Temporary :)

Went and picked up the front bulkhead and the rear tub from rust repairs. :)

Had to sit the bulkhead on the front just to remind myself it was a car i'm working on :D

Front suspension is done, rear is completed as much as i can without the actual axles. should have those at the end of the week.

Next job is to clean and prep the bonnet and roof ready for priming.

More parts arrive

Ultra quick update

The rimmer order finally turned up. i now have the missing brake part along with the tierod ends.

The axles have arrived in Los Angeles ready for me to collect on my way home.

So theoretically i now have all the bits i need to put the suspension and brakes back on. I'm hopefully going to get a chance to do it when i get back

The good，the bad, and the ugly

Quick update, first the good news

Yes we have shocks and springs Unfortunately the tie rods didn't turn up yet, but other than that the front suspension is done.

Which is good news, went down to see Charlie (the mechanic at south foxton motors) who put them together. Which is where the bad news comes in.

what you are looking at is one of the rear axles for the car. the technical term for what you're looking at is fucked. Its repairable, but this is the shot of the one thats already been repaired not that long ago. The needle bearing has basically chewed a groove in the axle shaft(the dull patch in the middle of the photo). So as a result i've ordered new axles :( not something i wanted to have to do. Lucky for me i'm going to the US next week so have organised to pickup a set while im there and save myself a truck load of money on shipping.

Sigh! More delays

Wheel bearings and other such stuff

So some updated photos,

Different angle

Not all this work was done this week, the steering rack, wishbones, sway bar were all done last week. This week the uprights were attached, brake lines fitted. new wheel bearing fitted to the front. Found out i had a set of the kits that had the absolutely rubbish grease seals in them, the metal casing is too big and the felt is about 12mm wide, if you try and fit them nothing lines up at all. I removed the casing and reused the old one. took the felt out and cut them to about 1/2 thickness fitted them and they all look ok. I got them from Rimmer Bros, so I'll have to drop them a line tomorrow to see what they have to say.

Fitted in the diff, put the read shocks and vertical links in to visualise where i needed to run the brake lines. The two tone paint job is due to using two pots of paint, the first (the lighter one) was the one i managed to spill half of.

I looked at the rear axles but i ran out of time to actually start the rebuild, and i'm kind of nervous about doing them so they're off to the shop with the shocks and springs to be rebuilt.

I'm about a weekends work from starting to put the body back on. exciting. Unfortunately it looks like i wont be able to actually do that until the first weekend in Nov. I'm working next weekend then off to the states for a little over a week (25th Oct - 4th Nov) so that means at best i'll be able to get up there next around the 7th of November. Bummer

Assembly Begins

So its been a long road but i'm finally putting stuff together. 

I managed to take two photos :D

But stupidly forgot to take photos when i'd finished.

Basically i got the suspension towers on, the wishbones, the sway/roll bar, and the steering rack on. I've managed to misplace the tierod ends so they're not on yet. the trunion top seals havent arrived yet so the front uprights arent on either.

I also managed to start getting the rear axles disassembled.

I've got the partially disassembled rear axles and the front shocks and springs and the front hubs ready to go to the garage to get either fitted on the bearings pulled (i dont have the tools)

Once they come back hopefully the trunion seals (which dont come with a trunion kit GRRRR) will have turned up and i can fit the uprights.

More stuff arrives, and "deoderized" fish oil

So, now I've been thinking through reassembly and the bits and pieces I'd need to get it together.

I've rebuilt the pedals, painted them etc. heater box i repainted with epoxy. Pulled the master cylinders apart and got them down to the shop for a light honing. Dropped the rear axles and the hub puller to the mechanic as i dont have the 17mm allen key drive to pop them. Dropped all the suspension parts to the mechanic to put the bushes in. all sorts.

As i was going through in my head the assemble process i realised a couple of things:

1. Trunion kits dont contain the top seal, 
2. My heater valve was completely shot (would explain why the car was always warm inside), 
3. Complete bush kits dont contain shock bushes, or rear diff bushes. 
4. You can get a set of solid brake lines made to length in the UK and shipped to NZ for about 1/2 the cost you can get them made here.
5. There's quite a lot of triumph parts for sale at good prices on ebay.
6. Canley classics parts are still great and their communication is still shit house
7. TR7 Master cylinder kits are the same as Herald ones.
8. Deodorized fish oil  still smells pretty bad.
9. There are all sorts of little rubber bits you just dont think about (dust covers for the rear wheel cylinders, door check strap seals, master cylinder gaters and gearbox mounts for example)

 As you can guess from point 8, I've spent a little time spraying fish oil into the chassis rails. Its deodorized I've since found out that deodorized does not mean odorless and although it doesn't reek as bad as i suspect normal fish oil does it still smells pretty ripe.

