Tommy's A-series Misery - Resuming normal programming

[Tommyboy12]

Enough Reliant! Time to get back to my bread and butter Mini action.

I fitted a new bonnet. Unfortunately the original one is entirely rotten. I bought a second hand one which is much less rusty but does have it's share of dents. Being a factory bonnet means I'll have better references when I fit the front end though. Pattern bonnets with pattern wings and front panel will be even more of a nightmare than it's going to be.

I also repaired the sheared studs on my door hinges. They're 1/4 UNF so I just found a couple of bolts and set about replacing them.

The offending hinges

Into the vice

Cut off the studs then punch and drill them out

Then tap them out to origninal size. Some people convert to metric but as the drivers door never came off id like to keep the bolts the same between sides. Not that I ever plan to remove the drivers door cause I know I'll be doing the same job again!

Finally thread in the bolts and cut the heads off and little tack weld to hold them in place on the underside

New studs means I can fit a new A panel. I hate doing A panels because you have to take the door on and off multiple times and you just know you're going to be chucking tons of filler into them as you bend the lip round. You can see all the crimp marks down the edge after I got it in the fight place...

Also my top quality leftover silver paint covered up the external metal. I'll be rubbing this down later and painting it a much nicer shade of brown.

Obviously it got a liberal coating of brown on the inside. It'll need some seam sealer running down between the inner wing and A panel at some point

And the door back on

Next up is the front end. Also not looking forward to that. Pattern panels are a nightmare. Lining up the wings and front panel with the bonnet is going to be 100% hateful and will take at least two days on it's own.

[Stinkwheel]

16 hours ago, Tommyboy12 said:

Next up is the front end. Also not looking forward to that. Pattern panels are a nightmare. Lining up the wings and front panel with the bonnet is going to be 100% hateful and will take at least two days on it's own.

I'm just about at that stage myself, I bought pattern wings, A-panels and front panel. I think youve just confirmed how much of a knightmare its going to be

[sharley17194]

Good Colour match on the bonnet.

[comfortablynumb]

When we were doing my son's van, we gave up on pattern stuff and bought heritage bits instead

it's about 4x the price, but at least the fit was good 

With the pattern stuff, there was a 2 inch gap between the wing and the A panel

[Stinkwheel]

1 hour ago, comfortablynumb said:

When we were doing my son's van, we gave up on pattern stuff and bought heritage bits instead

it's about 4x the price, but at least the fit was good 

With the pattern stuff, there was a 2 inch gap between the wing and the A panel

It'll be fine, wont it?

 

WON'T IT?

 

(tries to figure out how to make panels fill a 2 inch gap)

[Homersimpson]

When fitting the a panel try using a couple of thin pieces of wood taped to the end of whatever you are using or some rubber tube.  If you can cushion them a bit it won't damage the edge like that, also bend the a panel lip over to around 45 degrees with a hammer and dolly before fitting to help.

With the front end I would bolt the front panel on then tack the rear corner of the wing in place in the bonnet shut, then clamp to the front panel, get the bonnet gap right then weld the front of the wing in the bonnet shut, weld the wing to the front panel and the front  panel to the car.

Then weld the wing to the inner wing and finally pull it back to the a panel and weld it on there. 

I've fitted loads of pattern and genuine fronts over the years and while genuine is better pattern can be a good job if a bit more work to fit.

If a pattern panel is hugely out then return it and get another as some are made better than others and you do get the odd bad one.

 

[Tommyboy12]

I'm using panels that came with the car. They need some fettling but they should fit. It's the front panel that seems to be the worst but I've fit a front end with pattern panels before.

[Tommyboy12]

I did some more Reliant work over the weekend. After the tank spent a week full of vinegar it looked pretty good inside. I rinsed out with some additional vinegar and degreaser then lined the tank with tank sealer.

Looking pretty good inside now.

After rinsing it out it spent some time drying out on a radiator.

