MadaboutKitcars

How do you manage to achieve such an excellent finish on the stainless parts, Scottie? Do you use a bench top grinder with polishing wheel? Really impressive......

Hiya Retro,

Glad you are impressed!

In a word, "Yes" I do have a buffing wheel, or rather, I have three, rough, medium and fine (for the shine!)

I stick them in and old drill held in a vice, and polish things that way.

I also have some of that stuff that looks like grey soap, which you must have to get the finish.


Well today I finished off the stainless strip on top of the windscreen frame. At least, I hope I have.

In the event I did not rivet it on, or use nuts and bolts, instead I drilled and tapped out the holes, so I could screw the bolt directly into the screen top.

Even this operation was not without its inherant hassle, somehow
I managed to snap off the tap in one of the holes!

The swearing could be heard from afar............

I ruined two drill bits and a side cutter tool totally trying to get the bloody thing out.

In the end I ground down a 4mm screw flat on the end, and with much anger and violence, smashed the broken tap end out that way.

Thankfully, there was enough of the hole left intact too re-tap,

(after a trip to buy a new one) so I got around it that way, but all this extra work does not get the build done any faster.

I bolted the thing on with dome headed hex stainless bolts.

I need to rub down the screen frame and chuck some silver paint at it now!

One more step closer...........

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Today

A mechanic friend of mine came to see how I was getting on with the build,

and when he noticed I had lowered the radiator, ( because I lowered the body so much, the rad HAD to come down, or the bonnet would not shut)
he pointed out the now, as the rad was lower than the thermostat housing, unless I fitted some way of bleeding the system, I would have an air lock in the top hose which would not help the cooling.

I realised that he was right, and asked him what he suggested.

He said that a diesel bleed valve from a Land Rover fuel pump would be ideal.

I was pleased with this, as 25 years ago, I put a Land Rover fuel pump under my bench, and knew it was still there.

Off came the valve, and I drilled and tapped a 1/4 BSF thread in the housing,
fitted the valve, and I can now bleed the air out of the system, thus curing a problem I did not know I had!


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A good solution to get the air out. You will however also need a way to get water in, if the filler cap is below the thermostat housing. Otherwise you can only fill to that height if you get what I mean. Maybe you have thought about a separate header tank. I can,t remember without re-reading your extensive, interesting thread. Keep up the good work.

That's a good point. My Herald 13/60 thermostat housing has a threaded take-off point that I had blanked with a bolt and copper washer........I didn't give any thought to how useful that will be.

Froggyman, you are correct, after I had taken a look at the system, I realised I needed to get the water in somehow!

One solution seems to create another problem.

It will have to be a header tank, or an entry screw cap at the highest point I think. I'll study it further......

Oxford, whether your take off point would be useful or not would depend on the radiator height compared to the thermostat housing, if you see what I mean.

Will I ever finish this build!!

My rad is definitely lower than the top of the engine......much lower.

Have you ever had an overheating problem, or does it run okay as is?

If only I knew. I'm three years into an 18-month project and am probably only two-thirds of the way there. I hope to fire up in a couple of months.

The top of my rad ended up much lower than the top of the engine on my Sammio build, which is why i opted for the separate header tank fitted on the bulkhead, plumbed in where the coolant would have normally have gone to the heater matrix.

A few of us at the time (i think Trev and Pat also) all went for Renault Megane units as they were easy to mount, quite compact and can be picked up for pence, but this time around I've got an alloy one left over from the Lambo cooling fiasco.

I managed to dig up this pic of the setup on my old Sammio in case it's of use/interest (i know it's not exactly the same as what you've got and what you're doing, but i can't imagine it's too far off?)
It shows how low my rad ended up and exactly how much over-spray i managed to accumulate while sorting out the bonnet edge



Worked a treat

Good picture Dave, my rad is about the same I would think.
I have had a good think about it, and I don't have a lot of room for a header tank, and I don't have a flip bonnet either.

I figure out that with the bleed valve in the thermostat housing, if I needed to fill the complete cooling system from scratch, I would fill using the current rad cap, which would give me around 90%+ of the water required, and then replace the cap and top the rest up, (heater hose mainly) using the Heath-Robinson
bleed valve come filler-cap I am currently fabricating!

The system still has the safety valve in the current cap, which will allow water to escape into the overflow bottle if required to do so.

I have now finished and fitted the alternative to a header tank,

Pics:

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Thursday

I have just fitted the new thermostat housing complete with its bleed valve.
At the same time, I put a new top hose on, and finally fitted the fan temperature sensor inside the top hose.

I have not run up the engine and tested it all yet, but the main work on the cooling system is now done.

I do not see any reason why it should not all function correctly.

Teething problems we are all bound to have!

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Scottie - Some nice plumbing work going on there.

Until I can test fit my bonnet, radiator & plumbing issues remain on my "come back to later" list.

Good luck, Paul.

You are doing alright Paul!
To start with I didn't think I had a plumbing problem, til it was pointed out. The work seems to propagate and go on forever.

We will get there though.

Friday

Having lowered the car so much at the rear, and disturbed all the suspension geometry somewhat, it became obvious to me that the toe in toe out would have to be adjusted. This is best done by all accounts, when the car is finished and sits at its final weight etc etc.

It then occurred to me that at that stage, that I would have to strip out some of the interior, including the seats, to actually get at the two nuts, which when loose enough, allow you to fanny around playing with shims, trying to get the correct toe in etc. Oh what joy!

Mmmmmm. I don't f*****g think so.

I decide after a bit of research, to go for adjustable radius arms, which allow you to do all the toe adjustments under the car, a bit like doing the tracking at the front, with just a spanner or two.

I thought they were a bit pricey, but would save me a lot of heartache in the end.

Wow! they arrived just now, and I was blown away by the quality, finish and the whole package was just terrific. I was SO impressed. I almost felt like going for a J Arther.

The adjuster has a left and right hand thread, so by just turning the centre nut one way or the other, the radius arm is made longer or shorter, thus altering the rear wheel toe in toe out.

Just what the doctor ordered, apart from making life a lot easier for me, they will look fabulous on the car, and the Mot man is bound to be as impressed as I was when he claps his mince pies on them.
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Are they from Jigsaw?

Hmmm, might need to find some more things to sell on a well-known auction site. I'm pretty sure that I need only one kidney.

Very impressive engineering perhaps, but a rather un-impressive way of spelling "impressive"

Yes Ox, they are from Jigsaw, and do not come with any bushes or bolts. I bought those separately, from another company.

A bit of a must-have really!

Should have bought a Mk2...

Mk2

I did buy a Mk2 Gary, in fact I still have it,

You can just see it top centre in this picture!

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Rotoflex?

You'll have to enlarge on that one Gary, I'm not quite sure where we are going here! :-)

Triumph Vitesse '71 Mk2 Rotoflex cars come with adjustable tie rods.

Jaguars are not the only MK2...

That's interesting Gary, would they have fit the Mk4 Spit?

I would guess they are bound to be a different length.