I didn't do anything else this weekend, but i will certainly be going up this weekend and expect to have the front suspension back on at least partially. This week I'm hoping to have the master cylinders rebuilt and the last of the brake pedal sorted out.

The rear tub is also complete too which is good. I'll be picking it up in a week or so to reassemble that body. Cringe, I'm not looking forward to that.

Paint! and some photos of the molasses

So, just got home after a LONG night and most of the morning painting.

Basically we've got all the suspension components, brackets, the disassembled rear spring and the chassis. All coated with a couple of coats of POR-15 in grey. The brown box partially obscured in the background are the door skins :D

Its kind of a weird feeling, I'm pretty much now at the point where I'm actually, finally, really going to reassemble something.


I had a couple of questions on reddit about the molasses on rust and how well it worked.

These were pretty heavily rusted and i have to admit i'm really pleased with how it worked out.  Unfortunately i didnt take any before photos but they looked pretty similar to this

I have found that the mixture seems to settle and needs to be stirred occasionally else it seems to lose some of its potency.

Finally some pictures

Feels a little like I've hit the mid point, the chassis went off to the media blasters yesterday. I should have it back for the weekend to paint.


The suspension arms are all in a giant vat of molasses and water, which seems to be working really well. I thought i'd have a go at cleaning and painting some of the front suspension components, the vertical links, steering arms and hubs.

The vertical links are going down to the mechanics to check the axle shafts then i'll pull them apart and paint them, The hubs were stripped down and painted with hi-temp paint it took a while to find hi temp paint that wasn't red or yellow.

The rear body tub went to Barry at Kult Kustoms on Monday morning so should be at the media blasters by now. I tried a couple of the tricks i found online to remove underseal. i'll write a post about it one day.

More!

Got the brake calipers back today, they're sitting downstairs in the car, i should have taken a photo to make this less a wall of text. so thats one job down.

Heard from dad last night that the guys at the garage had sucessfully extracted the bolt from the front trunion so the trunion and the wishbone are both fine. they'll do the other bits when they have spare moments as I'm not in a rush.

Hoping to go up, not this weekend, but the following to start stripping the undercoat from the chassis. The pricing on blasting was too much, so i'm going to do it by hand. Shouldn't be too hard and hopefully wont take too long, i'll have to make sure i have a couple of beers handy when i start. I'm tossing up whether to try packing each chassis rail section in dry ice and chipping the undercoat that way, or doing the heatgun/turps trick i used on the floorpans.

i was going to go up this weekend, but i have to stay in town and get my house in a state where i can rent it. once thats out of the way i'll have more time and money available to focus on the car. I'm looking forward to getting the chassis done as then i can actually feel like i'm moving towards having my car back. Actually finally assemble something.

I've got a few liters of molasses coming and a big drum so i'll be using paint stripper on all the small suspension components then soaking them for a week in the molasses and water to remove rust, then an ospho bath followed by POR-15 should finish them off quite nicely.

Not many updates but much work

SO, the front bulkhead went to the panel shop a couple of weeks ago and is now complete. Had a little more rust than we thought. ended up getting it media blasted to clean up the firewall and get the remainder of the underseal off.

I'm waiting for some photos, apparently the panel shop took a pile of photos.

Ended up repairs to the heater and firewall (known), rebuilding both A-pillars (semi known), Repairing the outer skin near the passenger side body mount (known), the innerskin of the passenger body mount (unknown) repairs behind drivers side body mount (unknown) . Apparently its primed in 2K and had new underseal applied too. All done.

Now i need to get the bonnet down to him for the same treatment.

I rang the guy who was recommended for the chassis media blasting but its looking quite expensive. So i might have to spend some time with a heat gun and some beers while i'm up working up that way over the next month.

Sent the brake calipers to the shop to be rebuilt, while i was up at my parents last weekend i pulled apart the rear suspension assemblies and removed all the suspension bushes from the radius arms (and the front wishbones).

I loaded the rear axles, front shocks and springs along with the lower wishbone that has the seized bolt in the trunion on to my dads ute. He was dropping them off to the local mechanic to disassemble them for me. I only need the shock tops as i have both replacement springs and shocks. the axles need to be pressed (which i dont have) and i'm hoping some heat will help the trunion bolt.

Fingers crossed.

