The Webmaster Zone

Not too much to report, put a new 175/70R14 on the spare; it fit very nicely, much better than the 185/70s that are on right now. I can't wait until I have all new tires and new, balanced rims all the way around. Its getting quite cold at night now, I was worried that it would be cold in the Bomber (this being our first winter together and all) but I've been pleasantly suprised; it actually gets toasty fairly quickly when you're driving. Having the exhaust manifold right next to your feet helps I'm sure. I need to grease the heater fan, it gets stuck sometimes or makes unpleasant noises. The only real draft is coming from the fresh air vent behind the console, so I'm going to pick up a blanking plate from OMG that will eliminate that. I have new headlamp gaskets and wiper arm seals to install; hopefully work won't be as brutal this week and I will have some evenings to kick back with the car.

The caliper rebuild did not go quite as smoothly as I would have hoped. After disconnecting the nearside caliper and resting it on a box, I wrapped some wire around one of the pistons and pumped the brake pedal to push the other piston out. Carefully removed the oil seal and then the dust retaining ring and seal, then meticulously cleaned out the bores with denatured alcohol. Lightly buffed the piston with steel wool to remove surface rust and examined for pitting. Looked good, so I proceeded to install the new seal set. Getting the dust seal retaining ring proved to be insanely frustrating. I tried tapping around it gently with the butt end of a screwdriver, but one side would always go in and leave the opposite side sticking out and any attempts to get it in would result in a bent ring. Well after 3 hours of that, I got fed up and left it for the day. On day two I cut two 3" x 5" squares out of a scrap piece of plywood and bought a couple of cheap 3" C-clamps and tried to press down on the ring evenly by tightening each side slowly. Still didn't work. I had destroyed one rebuild kit already, had made no progress, and the week was slipping by so I decided to farm out the job to Octagon Motors. I removed the brake hose at the pipe end on both sides and took both of the calipers upstairs where my kitchen table turned into a temproary workbench (with the messy parts inside a plastic tub and ample newspaper spread out) where I removed the bleed screws and soaked all of the bolts and small parts in a container filled with Coca-Cola (it dissolves any rust quite quickly). I was then presented with a problem: how to get the remaining 3 pistons out? I had a "eureka!" moment and fetched a large rad clamp (I believe Brits call them jubilee clips) and placed it over a piston with a bit of paper towel wadded up underneath the worm drive as to prevent the piston from being marred. Tightened the clamp up and then with a BFS, pry each side of the piston up a fraction of an inch at a time, alternating sides, using the edge of the rad clamp for gaining purchase. Doesn't take too long and works quite well. Only one of the pistons was corroded enough to warrant replacement. Once the pistons were out, I cleaned the calipers and wire brushed the old paint and caked-on crud off. Friday morning before work I put everything in my backpack and took the bus out to Octagon - 40 minutes later and a few dollars poorer all new seals were installed! After work, I masked the bores and the bleed holes and strung some wire through the bolt holes. I took the calipers downstairs and hung them from the wires, and applied several coats of Tremclad aluminum spray paint. I then brought them back to my bathroom and left them with a space heater overnight. By Saturday morning, they were almost completely dry so I removed the masking and lubricated the bores with brake fluid and pressed the pistons back in. Back downstairs and bolted the calipers on with new tab washers, then removed the old cracked hoses and replaced with brand new ones. Installed new Lucas brake pads, springs and split pins and bled the system. A job properly done, and the calipers look as if they were brand new! Driving impressions? Braking is much much bettter and the pads no longer bind-on. This week I will examine the rear brakes.. I got a really big Philips screwdriver to take off the drum. Moral of the story? Sometimes its much easier to get the professionals to do the tricky bits, especially when you have limited workspace and tools at your disposal! This week I will also buy most of the parts required for my front suspension rebuild. I almost forgot to mention that since my cleaning of the control box, my indicator lamps are flashing quite a bit quicker and the instrument panel lights are brighter. Bonus!

Its raining buckets here, so I had a chance to get on my back in the footwell and find out the source of the leaks while having my face dripped on. Its the rubber grommets for the windshield wipers on both sides... should be easy and cheap to fix. Having some problems with the ignition warning lamp staying on when the car is off. Sometimes when it does that, I will hear a ping sound under the hood and it will go off, I managed to trace the problem to the control box. Disconnected the battery and took the cover off to find ample corrosion, so I attacked it with 600 grit sandpaper and got all the surfaces shiny clean. Hopefully that will solve that problem but we will see. I also topped up all the shock absorbers - to get to the rear shock filler holes, I had to cut the carpet off the access holes so obviously nobody had checked the fluid levels since the car was upholstered, who knows when that was. One of the rear shocks was a bit low but they seem to be in good working order, that is, not leaking. Moving to the front of the car I used carb cleaner to try and find any air leaks around the carbs and inlet manifold but no luck. I ran out of cleaner so I will have to try again when the car has warmed up - I think there is an air leak somewhere that is contributing to my trouble getting the idle low enough, even with the idle screws backed all the way out. Put the car up on jack stands and removed the wheels, topped up the front dampers. The passenger side damper is leaking like a sieve, the fluid comes out by the arm as soon as you put it in. Not good. The driver's side damper seems alright though. I took a good look at the suspension again now that I have some decent light and the bushes and springs are in a very sorry state. I've got all the parts for the front caliper rebuild though, which was my main goal - didn't have time last night to really get started though, so I took a look around. I want to determine if the calipers aren't releasing due to the pistons being stuck or if the brake hose is collapsed creating a sort of one-way valve. To that end I wanted to open the bleed screw to see if I could then move the piston but I could not get the bleed screws to move on either side even with considerable force! Another "who knows how long it has been" - this time, since the brake fluid was changed. I'm soaking the screws in Liquid Wrench today, tonight I will start the caliper rebuild and let you know how it goes!

