Resurrecting a Goddess.......Twice

That's my thinking to Ed, now just have to decide if it's worth taking them off again.

A phone call to the panel beater confirmed that the boot lid was ready for pickup. Not being able to get there during the week meant that yet another job needed to go on the list for last weekend. They ended up reinforcing and repainting the whole panel which handily dealt with the scratches from trial fitting the boot lock.
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A few bolts alter and the boot lid was reunited with the car. Fitting the lock and latch is a bit of a faff seeing as I'd neglected to take the easy rout and fit them while the panel was off the car. The retaining nut for the lock is 36mm or something silly which needed the largest shifter available.

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The chevrons were temporarily restored to their rightful place but had to be taken back off. The clips weren't holding them very tightly and I'd rather not lose one. Holes for the boot badge weren't transferred to the new metal so I'll have to figure out a way to accurately place it. A small price to pay for one less rust trap.

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And now for a rather momentous event


For the first time in 2 years it hit the road under it's own power for a trip up to the servo. Some adjustment of the BVH is still needed but everything seems to be working.
 
Fantastic result - I know that sense of relief that now it's done and all you have to do is drive hard and maintain!
 
Yeah, massive relief! Possibly the most terrifying drive I've been on a while though. Was very happy when it rolled back through the gates.

Still a thousand little jobs to do but I think it's now the home straight.
 
Yeah, massive relief! Possibly the most terrifying drive I've been on a while though. Was very happy when it rolled back through the gates.

Still a thousand little jobs to do but I think it's now the home straight.
Great to see it running - congratulations !
 
Despite lockdown, things are moving forward. I've found some time this weekend to finish building up a set of indicators. I happened to have a set of later plastic indicators with broken lenses so they became the donors. The orange lenses were removed leaving just the reflector. Next problem is that there is a flange moulded into the plastic reflector.

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There is no way that it will fit into the recess on the orange sense so it has to go

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From this point it's pretty straight forward. The edge of the reflector sits into the recess on the lenses and they are just glued onto the reflectors in the same way as the original 1968 parts.

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It turned out that behind the stainless trim, both lenses were cracked at the ends. This one came apart completely but the other was being held together by the brass rivets that hold the stainless trim on.

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A bit more glue and its good as new

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The stainless trim just slips over the sense and is held in place by the screws that secure it into the wing.

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By special delivery from Tasmania, I now have a set of the correct C pillar trims. Having to be at Station Pier at 6am made for a long day but it was worth it.
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These came off a USA spec car and still have the special brackets for the different rear indicators.

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They needed a bit of a polish

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Polished vs unpolished

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The B pillars were also included which mean's I've now got a matching pair rather than 2 right hand ones.

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Very nice - as always. Two questions - as always(?):

can you remind me what solvent you used to break up the glue to seperate your front indicators please. I need to make a pair up and may need to mix and match as you have done. Apologies if you've already covered this.

Secondly, how did you polish those 'C' panel covers? I have one with rust 'drips' running down it. I've been wary of it because they have a brushed pattern to them and I didn't want to rub it away. Did you use a metal polish but only go in the direction of the brushing or something?

Budge/ Paul
 
I didn't end up using a solvent, just a very, very sharp knife and carefully cut through the glue. I'm somewhat wary of solvents near plastic this old. Using the wrong one can melt the plastic or cause it to go cloudy. From you photos, it looks like you have a pair though.

The C pillars were polished using autosol aluminium polish which removed the tape residue and rust marks pretty easily. I was careful to work in the same direction as the brushed finish but in some places had to go against it. The autos is a seriously fine paste so it would take a hell of a lot of polishing to wear through the anodising. You can be pretty gentle and still remove the rust stains.
 
Thanks I have got a pair of Axos - but one is absolutely mint. And the other one less so.....The mint one just makes the other one look worse! What I want, is another Axo one, with perhaps a broken back clip - but a good amber lens.

Autosol. Great. Widely available here. I'l give it a go.
 
Time for some shakedown testing....

