Come laugh at the novice! (Help!)

NinjaBadger · #1 23rd March 2009, 12:21

Hi All,

I'm a complete kit car noob and your help would be much appreciated.

Sorry in advance for the long post.

I've recently inherited this gorgeous beast...

It was built by my mum's ex boyfriend (they went out for 10 years or so) who in many ways was like a father to me.

He died a recently and I was shocked that he'd left the car to me - I guess (hope) he knew how much I loved it; I remember an unhappy year as a child at a new school, and getting dropped off in that every morning was the highlight of my day.

Anyway, this beautiful Dorian SS (also sold as a Burlington SS) is now mine, and this is where I need help and advice.
I inherited a lot of literature and books and information with the car.
The engine's a ford 1600 kent crossflow, but I can't find anywhere where it sates what the running gear's from, (I assume it will say somewhere but there was literally a bin bag full of papers) but I'm pretty sure it's off an old triumph of some sort.

She recently failed her MOT, mainly smallish things (brake balance / no seal on petrol cap filler) but also on the wheels interfering with body work.

Now I'm no mechanic, but I'm also not a complete dunce (we used to work on our cars under this guy's supervision), so I intend to try do everything myself where possible.

So I had her up on axle stands over the weekend, seeing if I could sort the brakes (changing pads on disc brakes is about the extent of my experience here.) Anyway, looking at it all it seemed not too complicated etc, so I felt quite confident at at least trouble shooting the system.

Anyway, I got the drum off okay, and thought I'd get the missus to push the footbrake so I could see if a piston was seized, one piston moved whilst the other didn't, but just before I told tell her to let off the brake the piston that was moving freely came out of the cylinder

A few questions...

1) Will this piston be damaged, or is slotting it back in as I've done okay?
2) The rubber seals over the pistons are there I guess to keep the pistons lubricated, I'm guessing that small holes in these could allow grease to leak onto braking surfaces and it therefore not good?
3) How do I free the seized cylinder?
4) If these are triumph parts, would someone most probably be able to identify what car they're off from a few pictures?
5) Where on earth do I get parts? We used to go to scrap yards when working on minis & metros, but I guess all old triumphs would have been stripped bare by now?
6) I'd like to do the car up, not just maintain it. How easy would it be to put some disc brakes on it? It seems now might be as good a time as any to do this.

I have very little in the way off manufacturing tools (i.e. NO welder, miller, lathe, bench grinder etc) but I do posses the ability to measure stuff very accurately.

Any help/advice you can offer would be much appreciated.

also if I've not been clear anywhere please feel free to ask any questions!

Cheers

NB

limpabit · #2 23rd March 2009, 13:31

Hi and welcome.

Drum cylinders are usuall quite cheap. I would replace them as a matter of course. Also check the shoes as they may need to get done at the same time.

I would not bother with a disc conversion for the rear. They don't get used as much as the front.

For spares. Just google triumph parts. There are quite a few places that do new spares for the triumph.

See if you can get any numbers off the parts you need to replace. This might help identify the parts.

limpabit · #3 23rd March 2009, 13:37

Looks like it is Triumph Herald based.

http://uk.geocities.com/burlington_register/ss.htm

chrislandy · #4 23rd March 2009, 13:38

Hi,
Rimmer brothers are a good supply for triumph bits, quite cheap too. You can also try to search the classic car mags for triumph garages or clubs.

You may need to fabricate parts if they are non-standard, not sure about the SS but my Burlington Arrow uses as much standard triumph parts as possible but there is a lot of custom bits. There is also a burlington owners club so try them for parts/advice.

Chris

NinjaBadger · #5 23rd March 2009, 13:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by limpabit

Looks like it is Triumph Herald based.

http://uk.geocities.com/burlington_register/ss.htm

You absolute beauty!

NinjaBadger · #6 23rd March 2009, 13:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by limpabit

Hi and welcome.

Drum cylinders are usuall quite cheap. I would replace them as a matter of course. Also check the shoes as they may need to get done at the same time.

I would not bother with a disc conversion for the rear. They don't get used as much as the front.

For spares. Just google triumph parts. There are quite a few places that do new spares for the triumph.

See if you can get any numbers off the parts you need to replace. This might help identify the parts.

It's the front I'm on about; it's drums all round at the moment.

edit: I should add although new to all this I love cars and I love driving. I intend to sort this car out and make it beautiful again, but first I want to get the mechanics (brakes, suspension and handling) sorted.

Other things that need attention are...

1) The front wheels stick out at the top (positive camber?) and the car sits quite high up. Would packing out the bottom wishbone mounts square the wheels up? If I did this the wheels would protrude from the body so could i get/find smaller ?????'s for it? Where ???????'s are the bits that go between the wheel and the drum *blush*

chrislandy · #7 23rd March 2009, 13:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by NinjaBadger

It's the front I'm on about; it's drums all round at the moment.

