What did you do today?

[R_D_Olivaw]

Hi Gilbern74,

It looks like we are trying to achieve similar things, except that I'm going to try and trim the car myself.

Like you I wasn't pleased with the original door card, which looks like it may have not been that original, so am in the process of making a new one. I decided not to use the two metal bars that slide up behind the door and instead went for 5mm ply. I also replaced the black plastic strip that the wood slides into at the top with 1mm stainless steal that is bolted to the door so won't move. I'm still playing around with mine to get the fitment right and will also need to cut a hole in it for the speaker.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7fri6b7nswfm02/IMG_6541.JPG?dl=0

My sill cover is also stainless steal and when I'm happy with everything I'll remove it to paint. I will probably paint lines on it, and had initially thought of putting blue lines on it, but maybe I'll put on silver lines and then clear coat it. I just need something to breakup the space.

Before someone says anything I know my door cap isn't perfect. I guess I'll have to take another look at it, but it's a lot better than what was there.

[Tony Hayward]

Ian

Glad to see you are still beavering away!
Could I add a comment about leaving out the strengthening bars from the door?
I note you are using 5mm ply instead of 3mm, however I think the panel will still flex when the door is pulled with the armrest. I retained the bars, but riveted them to the door, using Triumph armrests that have hidden screws which locate into the steel bars. Thus the load is applied to the door shell, useful when the door is reluctant to slam shut because of difficult door rubbers! On my car the top channel (which I replaced with a wider plastic one, to accomodate the leather) therefore doesn't take any load.

Regards

Tony

[Gilbern74]

Got the old girl out of the garage yesterday to give her a clean and remove loads of garage bug-droppings (or something similar and tar-like). First proper wash in over 20 years (maybe closer to 30)!!

[R_D_Olivaw]

Hi Jason,

The paintwork looks concourse. How could you leave it like that for twenty years? It's going to look awesome when it's finished.

I just wish mine looked that good!

[R_D_Olivaw]

Hi Tony,

Point taken, especially the bit about having to slam the door. I'll see how it goes without them to start off with and if I see the wood flexing I'll add them back in. Just like Gilbern74 did I'll add fibreglass resin to the back of the plywood which should give it a bit more strength and water proof it.

[R_D_Olivaw]

Managed to do a bit more on the car today.

1. Worked out that the temperature gauge is 100% broken.
2. Removed the radiator and took it to a local specialist to get it re-cored. A lot more expensive than I had anticipated, but it should be a lot more effective.
3. Went to my local fabricator to get them to make me up a new sill cover as the last one they made didn't fit as well as I would like.
4. Trial fitted my new door cards. It turns out that I had used 9mm plywood, so I might not need the added re-enforcement struts after all, but time will tell.

More work planned for the weekend, but what I do will depend on what type of mood I'm in. The options are:
1. More wet sanding of lacquer before polishing.
2. More rust treatment before painting.
3. Creating some templates in order to make the carpets.
4. Looking at the boot to see how I'm going to add the partitions so I can hide the rear petrol tank and battery.
5. Make a new rear seatback as the old one won't fit due to the roll-cage.
6. Make some holes in the door cards for the speakers.

It will be interesting to see what I actually do.

[Tony Hayward]

Ian

You can get a Smiths temperature gauge and matching sensor from various sources (CBS, Speedograph, Demon Tweeks etc), unfortunately quite cheaply.
The reason I say cheaply, is because I got one from, I think, CBS. The gauge reads accurately, 20 degrees C, over!!
In other words-rubbish. The reason I know this is because I have also a Bosch NTC sensor which informs the ECU, and thus can be read with a computer.

So don't expect an accurate gauge.

Regards
Tony

PS If you replace as above, it may not require the voltage stabiliser.

[R_D_Olivaw]

Hi Tony,

The mechanical gauges I found were all quite expensive, so I hope they work better than your experience, either way any reading I can judge the temperature against will be better than nothing.

I managed to get a couple of jobs done today.
1. More rust removal, rust remedy and hammerite on exposed chassis members.
2. More wet sanding of lacquer with 2500 grit paper.

I have decided not to cut a hole in my door card until I have full assembled the door so I know where the motor and glass will be.

Tomorrow I will do more sanding, which does take a long time with such fine sandpaper.

[R_D_Olivaw]

My temperature gauge arrived and based on my test with a cup of tea it's not 100% accurate, but should give me a baseline to work from to determine when the engine is running hot. We the new radiator core I'm not expecting any issues, but you can never tell.

I'm making progress with the lights and now have the front headlights, sidelights and indicators working. I do have a small issue which I've raised under the 3 Litre Technical section, but that only happens if I don't earth the lights.

I'm currently working on getting all the rear lights to work and tidying up the heap of spaghetti I have in the boot. I'll aim to replace all the connectors and earth wires, plus label every wire. I bought myself a labelling machine and it works very nicely, so far.

[R_D_Olivaw]

My war on the spaghetti in the boot is continuing, but I feel I'm now heading in the right direction, having worked out what almost every wire does and having labelled up every one of them.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tichqmk8u3ea0xk/IMG_6693.JPG?dl=0

The main loom going into the boot did have two odd wires that caused me some confusion; however when I stripped back the black insulation tape I found out that the black wire which protrudes roughly one foot into the boot was in fact my earth wire and didn't actually go anywhere, other than follow all the other wires down to the connectors. I'm guessing it was connected to something once. That just leaves a yellow/red cable, which I've yet to figure out. I did manage to remove a lot of wires that didn't seem to do anything other than clutter up the boot.

