Wire wheel woes

 The trusty Bosch drill finally gave up the ghost.

The Draper grinder was hard to use due to the on switch always wanting to be off.

Then, after finding a Bosch grinder in the shed ( a gift from uncle Bri ) together with a drill chuck Bingo !

Alas not for long. The best wheel for getting to the corners, of which on Rostyles is many, was the acorn shaped brass wheel thing. It would only fit in the drill chuck, not the grinder, or so I thought until I discovered the above.

At that point I vowed only ever to buy Bosch tools, I was impressed by their robustness, build quality and operation. I was in love with them.

But, after using for 10 mins or so that too gave up the ghost. It was vibrating like billyyo.

With the normal wheel or the cup wheel it was fantastic, smooth, quiet and lighter than the Draper monster. The rpm of the Bosch is lower though but with the steel wire wheels it did not matter at all.

That left me with ONE of three tools, the Draper which was no good to get in the corners. 

I was waiting delivery of the Bosch drill brushes and Lo, they arrived monday evening.

So after work I got to grips with replacing the brushes. It was a doddle to replace them, if not a little fiddly. The case popped apart like a dream, no broken tabs or tangs, no loose parts all stuff secured for life.

It went back together even better, with a resounding click and used all the same screws to hold it all together.

I then went on to investigate why the Bosch grinder stopped working. I had a fairly certain idea the vibration had caused a loose or broken wire.

In was correct. A wire from one of the brushes had parted company from its brass end spade. The brushes were held in by a curly clock type spring on each side. I attached a new spade terminal, attached another only this time soldered on and re- assembled.  Bingo.....fast and smooth...game on. 

But not tonight. Monday is the only day I work till six pm, home and fed for seven thirty and it was now nine pm. 

Rather than post more pictures of wheels and tools I thought I'd outline whats been done so far, how and whats left to do on the wheels.

I started by using the drill and circular brass wheel, then brass cup. Changed to grinder with large steel wheel and paint guard for doing round the outer edges. 

I tried to work in a logical and orderly fasion by doing the inside edges tops , outside edges and inner edges bottoms.

Changed to the steel cup wheel in drill for larger edges then the acorn shaped brass wheel in drill for the inner quadrants. I probably changed over several times depending on weather it was the outside or inside wheel face.

Coated with Kurust, left to cure a few days. Coated with primer and left to cure ditto. Sprayed with very bright shiney silver.

So as it stands now not one wheel is complete, yet. The intention is to get all five with paint on them ( Black gloss on inside, very shiney Silver on outside ) then give all the outsides a coat or two in Ford Nimbus grey. 

Then have five new tyres fitted........yay .

Then proceed to paint the quadrants in Satin ( or matt ) Black. 

Wheel one.  up to speed and can wait for the others. Black inner, silver outer.

Wheel two.  Kurusted and primed on back with Black gloss applied. Front primered and Silver sprayed on, badly, a few runs and some slight crazing because I rushed it a bit tonight.

Wheel three. Back kurusted, primered and black gloss applied. Partially wire wheeled old rusty primer off and applied kurust.

Wheel four.  Untouced sice applying primer years ago. Needs lots of work.

Wheel five.  Ditto......I think.

Thats enough of wheels for now.

 I may divert onto the rear cant rail " paper mache" as its looking rather flimsy and "wavy" . I may have to use the same technique but with proper resin and mat directly onto the cant rail. 

I may move on the replacing the door cards with new hardboard.  I have some, but guess what, they are 2" too narrow. Pffft. Hardboard is cheap enough though. And I have the vinyl......oooooh.

Lets wait and see.

Cheers !!!!!!!!!

Stopped by the brushes...almost

 Day off today so after a leisurely morning coffee and big shop, short nap and lunch I set too on the wheel refurb. Originally done ( well three of them at least ) a good few years ago they had a liberal coating of rust on them. I have already done one withe the drill and several small-ish brass wheel shapes. One has been sprayed black on the inside which has crazed a little but I'll go over it again some time. The outer face was coated with two coats of primer and stored in the car so they don' t absorb any moisture.

First job was to get some real paint on said primer. I only had some silver wheel paint in aerosol form so I used that. Just to get it covered and protected.