And DONE!, well Phase One

 So, disconnected the handbrake cable, jacked up the front of the car and lifted/slid the body tub off the back on Friday night.

Got stuck in this morning and pulled the rear axles and diff off basically we're completely disassembled.

. 

The great news is the chassis looks perfect, the rear shock mounts are fine, diff mounts are fine. Had some horrifying moments pulling it apart, the left rear upper shock bolt didn't have a nut on it, the rear brake hose between the left and right wheels was basically rusted through, many bolts in the drive train that were loose. It was pretty terrifying.

Had a little clean up too, still a mess but not as bad.

I still have the rear half-shaft to pull apart, but other than that now its the slow and painful process of cleaning and painting everything.

Oh yeah and i picked up my bits from the UK, YAY!

The fun stuff

So back up again this weekend, started stripping the undercoat off the floor pan section of the front bulkhead.

It came off reasonably easily. things were looking really good until i got the the rear passenger side body mount (middle of the right hand side in the photo above) but man its a time consuming job.

There's a bit of rust in the body around the mount plate, it doesn't seem that huge and looks much worse in the photos as the left over undercoat has a redish rust like tinge to it

So that brings the rust tally to, the bottoms of the doors, a small hole in the bottom of each A-pillar, the heater box and two small bits in the front of the front guards.

From the looks of it water has been getting in through the hole in the A-pillar and pooling in the cavity about that body mount.

All and all i cant complain, it could have been a lot worse.

I forgot i would need the ute to drop off the bulkhead so its still at my parents, I'll drop it off next Saturday.

Also found out it's quite likely that i'll be spending a couple of weeks up in Palmerston North for work in the next month or two, so hopefully that will allow me to get some serious progress on the chassis

Finally the container arrives

The container arrived in NZ last night so hopefully i'll have my suspension components soon, all depends on how long it takes for them to clean my mates tools.

Unfortunately I'm getting stung with GST too, so VAT and GST which sucks, but it still works out slightly cheaper than if got them shipped direct.

With all the bearings and suspension bits almost here the timing has worked out pretty well.

Body is off! sort of :D

So, with much swearing and gnashing of teeth the body has been separated from the chassis.

Also i've recently replaced my phone so the pictures should be somewhat improved :) LG G2 the camera is spectacular

 No hidden surprises which was nice, the chassis looks really good, on the front half at least, i couldn't lift the rear tub off solo so that's still sitting in place.

This one is a bit hazy, my dad was having a burn off outside and the wind changed and started to blow smoke straight in :) I've started grinding the surface rust off the front bulkhead and treating it with POR-15 Metal Ready, so far it seems really good. I put some on the top section of filerwall a few weeks ago and the metal is still clean and rust free.

Ideally i should get the bulk head cleaned up next weekend and drop it to the panel shop for repairs and paint next Saturday.

Almost at the point where there's no more to pull apart. if i can get someone to help me lift the rear tub off, then i can start pulling the diff and rear suspension off and then i'm actually FINALLY done with dis-assembly. I have to chase up a work mate to see if i can steal his soda blaster, which should speed up the process of cleaning up all the little bits and pieces

So first step in getting the body off the chassis.

Pulled the dash out, had one seized screw on the main dash mount, which i ended up leaving to soak in WD40

its the one in the middle of the picture. Not much left of the car now :)

All thats left is to remove the sills then pull the 20 bolts that hold the body to the chassis and then i'm read to start sending it away to be repaired and painted.

Did find one badder than i thought part

From the firewall side

From the interior

So the rust in the heater intake goes all the way through. Ah well...  more rust repairs.

I ran out of time and was held up with a couple of screws in the sills that just wont budge, i think i'm going to have to drill them out. not too bad. I've only found about 5 screws or bolts that just wont budge.

Had a play around with the firewall and a nylon stripper wheel and covered it all with rust convertor to seal it up

But basically the body is completely stripped now.

Heard from my mate the ship has apparently left Singapore with my door skins and suspension bits. Hopefully will be here by the 16th July

Progress, and a decision

So i went up this weekend and finished disassembling the front suspension

For some reason it keeps rotation the image :S

Anyway, had Barry from Kult Kustoms  come around and have a chat about the car. showed him what needed doing and had a big chat about what was the best way to approach the build given what i needed to get done.

Long story short the body is coming off and the bulkhead section is going to Barry to do the rust repairs and prime in Epoxy. Once that's done the rear tub will go off to him as well, i'll prep and sand as much as i can, then he'll repair the dent in the panel and spray with epoxy too.