My next job is to figure out where to run these cables to keep them out of harms way, then insulate everything and secure it in place. That will be followed by installing a bus bar to run the earth cables to. As the battery is in the boot it's not hard finding a good earth.

The reversing lights appear to work (my car didn't come with any); however I forgot to check if they stop working when the car is not in reverse. Knowing my luck they probably work all the time.

Cleaning up the wiring in the boot has not removed my bad earth issue as lights still work without the earth, so the problem lies somewhere else in the car. Hopefully I'll get to the bottom of it by the time it's all back together.

[Tony Hayward]

Ian

There was originally an electric radio aerial, also a light fixed to the underside of the rear parcel shelf. Possibly these might account for your extra wires? Also of course the heated rear screen, which you have already identified.

Most of the wires come down from the offside front top corner of the boot, although if I remember rightly, one or two from the nearside top corner.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Tony

[Blackpool Plastic]

Ian

I have several wiring diagrams for the Genie and Invader. My Mark 2 has this Yellow/Red wire in the boot ( unused ). According to one of the diagrams this wire is listed as follows ..

" Y/R Extractor Fan Wiring ( Genie only ) "

Hope this helps. Perhaps someone with a Genie can confirm ?

Mike

[R_D_Olivaw]

Thanks Tony and Mike.

You may have just made my life a little easier as I hopefully now know where to look. If the wire was for an extractor fan that will come in very nicely as I was thinking about fitting one in the boot as it used to smell of petrol.

[R_D_Olivaw]

I made the most of the weekend weather to finish off some little paint jobs.

The driver's side sill is now blue and lacquered, but will require a little flatting off before polishing.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2vj15pp1e1gdpb4/IMG_6778.JPG?dl=0

If you're wondering what the square looking mark is on the sill it's the tape that is covering an inspection hole which I left to make fitting the seatbelt bolts easier. I may fill it later.

It's amazing how long these little jobs take to do. This one took me most of the day as I had to wait 30 mins before coats and then there was the horrible job of cleaning the guns which just kills me.

I have the other side to do along with the door bottoms and the lower part of the boot. I'll then focus on polishing the paint that I flattened off to get rid of the orange peel. If I am lucky that will be the end of the painting; however, I plan to invest more time an money in car painting in order to get better. Who knows when I may need to paint another car.

[R_D_Olivaw]

Over the weekend my brother David e-mailed me, to ask how I was getting on with the car. It was his idea to buy the car in the first place, so he likes to keep tabs on me.

This is my update to him which I'll share as the list of things to do doesn't seem to be getting any smaller despite all the hours I invest.

I have almost finished the painting. I definitely have to paint the bottom of one door, a small part of the boot and a section of the rear quarter that you can’t see as it’s under the car.

Over the past two weekends I’ve painted the sills. Next weekend I will flat them both off and possibly do the above painting I mentioned. In theory I should then be able to focus on polishing the paint and getting the glass back in so I can get it out of the garage; however, I’ve spotted a couple of problems which turned up with the 27 degree temperature we had over the weekend, 32 degrees in direct sunlight. I have two paint bubbles/blisters, caused by the expansion of moisture under the paint. I’ve already dealt with one of them by cutting it out, sanding it down, touching it up and then lacquering over again. It will need to be flatted off and hopefully won’t be noticeable. That was on the driver’s side rear quarter so not that obvious. The problematic one is on the driver’s side front wing, which will be very hard to hide as it’s on top of the wing, though I will try something similar as I don’t want to repaint the front wing. When I rubbed down the first bubble I found a small crack in the fibre glass so maybe some moisture had got trapped. I have a bubble on the boot lid too, so another one to attend to. Luckily nothing has appeared on the roof as I hate painting the roof.

Getting the car out of the garage will be a major step forward for me and hopefully the car, as it will mean I can start on the interior, and once I have enough of that done I can get it MOTed and back on the road. 

To-do list

Finish painting
Flat off new paint
Polish new paint.
Install front window glass and electric motors
Install rear quarter glass
Make new rear seat backs as old ones don't fit due to roll-cage.
Fit new calliper pistons and refit calliper on passenger side.
Buy and fit new seatbelts.
Refit sill plates.
Finish off door cards and install hifi
Install deadlocks so doors will lock.
Finish sound proofing boot.
Refit petrol tank.
Sort out bonnet release.
Send car to local garage to get new ignition system fitted, as old one looks like it might create problems soon.
Get local garage to take car to exhaust fitter to get exhaust made.
Get car through MOT.

I will still need to fit the carpeting after all this is done.

I still think I can get this done this summer, so fingers crossed.

One issue I came up with recently was the earthing of the rear lights. Even cleaning everything only fixes the problem when everything is lined up perfectly, so I'm not convinced it's a good fix. As a result I ordered this a few weeks back.

http://www.m11rf.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=Escort+Mk1+Rear+Light+Bulb+Hol&search_in_description=1&x=8&y=10

The seller does say they're not a perfect fit, but with a little ingenuity should do the job. What I liked about them was they came with an earth lead, so that should resolve my earth problem. I must admit I was a little surprised when a parcel arrived from Thailand as I'd forgotten I'd ordered something, and never realised where the seller was based. Amazing to think they still made a profit.