The trip home from the workshop went well apart form having to drive with both feet, not something you're supposed to do, to stop the engine stalling. Some more adjustment of the BVH is needed after bleeding out a lot of air the other week.


Arrived at parents house to find dad waiting with a screwdriver and a cuppa. The slow idle had to be increased as it was to low for the engine to keep running. Fast idle was increased slightly as well and the centrifugal regulation was wound in a quarter turn. Car now comes to a stop without stalling, lovely.
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Today is the first time driving it to work. Everything started well but half way to the office I slowed for a roundabout at which point the engine stalled and flatly refused to go any further. Clearly she was suffering from a case of stage fright. Fortunately it was a quiet backstreet and I was able to take off the handbrake and roll it back down the hill into a carspace. This gave me the opportunity to strike up a conversation with a friendly local who appeared from a garage door. Turns out the points had somehow worked loose and were stuck closed, no spark, no spinning bits. Rummaging through the boot turned up a screwdriver to adjust the points and things were once more humming along. That was until the next intersection. This time it stalled just as the lights to turn onto High St, Ashburton went red. Of all the places it could have picked, it went for maximum impact. It started again but only just enough to get through the lights into a shop carpark. Once more the trusty screw driver was called into action and the screw securing the points was done up to stupidly tight. Arrival at work was achieved with 2 min to spare.

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The points gap will have to be set properly but for now it's at least running. Clearly it's going to take a while for random problems to stop cropping up after 2 years off the road. On the upside the blue paint looks great in the sun
 
I'm seriously tempted with a 123, I've heard mixed things about them on the EFI cars though. I wonder if Ted would let me borrow one as a trial. A pertronix kit would be another option.
 
I have a "Hot Spark" pointless ignition with a high energy coil fitted to my Caravelle, and absolutely love it. Cost is about $140 all up and was straight forward to fit. Gives great starts and is much more resilient to minor changes in timing.

Literally set and forget.
 
This weekend turned into a rather eventful one. A lack of trains forced me to take the car on a trip to Geelong on Friday night. The car was running well right up to the moment I turned onto the Kingsway onramp to the Westgate FWY. Just as the car got up to speed, the engine suddenly cut out halfway through the bend at the onramp entrance. Fortunately there was no traffic and I was able to coast around the bend and into what little there is of an emergency lane. This car has a knack of finding the worst place to die, clearly it did not want to go over the bridge. After about 10 min a Vicroads recovery truck appeared behind me to close the lane. It turns out that the main cable feeding power the the whole fuel injection system had somehow managed to disconnect itself from the battery terminal. Plugged it back in and everything came back to life as if nothing had happened. Once in Geelong, I stopped to pick my friend up only to find that the driver's seatbelt reel had locked and refused to unlock so a change of chariot was rapidly organised. The only solution was to unbolt the guide at the top of the B pillar and feed some more belt back onto the reel. The having gotten over its fear of freeway driving, the return trip was much more boring and without incident.

Sunday was spent swapping the C pillar covers and fitting door cards. Essentially the whole back of the car has to come off to swap the C pillar panels. Starting with the wing and indicators.
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If you do it one at a time then the boot lid can stay in place. I decided to keep the polished aluminium hinges as they are in much better shape than the 2 sets of chrome pallas ones I have.

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The front door cards turned out to be a right pain. Largely because it looks like a couple of them were dropped during manufacture, smashing the corners of the backing boards.

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The final piece of fun is that both the passenger side doors need readjusting as neither will close without being slammed hard. It's is looking good for concourse next weekend though

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Very nice - as always. Two questions - as always(?):

can you remind me what solvent you used to break up the glue to seperate your front indicators please. I need to make a pair up and may need to mix and match as you have done. Apologies if you've already covered this.

Secondly, how did you polish those 'C' panel covers? I have one with rust 'drips' running down it. I've been wary of it because they have a brushed pattern to them and I didn't want to rub it away. Did you use a metal polish but only go in the direction of the brushing or something?

