MadaboutKitcars

never mind Mr T. plenty more things in the build you can flex your engineering mind on.....

Plan for today - modify my Moggie handbrake lever, lower the compensator a couple of inches and move it sideways a tad, hoping to end the day with a functioning handbrake.

Success! I was absolutely determined I wasn't going to have a conventional handbrake on top of the prop-shaft tunnel so I've mounted it on the floor beside the seat.













Amazing how much nicer things look with a lick of Hammerite.

The Minor handbrake is a good choice as it happens, you can undo the front bolt and pivot the whole caboodle backwards on the rear mounting bolt to make it a very simple job to change the cable. I've stuck with a Vitesse cable for ease of sourcing a replacement, and ordered a new one from Canley's today (just over £5) as my original one is a bit tatty.

Other news today, when I tried to cut the bracket I'd made to mount the unsuccesful handbrake handle on the frame I found out how strong my rather scratty looking welds are. Very strong, thankfully. I couldn't separate the bracket from the frame, even with a thin cutting disc and ended up just grinding the dangly down bit off and painting over it with Hammerite.

Electrics tomorrow...

Good progress Mr T, hope if doesn't get in the way of the seatbelt mounts.. eep:

no comment

Should be ok - the female part of the seat belts are going to be mounted on home made adaptors bolted to the seat runners so they move with the seats when you slide fore and aft.

That's the plan anyway, just hope it goes better than the mk.1 handbrake...

I nominate this for best quote of the forum!

Dangly bits

That sounds like the sort of thing that would make my wife think of actually wanting to come into the workshop!!

More handbrake woes...

When I moved the guide tubes up to compensate for having dramatically lowered the back of my Vitesse chassis the following observation was made regarding the effect that might have:



So, I reassembled everything this morning, adjusted the handbrake so it operated on four clicks of the handle and jacked the rear suspension up with it off. The cables tensioned and pulled the back brakes on solid.

After a bit of modification - lowering the guide tubes to half way between where they started and where I'd put them plus some extra strengthening here and there to stop the brackets flexing under tension I arrived at the follwing set up -



Adjusting the cables and jacking it up again, the back brakes locked solid again.

This time I had a really good look at what happens when the Herald/Vitesse swing axle suspension moves.

Weight on, tops of the brake drums are 110cm apart -



Weight off, tops of the brake drums are 113cm apart -



So, because the levers are at the top of the drums, jacking the car up tensions the compensator cable by 3cm no matter where the guide tubes are located, and this appears to be a flaw in the original Herald/Vitesse design.

This means either putting up with the rear brakes binding when you get some air under the back wheels or having the cables so slack you have to pull the lever up eight clicks to engage the handbrake.

Can anyone tell me if the car will fail the MOT if the back brakes bind when the back is jacked up?

Your thoughts please.

Thats easy one Towed. the brakes only have to work , when on the floor ...Not flying thru the air after you take of from a hump back bridge.

lane:

Yep, checked the mot testing guidance and it seems that there's no check for brake binding with the weight off the wheels. It just has to operate before the end of the handle's travel so I can adjust it to four clicks and forget it. Phew.

Don't mention 'Air', just in case '1958' is around...

With the weight off the rear wheels the rear suspension is checked for any movement/wear including the wheel bearings. As well as checking for slack in the bearings the wheels are spun by hand to listen for any bearing noises. At this stage the binding brakes would be noticed. However any 'old school' tester will understand and use his experience to work around this where a less experienced tester may not.

Ahh, I've seen them do that when mot'ing my car. I guess I'll just have to hover over them and suggest they put the jacking blocks under the rear suspension down links rather than the chasis or diff when they raise the back then.

Here's me talking about the mot and I haven't even got my body fitted yet.

Find Bank Holidays boring?

Running out of things to do to finish your Sammio?

Started on the electrics yet?



No? Then you too can waste an afternoon soldering and crimping cables that were fine before you got a bit careless with the angle grinder when you cut your bulkhead down



Oops.

Oooooops, not good! :/

It's the black tar electrical tape that everything is coated in that you come to hate most! )

As long as the wires are still original with the appropriate colours, it shouldn't be too difficult - a 'rebuilt' loom with random coloured wires, now that's fun!

Baz from Brussels

Yep, it's sticky, disgusting and difficult to wash off.

You sound like my wife!

Had to resort to resistance testing the wires as one of the purple ones had gone brown, a brown one with a red stripe had gone brown, a brown one with a green stripe had gone brown, etc etc.

Whoops! I feel your pain Mr T!
I stripped all mine done in the lounge and had a rag with white spirit on to clean the cables. I ended up stripping three looms (two bought on ebay for spares) to make one good one!

Putting the boot in...

Determined to go touring in Europe in my Spyder (one day ) I wanted to put a decent sized luggage bay into it where the fuel tank normally sits.

I'm not exactly a skilled cabinet maker but here's my first go -





It then dawned on me that there was room to increase the capacity a fair bit by going upwards, so here's the boot version ii -





It's now 28cm high in the middle, 97cm wide at its widest and 45cm deep, and that's quite big enough for a couple of decent sized holdalls and a tent methinks...

Looks very good Mr T,

I am thinking of doing the same but can't make my mind up about seats. I presume that you will be making your bucket shells such that they tip forward? Have you decided how to make this happen?

I keep thinking about Tony's bench seat frame and feel that this could be the way to go. But buckets would be so much quicker and easier! Then I think to myslef about having 'cinema style' bases with a bench seet so that when I get into the car I do not have to stand on the base.

Seat procrastination is driving me beserk!!

Chris

Nice work Towed...I intend to do some touring in a Sammio one day ....Mediteranean or similar ....South of France , white headscarf ..you know the sort of thing....

Going to have to build a car first though !!