The (Never ending) Restoration story - MkIII M30177

[Reddi-Eng]

I know what you mean Grahame, being a (sad) Engineer I've stood and looked for ages at steam engines for example just admiring their beauty

Perhaps instead of corrupting this topic we should have a separate topic which is subscription only.

[Gilbern74]

Well still not much (any!) work done this year. If it's not the cold weather and not living there, it's now my wisdom teeth coming through - very painful despite many painkillers, antibiotics & alcohol. I was advised against the latter, but it seems to work very well at relieving any discomfort! 'Spaced-out' is a good description.

But I did a little tinkering with the new engine. I have removed the 3.4L heads and timing cover with a view to stripping it down to take it to the engine shop for flywheel lightening & balancing.
As I did so I thought I'd check that my uprated 3.0L heads do fit and to find the extra oil channels that I was told are on the 3.4L and need blocking to allow for 3.0L heads.

The pic below shows the block with my nice heads on. It nicely shows of the port/polish work that was done.
I've highlighted the 2 extra holes that are on the 3.4L block and heads which I will have to tap and block with a suitable screw.



You can also see the screw in studs I had fitted to those heads - nice!


1 other thing I did was grp over the odd hole that was in the n/s of the engine bay. No idea why a gap was left there....


Whilst I was in that area, I looked to fit the battery tray. I bough a new 'heavy-duty' one from Roger a few years ago to take a bigger battery. I found that the heavy-duty try is about 2cm shorter than the original, which means it doesn't reach the support bracket nearer the front when bolted on. So I need to find/make some sort of spacer and longer bolts to help it reach! Bummer.

Spring is almost here so I hope the work-rate will pick up too when I'm there...

[Gilbern74]

The resurrection.... I haven't updated in quite a long time! Mainly because I have done nothing with the car, despite all those warm/wet summer months I was just too busy with other stuff to dedicate any time or to plan any jobs on the Gilbern.
But then one wet day I ventured into the garage, saw the beast looking sorry for itself and took pity, deciding to 'get a bloody move on'! That was a couple of months ago, so it's time for an update

So where was I? Oh yes, my lovely new engine... alas, it has been sitting in the garage on its pallet all this time But progress is afoot more on that later.

In the meantime, what have I done in the last couple of months.
Well my first efforts came inside the car (I had bought a pack of sound deadening some time ago to put round the engine bay. This all went on well, and was then covered by the original engine bay heat resistant surround, which loooks much better).
With the remainder I began putting it round the footwells and floor. This stuff goes on very easily, and with a heat gun and wallpaper seam-roller it creates a strong bond on the grp. Its not cheap though.
It has the added benefit of covering any tiny cracks in the floor that might want to let in water!

In total it took 2 packs to do the engine bay and interior.






At the same time I cut out 2 access holes to get to the top rear suspension bolts, and made 2 cover plates from GRP which you can see in this:



Next I spent some time looking at where my rear seatbelts were going to fit. When I had the chassis cleaned up, I had 2 plates designed and welded to the rear chassis, to be just in the boot compartment, which would then hold the seat belt reels vertically as shown here:




These were 'boxed in' by GRP when the body was put back on. I drilled the hole to line up with the brackets fixing hole for the reels and added a spacer. The mountings are pretty much ready to have the reels bolted on.
Then I cut some holes in the parcel shelf for the belts to come out. I've got to think about how they'll come out and over the rear seats without rubbing and wearing too much on the fabric.

<pictures to follow!>






.

[Gilbern74]

Next I went on to the bodywork - primarily removing the old paintwork! A task I have been putting off, and putting off as it just seemed too daunting and monotonous!
I had previouslt removed the top coats of paint using a good marine grp paint stripper. This worked great! Unfortunately there was a lot of repair/respray work done previously where they had repaired and put over a fair amount of filler and primer and new coats of paint. You wouldn't have known from looking at the old paintwork. It must have been a good job. But I was intent on getting the whole car down to the base for when it gets its new paint job.
Others had advised that this would probably have to be a manual job. But that was a no-no. this stuff was very hard to shift using 60 grit ali-oxide paper. there had to be some mechanical help!!

The cavalry came in the form of my angle grinder fitted with a sanding disc. I was keen to avoid any grooving from using this, so kept the face of the disc as flat as possible, also avoiding any prominent/curved body features that I would do by hand to ensure they weren't ruined.

It worked a treat!
I started with the bootlid, which had multiple layers of paint/primer/filler on it (and was the most easily replaceable in case of accidents!)

This is what was left after removing the top layers with the marine paint-stripper, and where I started from:


And here's the successful result uising the angle-grinder (I did the curved bit at the rear of the bootlid by hand)


Following the success with the bootlid, I went on to do the bonnet. Again, I sanded the raised bits by hand.




Since then I've done both doors and almost one side of the body (<pics to follow>).
Of course this can't be done inside (I did at first - still sweeping up the bloody dust!!!), so weather and time permitting I will be trying to push the car out and do a little bit each weekend. Every little helps!



.

[Gilbern74]

Back on to the engine. My lovely shiny new engine

Well it was just going to carry on sitting on that pallet, taking up floor space, unless I got to work with it.
And for that I have to take it to bits. The new engine came without the flywheel or ancillaries, so I had to use the flywheel from my original 3.0L. This is to be lightened. Additionally a new, better cam will be added too (see my shopping list!)

I called David Gathercole (in Whittlesey, Cambs) and will be taking the crank, flywheel, clutch, rods, pistons and pulley for balancing to him this weekend . The flywheel will have 5lb removed (2.25kg). At the same time I've a few other smaller jobs for him. I'll be rebuilding the engine myself at a later date <gulp>








V6 lovers might be interested to note the piston heights on this 3.4L, compared with the 3.0L


In fact there's a better comparison here.


Will update as the engine progresses!


.