Wow. What a silver. A very bright light silver. It looked good though and nice to know l'll not have to wire wheel it again, hopefully. The photo doesn't do it justice. Its very very bright.

It appears there is no exact original Rostyle silver colour. Minis, Range rover, Rovers and Fords all used these style wheels and most have slightly different shades. I'm of the opinion that Ford Nimbus grey is the closest colour shade so maybe I'll  nip to Halfords and give that a try over the bright Silver. Unless one of the cheap poundshop silvers is acceptable, worth the risk for £1 a tin.

One to the next wheel. The one I'd not touched to date. It looked like it had been overpainted too at some stage, but not by me.

After removing the wheel from the car...........phwarrr.

The inside was rusty AF. Look

And that photo was after bothering it for a good hour with the brass wheel in drill.

It was that at this point the drill gave up the ghost. It sounded a bit ropey the other day doing the previous wheel so after a quick disassemble and re-grease it appeared to work ok, for a short while, then only work by shaking violently. Not good. The trusty Bosch drill has lasted me nigh on 20 years, drilled evey hole in the house and lots of other stuff too but, a big decision had to be made.

Do I jump into the 21st century and buy a super battery operated one ( preferably another Bosch) or another unit or try to repair the existing one. Being an extreme tight wad I opted to repair the drill with new brushes. The first ones I selected were only £2.99.........but £20 shipping cost...wtf.

Eventually found some on Amazon for £7.50 delivered.......lets wait and see.

I don't think I've mentioned before but I'm taking early retirement so will finish work mid August. That entails being in reciept of a lump sum which has allowed a boost to the restoraton budget. Yay, and more time to restore, hence the burst in activity and enthusiasm as well as the good weather.

So no more of this malarky.

Back to the wheels. What to use to get the wheels back in shape meanwhile ?

I had no option but to use the scary grinder thing. This thing frightens me to death. Its fast, noisey and brutal. Fitted with the steel wire wheel disc almost lethal. 

That too is slightly f***ed. I have to keep the sliding "on" switch pushed forward to keep the disc spinning at full rpm. Not easy when your weilding it into all the nooks and crannies of the wheel and are already scared of slicing into your wrists and fingers. I had a slight mishap last year with it and skimmed the side of my finger which hurt like hell for weeks and was more than unpleasant.

Anyways, I managed half of the untouched wheel outer and left the hard to get at areas until the drill is back in action. The back had been completed with drill, pre conk out and coated in ku-rust.

Pre Ku-rust coating below.

The untouched wheel prior to bothering with scary grinder.

It did an excellent job though. Much quicker than the drill and a better shinyer finish, but no go in tight areas and hard work due to the " fault" with the switch. So as I said only managed half of the wheel front and gave it a light covering of primer. 

Next up is to purchase a reasonable set of proper chrome bumper springs to refit in place of the MCC I purchased a long time ago when I was young and inexperienced MG wise. This should make the car look and sit level and not nose up.  Oh, and a new heater matrix which has sprung a leak and been bypassed. The heater box also need a clean up and respray as the gloss black used looks shabby now, as does the boot floor after the asrts and crafs episode.Three step forward and one step back and so on.

More soon folks

Arts and crafts Pt 2

 As usual it started with a diversion. Well the there is so so much to do It would wouldn't it. 

Some time ago, and I mean years, I downloaded a very useful drawing of the rear bumper mounting brackett to hold the sub- brackett directly behind the chrome bumper.

It came from a forum named MG Experience, I think. Its  American and very informative and friendly. After I "aquired" some steel plates, albeit only 1/8" thick, I decided to make four of them and weld two together by puddle welding from the rear plate. 

So spent about 2 days on and off cutting, drilling, bending and grinding. Not tried them yet but they are exactly as the drawing, the holes line up so into the "ready to use, to be fitted when ready" box ( Its getting bigger at least)

Back to the rear cappings. Even though the shape looked good some work was required to the ends. The rearmost areas have an angled rebate I presume the allow it to cover the angled C post covers. The front has two 1/8" thick blocks to allow the whole to sit flat against the inner wall and level with door cappings. The old ones were ok so I simply prized them off and re-stuck to the new ones with PVA and held overnight with a tough spring clamp. I'd taken the liberty the day before of giving both bare wooden shapes a coating of watered down PVA glue to act as a barrier against rot and adhesion promoter for what was to come.