Budge/ Paul
Budge, I used acetone.
Just squeezed some on the joins and of overnight and it came apart okay.

cheers
Glenn
 
Thanks Glenn. Faulksy said he avoided using solvent but i might give it ago. It evaporates so fast though. maybe i need to try solvent but keep adding it to replace it.
 
This weekend turned into a rather eventful one. A lack of trains forced me to take the car on a trip to Geelong on Friday night. The car was running well right up to the moment I turned onto the Kingsway onramp to the Westgate FWY. Just as the car got up to speed, the engine suddenly cut out halfway through the bend at the onramp entrance. Fortunately there was no traffic and I was able to coast around the bend and into what little there is of an emergency lane. This car has a knack of finding the worst place to die, clearly it did not want to go over the bridge. After about 10 min a Vicroads recovery truck appeared behind me to close the lane. It turns out that the main cable feeding power the the whole fuel injection system had somehow managed to disconnect itself from the battery terminal. Plugged it back in and everything came back to life as if nothing had happened. Once in Geelong, I stopped to pick my friend up only to find that the driver's seatbelt reel had locked and refused to unlock so a change of chariot was rapidly organised. The only solution was to unbolt the guide at the top of the B pillar and feed some more belt back onto the reel. The having gotten over its fear of freeway driving, the return trip was much more boring and without incident.

Sunday was spent swapping the C pillar covers and fitting door cards. Essentially the whole back of the car has to come off to swap the C pillar panels. Starting with the wing and indicators.
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If you do it one at a time then the boot lid can stay in place. I decided to keep the polished aluminium hinges as they are in much better shape than the 2 sets of chrome pallas ones I have.

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The front door cards turned out to be a right pain. Largely because it looks like a couple of them were dropped during manufacture, smashing the corners of the backing boards.

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The final piece of fun is that both the passenger side doors need readjusting as neither will close without being slammed hard. It's is looking good for concourse next weekend though

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No no no Michael. This progress is unacceptable. I need you to slow down. Toooo much competition for the concourse. See you Saturday!
 
Hahaha no chance Peter, I'm on a roll.... Saturday is shaping up to be a good day

Seeing as I needed a break form reading a mate's thesis it seemed like a good moment to have a stab at putting up the front section of the pallas roof trim.

First challenge, the left hand lamp fitting had jettisoned one of its bolts. In protest to what we can not say but luckily the spacer that sits between the fitting and stainless trim hadn't rolled away as well.

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Next up is locating the brackets over the windscreen. Due to some miscommunication somewhere my order from Germany arrived with only one bracket and clip but extras of rare pallas pieces. It took a bit of hunting to find some suitable clips to hold them to the roof frame.

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Getting the clips on the back of this thing to engage with the brackets is a fun juggling act. The part is really flexible which makes it hard to line up all the brackets and keep the edge in the stainless trim. A good shove and a whack and suddenly its firmly fixed.

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It should then just be a simple job of fitting the interior light covers to hold it all together. Some stanly knife work was needed to cut away excess material to reveal the light cover mounts. You then have to put a surprising amount of force onto the cover to compress the foam enough so the crews actually reach the mounts. I had to swap the original chrome screws for slightly longer stainless ones.

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Looking really good again Faulksy - and again - great colour!

Looking forward to see it in the flesh..

Ramon
 
After 4 years of saying I'll make it to concours, it has finally happened! Many pieces of trim are still missing but at least it actually made it.
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It's still up to it's tricks though. As I went to leave there was a weird grinding noise from the rear. It turned out to be one of the hubcaps which had fallen off and was trapped against the rear wing.

Monday was supposed to be spent readjusting the passenger side doors. I hadn't been game enough to open either all week for fear of not being able to make it to concours. Much to my surprise, both opened and closed perfectly. Also interesting is that the roof appears to be leaking but not from the roof seal. It almost looks as though the steel band has pulled away from the edge of the fiberglass as the roof bolts were tightened. Seems to only be affecting the front for now. Might need to pump some mastic into space between the rubber seal and roof panel
 
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