While that's all going on I'll strip the rear suspension off and send the chassis in to get sandblasted then bring it back home to be completely painted and reassemble the suspension. once that's done the rolling chassis will go to Barry to get the body tubs mounted and the doors re-skinned and primed too. then we'll work through the sills and the bonnet and valances. Once its all assembled i'll send it back to the shop to be painted and baked professionally.

A goal!

Hopefully achievable.

I want to have the car back on the road for the 32nd Lake Ferry Classic Motoring Excursion on the 13th December this year (2014). 

The Triumph Club's breakfast run would have been nice (when i first got the car it was the first run i went on)  but given its on the 3rd of August i doubt i'll have time to finish. Unless of course i move in with my parents for a month :D

Hopefully i'll end up that way working a bit around September so should be able to finish it off over that time.

More bits part 2

So I have confirmation that the parts have arrived at my mates house!

YAY, Rimmer Bros managed to make my next business day parts delivery if the order was received before 3pm into a two day delivery which was a bit stink given my time pressures. but it seems to have worked out in the end.

I was a little annoyed when the guy I contacted to confirm they had been sent replied with pretty much "no, we got busy with a pile of orders over the weekend". That's fair enough, but I did contact them Monday lunchtime to confirm they had the parts and were able to deliver them NBD, only to be told the next day they couldn't.

Ah well, its done now so that's good. Now the long wait while they go on the long cruise to NZ. Should give me some time to strip the front suspension and paint the engine bay/chassis with the POR-15 that's sitting in my little Mazda. ready to fit the new shocks/spring, bushes, bearings, ball joints, trunions and everything else :D

More bits

So i thought i would get some more bits and pieces, i had a friend who had a container coming over from the UK with some space in it and i was luck enough to get some space in it.

After having a look at what it was going to cost me to get the door section repair panels fitting (about NZ$400 each door) I was tossing up the options on how to go forward from here. The full skins were available but shipping was going to be expensive. Even with the shipping (about NZ$150)  it was still cheaper than getting the repair sections installed. So i bit the bullet and got me some extra bits at the same time.

I decided that after all the dramas i had with Canley's i'd try Rimmer Bros this time, The container is being packed tomorrow so i had to be sure that they A) had them in stock and B) could have them shipped to my mates house overnight. So i got on the website and had a quick online chat with an extremely helpful guy called Andy. He confirmed that everything i wanted was in stock and would be able to be delivered tomorrow. So i jumped online and ordered a lot of the heavy/larger things i avoided ordering before.

Two Door skins, left and right :) these should be considerably easier and cheaper to install than just the repair sections. the added benefit that i should be able to make my money back on the repair sections selling them locally. (about NZ$100)

Additionally i decided to get a full set of front and rear wheel bearings, I got a quote for a single front wheel bearing from a local supplier at ~NZ$82.00 each, Which was quite expensive given i got a set of front and rears for about NZ$150.00 from Rimmers

Then i went a little bit silly, but hell, i'm only going to rebuild this car once i might as well spend a little bit more on some

A set of front and rear Spax shocks with uprated, slightly lowered front springs. These springs should be a decent match for the lowering block i got for the rear.

 I thought about this a lot, I've got the Koni classics which will probably need to be rebuilt for the rears, and a set of unknown Munroes  for the front. I got a quote for about NZ$250-320 for front shocks in NZ that with the cost of rebuilding the Koni's made getting the shocks with basically free delivery cost neutral. I get better springs to as well with the option of selling the Koni's to offset the extra cost.

Then the final thing, something for nothing but aesthetics

Meh, why not :D i've seen them for sale for about NZ$130 locally, for NZ$45 i thought why not :D

Finally a burst of motivation

So i went up and did some more of the pull down finally.

Pulled the front of the car off, valances everything. The plan is to pretty much paint everything from the top of the firewall forward with POR-15.

I've been lucky so far i guess but i was gutted to find 2 pieces of bad (not just surface) rust. One in the bottom of the heater intake.

And the other on the inside of the passenger side  A pillar 

Which is a shame, but given this is the worst rust I've found so far, i cant complain.  I need to get the drivers seat floor pan welded where the mounts have fatigued anyways so I'll get these two, plus the front of the front wheel arches done too. In the mean time I'll start stripping and treating the surface rust ready for POR-15. Maybe see if my cheap sandblaster works around the battery box and the wiper mount on the firewall.

Oh yeah, and for the record Mr White if you're reading, I finally found a couple of bolts on this that would do your Alfa proud :D

Here's a closer shot of the front, prior to my next job of degreasing EVERYTHING