and dry (with a sanding block, used wet with plenty of soap) then use a cutting compound through to t-Cut.  It can be hard work, but the results can be very good.  You will most likely find, as you progress, you get a better finish 'off the gun'.   The first car I did, I had the paint too thick, leaving a very dry finish.   It took a lot of flitting and polishing to get to a good finish, but cellulose is easy to work with in that regard.

[dome]

Just catching up with this, I missed the 924 purchase. i looked at one very similar to it a few weeks ago 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Porsche-924/383587418577

With a bit of work it could've been a cracker but i decided to give it a miss. And buy 2 Jags instead ?

Good luck with yours, I do really like them. 

 

 

[Broadsword]

Some Porsche fettling occurred today. I had been anxious to replace the fuel pump due to the horrendous noise it makes, and occasional hot start problem. It took two attempts to do the job because it transpired I needed more than the pump due to the rotten rubber pipe from the tank to pump and the banjo/check valve/cap nut on the pump being very rotten, as well as a section after the pump. Armed with knowledge from the first attempt and further parts, I tackled it again today.

In the end I got the elbow you see in the pictures off and replaced that with a new banjo, new cap nut and washers. The tank to fuel pump is a new genuine Porsche bit for what that's worth and I wrapped the pump with rubber to prevent rubbing and vibration a bit more. The contacts on the fuel sender were really corroded, so I cleaned them. Everything went back together nice and it's comforting to see fresh fuel system components. The car runs miles better now and there is no issue with hot starting now, or the wiff of rich running at idle. Perhaps this really was the weak spot in the fuel system then. Annoyingly the fuel gauge stopped working shortly even though initially it worked fine after finishing the job. It flickers a bit, but reads empty with 2 gallons in the tank and the fuel light is on.

 

 

[inconsistant]

Good work! I'm glad you got that sorted and really pleased it's helped with the running. Looks like you've got the skills the car needs!

I hope you're enjoying owning and driving it. If you need parts https://www.frazerpart.com are great, website ok but always best to give Max a call, there's not much he can't help with. Also try https://wooliesworkshop.com for new & used spares and advice, again Paul is a wealth of info. Failing that VW heritage parts have a Porsche spares section I've used in the past and they've been good, fast delivery and reasonably priced: https://www.heritagepartscentre.com/uk/porsche/924.html.

It always surprises people that one of the cheapest places to get parts is your local Porsche dealer or OPC ('Official Porsche Centre') They have excellent support for old Porsches and will always get hold of stuff that's available and post it to you too. There are places on the web and ebay that buy spares from Porsche then mark them up, so your local Porsche OPC (Leeds I'm guessing?) is usually cheaper than ebay. Plus you get free Porsche coffee if you go to collect.

Looking forward to reading more!

[SRi05]

You are absolutely the right owner for that Porsche. Look forward to reading the progress on it.