Got a new resonator installed today at Commonwealth Motors, its very nice to have the mellow exhaust note again. Its started raining here, I think this is only the 3rd time I have had the top up in four months, it needed a bit of stretching to get it on. I'm heading down to Seattle again so I'll have a chance to trace that drip on my right foot.

I feel more than ever that this is my car now - nobody else can look at it and see what I see. It's not concours or even restored - but to me its the best B in the world and I wouldn't give it up for anything. Its spirit is restored and thats whats most important. I'm hooked!

Lots of news to share, on Friday I spent the day working on the car. I got permission from my landlord to use an outlet in the underground parking garage where I work on my car, so I purchased a long extension cord and a mechanic's light so now I can actually see what I am doing! Before I was using a flashlight, trying to illuminate my work area while holding tools etc, very frustrating. So that makes my life a lot easier. I pulled the rocker cover to find out why one of the tappets is making so much noise. Examined one of the adjusters on the #3 cylinder tappet that I had a bit of trouble with before - it was very tight, so I readjusted to 0.015" and tried to tighten the adjusting nut. Stripped! I pulled off the nut and thank goodness, the adjusting screw was alright (you can only take them out the bottom) but I had no nuts so I had to change and take the bus out to Octagon Motors and get a new nut. Gotta hate it when you have to run around for a 50 cent part. Came back, installed, set the clearance and replaced the valve cover. Replaced the fuel filter, the old one was, well, old and blowing through the end it seemed quite restrictive. Who knows how old it was. I re-checked the points gap and set the static timing by using my trouble light in series with the wire from the coil to the dizzy. Then I screwed up my courage, and tackled the carbs. Following Roger Garnett's SU Tuning Guide (available below) and the Haynes manual side-by-side, I synchronized using an old toy stethoscope I had, changed the mixture, tested, and repeated a whole lot of times. I finally got it just right, the problem is I can't get the idle low enough! This week I'll look for air leaks again, I think that may be the culplrit - and it may be as easy to fix as replacing the intake manifold gaskets. I replaced the air filter and float bowl gaskets, they were very old. It was idling at around 1500 r.p.m. at this point (6 hours or so after I began the day's activities) so I reassembled and went for a test drive. The tappet noise was gone, thats good... seems to have power. The exhaust note didn't sound the same at all though. Checked the plugs quickly for an indication of the mixture, looks good so I'm off down to Seattle. Halfway down and my left front tire self-destructs. I hate changing tires on highways with trucks blasting by! Glad I had the spare - however there is a tear on the sidewall of the spare where I removed a very large screw and I know now that prolonged driving is going to chafe the tube and give me another flat, so I take it easy and it holds out the rest of the drive to Seattle. Drove around all weekend on it actually, but once I was in hilly Seattle I really noticed that I had no power, and also that the car was generating a lot more heat than it should! I checked the plugs again, a nice tan colour so I decided I must have got the timing wrong. Turned the dizzy c.c.w. and that made it worse, so I turned it c.w. and bingo! Power is back. Guess I somehow had it retarded... it will be nice when I have a proper stroboscopic timing light, then I can check to see if the tach is accurate as well. One down! The hole in the bottom of the expansion chamber in the exhaust got a lot bigger on the weekend, the car sounds like crap now. Bottomed it out one too many times in my Trip to Hell (a.k.a. Squamish) couple months ago, now its caught up with me and its time for a visit to Octagon to get the center section replaced. On Sunday, I took the spare off, removed the tire and tube, sure enough the tube was starting to crack near the puncture in the radial. Patched the tube just in case, and put a patch on the inside of the radial to protect the tube and reassembled. Should be good enough for a while, I've got to get all new tires all the way around soon anyway. I'm thinking I will try and true the wire wheels I've got and get them sandblasted, then paint and clearcoat; I'd love minilite replicas but I have to be realistic, I don't have the cash right now. It seems the wheel that blew was unbalanced because with the new rim on, no more wheel shake at 100+kph! Bonus! Never content to rest on my laurels, I have all the parts I need to rebuild the front brakes so thats my goal for this week. Hopefully the chrome pistons will not need to be replaced. Should be f-u-n, stay tuned!