Then I painted the outside and fitted a new locking ring and seal. I also prefitted some hose as it's in a pretty awkward spot to fit once it's on the car.

I also prepped and fitted two fuel filters. A pre-pump filter and a post-pump filter.

Reliants have a fuel filter fitted from the factory and it was still present. A really weird transparent design that had started to fall apart... The inside was full of tiny glued together balls but they fell out.

A new one in its place.

And another one in the engine bay

I also decided to drain all the fluids ready for a start and change the filter. The gearbox fluid was spotless but changed regsrdless. This oil filter was ancient and was starting to rot out on the underside. The oil was a bit gelatinous so it definitely needed changing. The car is now full of fresh fluids (diff topped up only as it has no drain plug).

I did fit the new rear silencer but when I drained the engine oil I noticed this...

So that silencer will be coming back off while I try to change the down pipe without shearing manifold studs. Lucky @sharley17194 bought a parts car for us to pilfer!

[plasticvandan]

Up to you but I always avoided having any filters in the engine bay for obvious reasons,would extend that overflow to go beyond the starter if you can.

[Tommyboy12]

I took the day off today and spent a couple of hours on the Reliant.

First off I removed my rather holey down pipe. Turns out it was rather wafer thin...

Unfortunately when I did so one of the studs literally fell off. Somebody had snapped it and just gently placed it back with a blob of glue...

However when I took a closer look I saw that the stud lengths still looked ok so I attempted to rethread the studs

First off I removed the extremely thick and definitely* not* asbestos* gasket.

Definitely* not* asbestos*

Then I set about squeezing my threading tool into the gap between the studs and the block 

Thankfully they cleaned up nicely and I was able to thread new* nuts on

Once I did this I started looking at the fuel system again. Now the tank is back in I was expecting to hook up the fuel lines and get fuel to the carb. However, nothing was sucking through to the carb. I suspected a dead pump. When I removed it it seemed to be stuck. The arm moved freely but I think the diaphragm was either split or something else has seized up because I couldn't feel any puffing air from the outlet when I manually moved the lift arm.

When I took the pump off I thought it looked a lot like a Mini pump and I happen to have some spare Mini pumps. This is the Reliant pump.

Here is a Mini pump I have spare. The castings are identical with the same manufacturing marks. Unfortunately the Mini pump has a slightly longer lift arm and it is clocked to pump fuel in the opposite direction

However! I remembered I had a Mini pump with a plastic-sheathed arm and a clockable top! So I smashed off the plastic, measured and filed it down to the same size as the Reliant arm and clocked the top and scored myself a free fuel pump!

It was fitted and pumped fuel! Unfortunately it seems my tank cleaning escapades were not entirely fruitful as when I turned the key I pumped some lovely black fuel into the filter... I think that I may not have managed to clean all the tar like substance out the tank and it's dissolving into the fuel I put into the tank. I guess it'll dissolve out eventually. If it proves problematic I'll flush the tank with some more fresh fuel.

When fuel eventually flowed through to the carb it unfortunately poured straight out the overflow... Jammed float no doubt.

So I took the carb off for cleaning, which I knew I would probably end up doing anyway.

Emptying out the float bowl resulted in a lot of sediment

I also found the carb heater was full of salts from dried out coolant. Bodes well for the rest of the cooling system...

Then I set about stripping and cleaning the carb. Unfortunately the jet was seized in the body of the carb so I had to drive it out. The seals were also plastic and brittle. I had half a rebuild kit left over from when I did the HS4 on my 998 Mini engine rebuild but the jet was incorrect so I managed to replace a few bits including the float needle but not the jet.

As such I have had to order a new jet and some gaskets. So I wait on parts with a pile of carb bits on my work bench.

[Tommyboy12]

The weather is shocking so today all I did was rebuild a carburettor with a new jet and bowl gasket. If there's a gap in the weather tomorrow I am aiming to try and fit it