Below shows the pathetic attempt to use the fibre glass fibres and resin to " fill" some rotten areas, large nail holes and damaged straight edges due to rot in the original pallett. It was easy enough to remove. So then I filled with normal body filler, waited 10 mins (:the weather was warm and sunny, for a change), sanded smooth and was overall very happy. Now ready to stick on the vinyl. 

Not having an Industrial stapler or nail gun I bought some small blue head tacks to hold everything together (Wilko's, £2,35) including the piping strip, which was good enough to re-use after a quick clean up with WD 40 and removal of the very rusty small staples. 

I used the old tattered cover as a template and got to work with the Evo-stick aerosol. It went great. The vinyl was pliable and easy to cut with a slight stretch if required. Bobbed in a few tacks to be sure then tacked on the piping. This was not easy to align as the underside is well rounded and I was determined the piping would come out true and straight, otherwise I would have been better using the tatty ones than an half arsed attempt. I wanted better than it looked. The piping was ok but could be better. Someone must have heard me muttering and cursing.

Twaz then that Wifey piped up from the kitchen window " I've got an Industrial stapler, somewhere among my art stuff"

WTF. I didn't know if this was a good or bad thing ! Her "art stuff" is spread over the whole house, shed, attic, bedroom wardrobes and outhouse.

Result!!!!! First place I looked, outhouse ( it was also the nearest). 

It worked a treat, was easy the align the piping straight and true and staple accurately.

The only scary moment came was when a big black cloud hovered over and started to drizzle just as I was putting in the last of the staples, the WD 40 was almost exhausted and so was the Evo-stick. As you may be aware, I have no garage, so all the tools and stuff are stored either in the car or in two large plastic storage boxes. So any downpour is disasterous. But the cloud passed and all is well.

Very happy with all that. A quick clean up with WD 40 and they looked brand new. Hence back in the RTU,TBFWR box.

I gave the spare wheel another coat of primer and stored inside the passenger footwell. Just so you know, car primer is porous ! I'd wire wheeled three wheels a few years ago  and coated with primer, as well as red leading the insides but alas the elements have not been kind to them, they have rusted badly so will need redoing.

Look at the difference between a previously primered one and an untouched original wheel.

More soon folks as I'm buying 2 new tyres so at least 2 wheels need completing, not to mention getting the auto electrician in...hopefully.

Art and craft episode pt 1

 So, I'm resigned to getting a man in to sort the electrics, or the non starting at least.

Back on with other things, not neccasarily in the order I did them, but I'll try.

The rear cant rail and cover. Which I don't have !! Never had one, never seen, one can't afford a repro one (They are not very good anyway being a bit flimsy and cheap looking, supposedly) and second hand ones are extortionate.

So, having a naked rear cant rail I did some lateral thinking, in fact lots of weird and off centre thinking.

The result being I thought it would be a doddle to make a fibre glass mould "in-situ". So after watching a few boaty type vids on Youtube and already having most of the stuff off I went.

Its a pity the glass fibre didn't. Went off, that is. This is why !

First I covered the cant rail in cling film, not easy. Modern cling film is not like the old clingy stuff I remember. Anyways, the big tub of resin already mixed with glass fibre strands was a dogs dick to apply. It kept falling off, the cling film kept falling off and I kept falling off . Not good at all so I left it a day or too to go off only partially covered.

 Crap.............. it was literally dropping off as I was shutting up shop ( I mean putting the covers over as I don't have a garage.........yet ! )

So on to plan B.

Use Aluminium baking foil !!  Dead easy to apply and shape and glass fibre won't stick to Aluminium. Dead right, It didn't adhere at all. Even worse result than the clingfilm. What a mess !! 

It was then I discovered my error/s

1/. Don't use resin containing pre mixed fibres

2/. When using resin, mix with a hardener/ catalyst first

So on to plan C

So what can that be ?

It took about 3 weeks to come up with the idea but.........................ping, a lightbulb moment !

Paper-mache !

