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.

From bad to worse

 So, the front sidelights work from the switch as they should.

But and it's a big but, the car won't start. Not so much as a click, tick, grunt or whine.

Just a deafening silence.       And, the front lights plus indicators are all on permanently.

I have been checking and maybe fiddling with the ignition relay and starter relay. It seems I have an extra brown/white wire at the relay....wtf.

Just look at the mess of spaghetti. And I still have an errant brown and errant green wire near the coil. 

I hope I've not fried the internals of the coil or relay.

I took the opportunity to link up wifeys car with a full battery, not that it made any difference. 

I cannot understand why the indicators are on, FFS they are on different circuit.

I'm beginning to think I'm in over my head as I've had about for days of staring at the wiring diagram, testing continuity, checking connections and sŵapping wires as per advance auto wire diagram.

So any comments or advice would be massively appreciated, even better pop round my place and help.

Even wifey is getting somewhat irate at me spending so much time on it and not cutting the grass etc.

Not posting any more till I've made some progress. 

There, that's me throwing toys out of the pram.

I did trim my beard though, time for wine and spotify to try and improve the mood

Wiring woes

 Well at least I got the headlights and sidelights working. Was relatively simple once I worked out the wire positions.

One really annoying thing was that the rubber bullet connector housings in the left/right transition had no internal metal ring to hold the bullets each end. It was reliant of the bullets being pushed in far enough for their ends to touch. No wonder it took so long to check the continuity before snipping wires. So, I attached new spade terminals to the green and red wires each side, deleted the rubber bumper sidelights in the headlamp bowl and bingo. Main headlights both sides, dipped beam both sides. The puzzle from the last post has been resolved, it was a poor bullet connector on the blue/ red circuit.

That took all day whilst waiting for the phone to ring as I was on call. So far well into Saturday night It's still not rung, so far so good.

That only leaves the relay to fathom out. What bodge job has been done god only knows. The original rubber bumper indicators had odd yellow wires going to a "Fiat" relay and a yellow wire wedged into the bulb with a small screw !!!!

Like an Idiot I forgot to note all the connections to and from, but did discover the live wire ( purple ). I had bought a few weeks ago a spare relay from Halfords so I'll probably wire that in instead of the crusty one above. I've YouTubed the connections to death this last hour so tomorrow (Sunday) I will give it a go weather permitting.

After consulting the wiring diagram for hours on end I realised the hazard warning switch could be important so, as it was the only switch that didn't disintegrate years ago on, I took a look.

Disaster struck. That too fell apart on inspection. Completely unrepairable, the pivot lugs had snapped and it all fell into the footwell. One thing I have noted about Lucas electrics is the electrical parts are really good, logical and quality. The mechanicals of the switches are not. Tiny, crude, fiddly and prone to wear.

Happiness

Sadness

Still don't know what the loose purple wire is close to the ignition wiring , plus a stray live red wire above the accelerator pedal.  Let me know in the comments if you do............please

To recap, more fiddling and staring at the wiring diagram till I can get the indicators flashing front and rear. I'll settle for just the fronts for now though. Might have half a morning of tomorrow , go for a walk and coffee or might just stay in bed late, if only. More soon.

A little more done.

 Looked at the rear wiring harness this afternoon. Only had to snip off the upper bullit connectors on the rear lights and add a spade connectors to both. Fitted them and hey ho they work.........in a fashion. They appear to be on as soon as the ingnition barrel is turned to the first position, regardless of where the headlight switch is  i,e off, sidelights or main lights. I think the same happens at the front too. The brake light or indicators don't come on either.

I guess I'll wait till I get the front indicators fitted next week to troubleshoot this Issue. I bet its raining all next weekend though. Still it will be payday, but have a 24 hour on call Saturday. 

Looked at the boot floor now its dry and it looks good.

Next up was to paint the inside rear of the wings behind the light and boot floor. Since I had run out of trusty £1 per can of matt black ( non in stock at any Poundlands, apparently caused by lack of lorry drivers with the flammable goods certification. A real bummer as this stuff and its brother Grey primer are by far the best value around. Non of this corporate price hiking for motorists ) I used a small tin of black Hammerite that was skulking in the shed.

 

Did both sides, obviously then stood back and admired my work. Whilst I was on a roll I decided to make cardboard templates for the tops of the rear light " boat-tails".  I don't why at the time I didn't slice the bottoms off the light fascia straight and level. It would have made the job much easier. The only conundrum is do they sit on top of the boat-tail or underneath ?. I decided underneath. Means a bit of fiddly nibbling with the grinder and a few spot welds but no biggie. I think I'll also drill a drain hole in the bottom as It looks like it could be a rust trap.

The left one shown is not so bad. The right has a sloping face which is impossible to get and and make level. None are visible though as its covered by the light and foam seal. Still the light fittings both sides fit well. So next job will be adding black wiring harness tape to the exposed parts of the rear loom, but thats after another coat of matt black (on order from Europarts, £ 5.06 per 350 ml. Still begrudge paying this though but had no choice).

All of this only took a couple of hours after a nice walk in the wonderful Derbyshire countryside, coffee and bun.

Hopefully next weekend the weather plays fair and wifey don't find me a load of chores that have to be done. 

Here's hoping.

 

Busy Busy Busy.............!

Even more so since typing this last night I somehow managed to delete the whole post. Anyways, let me fill you in since the last post.

The front windscreen trim strip is in. Yay . After the long long faff of fitting the tailgate trim strip ( 3 days of cursing and swearing then leaving the last 14" dangling free) I set too fitting the front one starting mid lower screen and working towards the drivers side ( Right hand side ).

