TR7 and TR8 Development

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RBRR Preperation Part X

So that concludes work on our 2014 RBRR entry Herald Coupe for the for the time being. This morning I have to concentrate on servicing this years entry our Courier Van!

Seriously though what a shame, nearly but not quite. In reality I just couldn't claw back those 12 hours I lost. Effectively I got to where I wanted to be Wednesday night by about lunchtime yesterday. At one stage I did consider bolting the whole thing together half in primer, and half in still drying top coat.

What did I learn from this exercise? It is just about possible to do a full chassis off restoration, including a full mechanical rebuild  on a Herald in just under three weeks if you have the facilities, and the spares to hand. Where I went wrong was not building in enough contingency, another day would have definitely done it. In my defence however I had also done some customer work in those three weeks including building diffs, and reconditioned halfshaft assemblies, etc.

What did it cost? Approximately £350 in shotblasting, £300 in paint and materials, and very approximately (at retail prices) £2,500 in parts. If I had been charging myself labour I wouldn't have got much change out of £9K, which would have just about made up for some of those 5am mornings, and 11pm evenings!

Now I might have to explain to Patsy, Bill, and Andrew why I haven't managed to restore their cars in under a month each.

Thanks to James, Mike, and Ron for their help. If I ever mention trying to pull off a similar stunt like this again chaps you have my permission to slap me, and hide the workshop keys!

See you all at the Plough later, I'll be the one in the blue Courier Van asleep in the passenger seat. 

RBRR Preperation Part IX (Spanner in the works!)

Dash in;

Front suspension, and brakes complete;

Doors skinned, and in etch;

Its at this stage that things went a little pear shaped. I had planned to high build 2k prime, and top coat the doors, and rear tub before I went home last night. However having primed the doors, and the underneath of the tub I couldn't turn the tub over on the trestles on my own to paint the top (well I could but I would have probably damaged the wings). Bad planning on my part, I hadn't thought that there wouldn't be anyone else around at 11 o'clock at night to help me. The plan had been to bolt the painted tub, and doors to the car this morning, and trim it out. So that's put me a full 12 hours out.

One other tricky issue is the bonnet. Having welded the Stanpart drivers wing to the top panel yesterday with no issues, and things seemingly going really well disaster struck. I had previously emptied my sample stores of Stanpart panels to go towards the Coupes build, and one of the few panels I didn't have was a passenger side front wing. A repro was sourced, but when I came to fit it yesterday I was surprised to find it was nearly 1/4" shorter along its length than the Stanpart drivers side. When offered up to the bonnet top it is obviously wrong, and I'm not going to fit it.

Show stopper, might be. I'll plod on today, and see where I get to.

RBRR Preperation Part VIII

Painted the bulkhead just before I went home Monday night;

Having started to build up the front suspension earlier that day;

Yesterday I stripped and checked a diff (turned out to be a minter with a lovely gearset) adding new seals in the process. The only small problem was corrosion on the seal diameter of the front flange, and quarter shafts, easily rectified on the lathe with some fine emery.

Having virtually finished the rear suspension and brakes I bolted the bulkhead to the chassis, This stage always gives me a bit of a boost as (in my mind) its already started to look like a car;

Just before I ran out of energy (started at 5.30 am, still going at 10 pm) I managed to get all the sound deadening pads glued back in;

Apologies for the hazy pictures. I must have left my phone lens up when I was painting earlier and as a result I had a fine layer of white overspray on it.

RBRR Preperation Part VII

Saturday was a bit of a blur with a couple of absolute stars turning up to lend a hand things progressed much better than I had planned.

Mike Weaver at work trying to make a silk purse out of the sows ear 'frilly' bulkhead.

James adding the last repair panel (I hope).

Yesterday (Sunday, I know, who would have thought it) I popped in to spray the chassis, turrets, sills, rear quarter valances, and inside the door frames. Finally some top coat, I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks again to Mike, and James, much appreciated.