Does it have problems stopping? best bet is to get it MOT'd, drive it a bit and see what needs changing. If you are a novice then take one bit at a time otherwise you may get overwhelmed (most of us do at some point!!)

NinjaBadger · #8 23rd March 2009, 14:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrislandy

Does it have problems stopping? best bet is to get it MOT'd, drive it a bit and see what needs changing. If you are a novice then take one bit at a time otherwise you may get overwhelmed (most of us do at some point!!)

Yeah it does have trouble stopping and the MOT showed up brake imbalance.

But that may well be because of the seized piston (I only got to look at the front offside because obviously once the fluid leaked out I couldn't check the nearside.

I may just get it through the MOT as is before I start upgrading her.

martin butler · #9 26th March 2009, 11:46

hi firstly if its herald based mechanically, try to get hold of a haynes manual for a herald and read it thoughly before trying to do anything, drum brakes are not that hard to sort out but you might as well look at renewing all the cylinders and possibly a master cylinder overhaul kit this will give you piece of mind and you know then that you can rely on the car to stop when it needs too
steering ,again a haynes manual will tell you how to adjust wheel bearings and sort out steering, if the wheels are fouling the body work you will need to find out why, put a jack under the wheel and lift it just clear of the ground then see where it catches, and why, rock the wheel slowly fore and aft ,with your hands at 3 and 9 any movement here will be track rods, or the box or rack if its rack and pinion, but you should be able to see where any wear is,
get a long lever just under the wheel and try to lever upwards, any play here ,and its the suspension ball joints or wheel bearings , again the book will explain in detail how to do this

chrislandy · #10 26th March 2009, 12:42

I think you can still buy the build manual (on CD) for the Burlington SS

NinjaBadger · #11 30th March 2009, 22:30

Cheers all.

The wheels fouling isn't a problem - there's a bar at the front which the wings are fastened on to, but it's about 6 inches longer than necessary on both sides, an angle grinder will make short work of that.

At the rear of the wheel (inside the front wheel arch) there's a bity of ply with an ally skin on it between the wheel and the engine, and there's nothing mounted on either side, so I can cut that away.

Is there a legal requirement to have some sort of seperation/divider between wheels and engine?

I'm looking into whether I can replace the whole brake/hub assembly with the same off a herald with discs (my knowledge/terminology lets me down a bit but I'm on about the vertical section between the lower wishbone and the top section (parallel to the wishe bone but not a wishbone if you know what I mean)

limpabit · #12 31st March 2009, 05:52

Looks like the fixes are not too bad.

The separation between engine and wheels is not a legal thing. It just stops muck getting from the wheels on the engine.

martin butler · #13 31st March 2009, 09:31

upgrading your front brakes
you would need the hub complete and the hoses also,because the exsiting ones may not fit a disc set up, if you are inexperienced i would advise you to stick with your drum set up ,renew the cylinders and bleed all the air out leave doing a conversion to later when you understand your car a bit more or get a friend who knows cars to work on it alongside you, because anything to do with your brakes has got to be done right a conversion is a lot of work, you would have to remove the hub, renew or re grease the bearings fit the disc hub, set the end float, bolt on the new cover and caliper ,hoses, maybe new solid pipe from the master cylinder and bracket and bleed the system, im not trying to put you off, but you have a very nice car there and it would be a shame to risk damaging it and yourself by trying to do a job without getting someone to make sure you are doing it right, can anyone off this site give our friend a helping hand here, its a pity that i moved away, because i used to live in blunsden and would have offered my help

NinjaBadger · #14 4th April 2009, 00:27

Cheers for your advice Martin, but what I'm thinking is that there were heralds with discs on the front, so...

...I'd have to look into it obviousley (i.e. are the top and bottom wishbones the same on disc models as on drum models), but could I not just get the whole assembly (is it called the upright/steering knuckle?) including hub, calipers disc etc and just replace the whole lot?

but then again, it is fiberglass, ally and wood so maybe drums would be good enough.

martin butler · #15 4th April 2009, 10:10

without looking at both assemblys side by side i couldnt tell you if the uprights are the same, the hubs will not be, different mounting points for the discs etc, if you can get complete assemblys with everything on, thats the way to go, my car is beetle based, but i was lucky enough to have disc brakes as standard but i know that if i was having to do a conversion it means swapping hubs and getting complete assemblys, i should imagine a herald would be the same, if you have a manual look at that, it should show the different set ups, things like ball joints should be interchangable, unless they changed with the fitting of disc brakes on later models best of luck, its not a hard job but take your time and double check everything especially setting the bearings too much end float= bad steering, to little bearings will wear out very quickly and make sure everything is torqued down