But this time I fitted it the correct way up with the pointy edge down into the groove. These are the tools used. A careful note is don't go mad with the fairy liquid. I found it better to smear a small amount on the underside of the strip about 2 to 3 inches ahead of the fitting.

It took about 90 minutes to fit 10 inches. The angled ring spanner mentioned in earlier post was rubbish. 

I even made a trim insertion tool from a thick wire coathanger, this too was rubbish. But probably I was too impatient and wanted to crack on. I left it at that for the day as the palm of my hand was killing me from the pushing and finagling. The technique was to push the top edge ( the inside edge) in, hold it, then lever the lower outside edge into the thin flimsy lip.

The following day I had inspiration. I used a mole grip to hold the trim tool and changed technique. 

This time I fitted the lower outside delicate edge first and finagled and levered and pressed the middle domed part into the upper lip, levering as I went along. I got the bottom and RH vertical part in in about 60 minutes. I got the remainder done in about another 30 minutes, getting better as I went along.

So the question remains should I remove the rear trim strip and put it the corrwct way up ? Yes I will but not for a while though.

Next up was the front lights. All cleaned up and various nuts and adjusters and bulbs arrived from MGOC.

The wiring though ! That wiring, previous owner/s dodgy wiring and some illogical and puzzling switches. Firstly I had to make two good headlight bowls from two slightly corroded ones and a completely rotten one caked in 50 year old underseal.

What needed replacing was about two inches of outer rim on each plus the spring tabs at the bottom. 

So after some cutting, welding and filing job done.

As a side note I fitted the dash weeks earlier, mostly, but struggled to tighten one nut on the left side. Twas then I noticed I was stripping the threaded stud poking out from the scuttle. It was not the correct nut. So I did what I normally do when faced with a conundrum and a mountain of other work to do, I ignored it.

As another side note, the wifeys car failed its mot due to rear shocks and rust in sills front left and right rear. Job done in 3 days with much welding and only a minimum of filler. Saved £ 300 I/ we didn't have so alls well and wifey joyous.

Here is the finished Left headlight showing the chrome surround spring fabricated and fixed. It took hours to make. They are only pence to buy but that was not the point, I enjoyed the process and got to work in the new shed.

Now to make sence of the wiring in the grill aperture and switches at dashboard. F@&+ me what a mess !

I had to do a lit of continuity tests with lots of cleaning and puzzling just to understand it all. Then I had to  work out the switching. It might seem odd to say but I didn't really know how to turn the lights on and what were the sidelight switches. Anyway after a lot of staring at the wiring diagrams, staring at switches and the dash loom I eventually realised there was a headlight switch residing in the box reserved for the headlight refurb.

Sadly I didn't take any photos of the wiring before I commenced as I think I was too absorbed in sorting it out.

 Power was flowing to both headlights  then not, then to one sidelight but not the other, then not at all. The headlight switch is mounted to the steering column binnacle, in my case just dangling down into the footwell. For some reason there was an extra  8 inches of wiring going to the switch ending in a triangular type connector one end ( with just 3 wires, all red) to the dreaded terminal block the other. 

After lots and lots of staring at the WD and staring at the wiring loom switch I finally figured it out.

The switch was wired wrong. Anyways I noted how wrong it was ( just in case) and rewired correctly.

Hey ho !  Headlight main beam, sidelight both sides. Then not, then the other, pppppfffftttt!

It turns out that in the grillë recess, several single bullet connectors had no inside inside the hard rubber outer covering thing. They were just pushed in from each side and hope they were touching. A bit of soldering, spade terminal crimping and done. TFFT !!

But.................on testing for some reason the drivers headlight is not on under one condition ( position ) of either the switch itself or the right column stalk position. That's for another day though.

Next up was the rear lights. The wiring was easy to follow and all there except for a few extra wires relating to the heated rear window, plus extra ones not connected to anything, all black or white.

The rear light pods I have had for years and are the correct type for pre rubber bumper cars, a little pitted but otherwise good. Cleaned, bulbs in and foam gaskets purchased and special nuts found so ready to go.

But no................... look at that boot floor. It's typical one job leads to another.

When I purchased the car the boot floor was immaculate. It looked brand new. Alas years of rear window missing, tools and stuff constantly in and out, weather and general time has taken its toll. The car was originally white but thoroughly sprayed black early on in its life. 

So I decided to spruce it up before fitting the rear lights. A good Vac, clean with white spirit, areas treated with Ku-rust and applying seal sealer to inner wheel arches and a quick spray with Matt black 

Lo..............it looks good and much better. It needs another coat though, but I had run out of  spray.

Next up is to buy a new pair of front indicator units. I have a pair given to me when I bought the front chrome bumper. The guy gave me a box of misc lights and things, hence why I have 3 headlights, four  reversing light lens's, three headlight bowls. They were all a bit cruddy but at the time I already knew I was converting to CB so I gratefully accepted them and left them in the shed for about 8 years untouched.

Sadly one indicator body is beyond redemption and rusted throughout. The other is not much better. Strangely enough it's as expensive to buy just the body as the complete unit with wiring. 

That's next months purchase though so I might as well get on with the boot floor painting, rear corner boot/ wing inner area and continuity check the rear lights along with a myriad of other jobs.

My minds now made up to make it a rolling restoration and get it to a point to pass an mot. 

Either way some real progress has been make and I'm determined to crack on until winter so I can save up for the interior. 

More soon, I promise.