I covered the cant rail in a light coating of vaseline, applied 1layer of newspaper strips approx 3" x 1"  and applied with what I thought was PVA glue and left it about a week. It looked ok, but had a kind of wooly look with many strips not fully adhered to each other. So a trip to the craft shop for proper PVA glue which cost £2.99, and repeated the process with a ratio of 2:1 water and PVA, result ! Another 2 layers over the next few days with some stratecically placed magnets, clothes pegs and steel rule to keep it in place and bingo, a week later it had set hard and shapely.

It came off without too much faffing with only one area weak.

The plan next is to trim true to shape and fibre glass over this with proper resin and catalyst and real fibre glass matting. Sand, smooth and trial fit next. Thats not done yet though, I got sidetracked.

Up next up is to fibreglass and fit and cover with nice new cream  vinyl. More to come, at some point on this subject.

So more on the diversion. The door and rear seat cappings.

I've had these skulking around the shed in some dark and distant corner, constantly getting the way and hidden in the bowels of all manner of MG stuff. One is damaged too. Its been broken ever since I took it off years ago, right at its weakest point, the thinnest area of the curve. The front drivers and passengers door cappings are fine if a little dirty. 

So I decided to " rescue" the rear broken capping ( held in one piece by the vinyl and upper piping strip ).           

However when extracting from the shed the other one broke in two places. The cappings are made from very coarse MDF and look like they have rotted from the inside out, likely from the poor rear quarterlight seal.

I had the Idea that I could screw a re-enforcing plate behind each fracture after rebating it an good to go after a good clean and polish.

No. Wrong. Very wrong. The plate would not help. The MDF was too rotten, even to accept a liberal dousing of resin ( with catalyst ) and several woodscrews. I had the smart idea to clamp it to a straight edge, let it cure and onwards and upwards. It did not work. The MDF had to go. Fortunately the one with only one fracture could serve as a template and some wood found behind the shed witch was only 1mm thinner.

New skills to master........wood shaping.

And here are the tools I used, with the exception of the jigsaw. 

The wood was part of a dismantled pallet as I had to remove several recessed nails. Also some edges are a little damaged from rot but I'm planning to fill these area with body filler after a pathetic attempt to use yet again resin and filler.

That has yet to be done but they have shaped nicely.

I have also purchased a large roll of black vinyl from AS supplies for about £14.00 delivered because I'm also going to remove the dash top and recover it in said vinyl together with new hardboard door panels.

I'm sure I'll use it on loads of other tatty pieces too.

The dash top looked good when I renewed the hardboard backing last year and stuck back before the windscreen went in.

But the efforts of sorting out the wiring and steel dash installation have taken their toll. The crash pad still looks tatty/ dirty but another harsh scrub should see it looking better.

More very soon.

 

From worse to I F%&^"ing well give up on the electrics, well probably !

 Another frustrating session ended nowhere so I bit the bullet and bought new hazard and indicator flasher units and and and a new battery !

Fitted hazard unit and battery. Still no joy. After checking starter and ignition relays about 30 times I swapped one of them ( forgot which one as this was a few weeks ago )  for a new halfords square thing of same rating and....................

Disater. White smoke. Billowing from the engine bay so off went the ignition key sharpish.

Since I was sat in the car I couldn't tell which relay was smouldering, so I had to repeat the episode, albeit quickly to see whitch one was a bit hot and melting.

What a mess !!!!!!!

The black wire from the relay and another one going to the fuse box looked like a skinned corpse. 

So just to add to my already frustrating wiring woes, a long and tedious rewiring of said wires from scrap wire ( correct black earth colour of course ).

The only positive notes were the hazards now flash, the indicators don't !, and I did manage to get the engine turning over thanks to John Twist's little tip from his Youtube channel.

I'd also bought a lower starter motor mounting bolt ( the top and bottom are different threads for some unknown BL reason ), however the bolt was in place and I'm sure for a long time it was missing and in the memory bank of my mind that I'd lost it but must remember to replace it ,sometime.

So I did what all top class computer programmers and prime ministers do.............Ignore it and move on to to the next subject.

So I welded on the rear light fillet base top from the rubber to chrome coversion " boat-tails".

I did make these some time ago but could the hell I find them........no, some made some more and got the welder out.

Thats enough for now. Interior to get moving on and lots to tell. 

Stay tuned my faithful followers.