RBRR Preperation Part VI

A very busy day yesterday was spent running back, and forth to the blasters in Coventry. With the added promise of a 'drink' to the operative at the blasters if he could turn around the stuff sharpish he pulled off a minor miracle. Thanks to Pearmans for the loan of the pick up we had the chassis, bulkhead, rear tub, sills, and bonnet top at the blasters door at 8.45 yesterday morning. Having dropped that lot off we picked up the door frames, front valance, and front inner arches I had dropped off the previous day;

Having got back to work I welded in a couple of new end brackets in to the valance, and plug welded the left hand bonnet inner and outer arches together, whilst Ron spotted welded the other side;

We had just about finished when a call came from the blasters, 'come and get your stuff, its done'. Barely over two hours had elapsed from dropping the stuff off, and we were back on the way into Coventry to collect;

The only downside of this rapid turnaround at the blasters was that they obviously hadn't had time to etch prime the stuff which meant a fraught drive back the ten miles from Coventry praying that it wouldn't rain. All that bare metal on the back of the pick-up would have turned red rusty in minutes if we had encountered the downpour that happened twenty minutes after we got back.  

RBRR Preperation Part V

The factory reconditioned 948 Coupe engine that came with the car was seized solid so yesterdays task was a strip down and investigation. Having removed the rocker gear and head, and found no head gasket it looks like someone had been here before me looking for the same reasons.

The engine was obviously piston seized as there was a light surface rusting at the top of the bores indicating storage for many years with no spark plugs fitted, and not helped by that missing gasket.

A special tool was sourced from the wood shed, a 948 sized log!

Which made short work of removing those pistons with no further collateral damage;

A quick measure of the crank confirmed that it was well within tolerance, and the shells were hardly marked confirming very low mileage after that factory rebuild.

Even the pistons cleaned up nicely so a quick hone of the bores, and a new set of rings should suffice. The rings were ordered, and should be here this morning. The supplier confirned that they were the last set on the shelf. 948 engine stuff is getting very rare, glad I don't need much more than we already have on stock here.

RBRR Preperation Part IV

First task of the day was to strip out the passenger door. One or two seized bolts were dealt with, and it had a similar amount of rot in the lower frame as the drivers door.

Next I removed the bonnet, radiator, engine bay valances, manifolds, and everything from the bulkhead;

With the gearbox removed and sitting on my bench in the gearbox workshop it left the engine ready to come out first thing this morning;

Which leaves the dash to be removed, and then we are ready for the blasters.

More to follow.

RBRR Preperation Part III (where is that dustpan & brush?)

I didn't get any time out to work on the Coupe on Wednesday due to work commitments (more customer diffs), but I did manage a few hours yesterday.

First task was to strip out the drivers door;

A run round with the Plasma revealed that the frame is just about salvageable, but the rot has gone quite high up into the hinge vertical face. Its worth saving though as early doors are slightly different to later ones.

Next it was off with the roof, which is about the only panel on the car that isn't going to need much in the way of work. Having said that the headlining is in a bit of a state, and that RMS576 (rally light) is a bit on the battered side;

Then it was off with the stripped out rear tub;

Which revealed the chassis, which wasn't as bad as I feared.

And looked even better after a sweep up;

My co-driver turned up then and unbolted the prop, thanks James!

More pictures to follow.

RBRR Preperation Part II (its worse than I remembered)

I had to take time out to build a diff for a customer, and one or two other paying jobs yesterday before attacking the Coupe.

First job was to strip the front end;

Being very carefull not to damage the front valance. Early shape Herald valances are incredibly rare so this one will have to be repaired when it comes back from the blasters;

Next it was out with the Plasma cutter which made short work of the frilly front wings, and outer arches;

With it getting close to going home time I just had long enough to re-visit the back end. The boot floor, and wheel well were way past redemption so a quick wiz round with the Plasma leaving just enough time for a sweep up;

I'm not a fan of the currently available new floor so its a good job I have a decent salvaged assembly ready to go in.

More pictures to follow.

RBRR preperation begins.

Thought it was about time to make a start on the Herald.

Began by stripping out the back end.

Before;

After;

Its a little bit rusty.

More pictures soon.

What happened to Joe?

Some of you might be wondering what happened to Joe, recently ex of Canley Classics. Well I can now reveal that he has a pretty new wife.

Pictured above is the simple wedding ceremony. Congratulations Joe from us all here at Canley Classics.

Testing testing

Its been over a year since my last Blog, don't time fly! In the meantime they went and changed the Blog format again, so here is a little test to see how it works.

Last weekend my RBRR co-driver and I decided to get this years entry (our Herald Coupe) out or storage for a bit of fresh air. Daylight revealed it to be in better health than I remember only really needing a valet, and a bit of a buff up nearer the day.