Another Cordite Is Born ...

[Paul L]

Tuesday - Part 3:

Fuse Box Cover:
I had some magnetic cupboard catches to play with.



So they were fitted to the sides of my aluminium cover.



I ended up using some scrap wood I had laying around to screw into.



A bit of marking up was needed to locate the catches.



I then removed the battery before I started to drill any holes in the battery box.



While this was out I put it on charge just to make sure it was back to full power.

This allowed me to drill 4 holes and see daylight through then instead of battery acid pouring out!



With the catches riveted into place, the cover could be fixed into position.



The good news is that the cover looks great and keeps the fuses out of sight of anyone looking inside the car.

The bad news is the magnets are so weak they could hold the cover in place with the extra weight of the wood.

So the photo above was taken after the wood was removed.
( And I had double checked the clearance from the fixing screws to the fuse box wires. )

Even so, it still doesn't feel very secure to me, so I might try something else to hold it in place.
( As I have a vision of this flying out of the car the first time I hit a bump in the road. )

End of Part 3…

[Paul L]

Tuesday - Part 4:

Headlights:
When I removed the headlights, I kept the wiring connected to the main loom and removed the plastic bracket from the main wires.



This allowed me to pull the wires through the headlight shells.

So now it was time to check my notes and re-fit the wires into the correct slots.



It took me ages to get the headlight rim into the correct position, but it was worth the effort.





Note: I was happy for the paint to be rubbed off the 'lump' at the top of the headlight rim.

Unfortunately, when I got to the passenger side I discovered I was missing one fixing screw for here.



I'm not really sure what has happened to that, but I think I might have a spare in the Summer House.

There was no time left to look for this as I had to tidy away all my tools and spares from the front porch at this time.

But I'd still like to end on a high, with a hint of what the finished front end will look like.



Oh yes.

Until next time, take care, Paul.

[molleur]

Coming along nicely Paul, try some hard drive magnets from a trashed computer. Plenty rare earth strong.

[Paul L]

Molleur - Thanks for the tip and I will look at what other fixing options might work.

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Friday Feeling:
I was able to do a bit of juggling today and squeeze in some car work around working from home.

First job was to try and find a replacement for the headlight rim screw that went AWOL.

I couldn't find anything like it in all my various boxes of bits in the Summer House.

So I had to drag this box of 'old tat' that came with the donor car out from the back of the shed.



It was worth all the effort, when buried amongst all the rusty stuff was these two screws.



I then breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when the new screw fitted into the space available.



Closely followed by the passenger side headlight being fitted.
( Where, once again, getting the headlight rim into position was a real pain. )



As tomorrow looks like it is going to be a wash out, I was keen to add some more yellow to the nose band today.

So while the paint tin was sitting in warm water…



I put two layers of masking tape around the inside edge of the opening.



Before wiping everything down for what I hope will be the final coat of yellow.
( Amazing what a difference the panel wipe makes to the shine of the BRG. )



I painted the nose band with the bonnet in its normal position...



Before opening the bonnet and removing all the tape.



I then left the bonnet open while I got back to doing some real work indoors.

Then in the late afternoon I could lower the bonnet again.

Unfortunately, there is a hedge in the way of me taking a head on view photo.

So this is the best I can do for now.





I think painting the headlight rims BRG has worked pretty well.

Until next time, take care, Paul.

PS
Last chance to tell me why I shouldn't fit the heat shield material on the underside of the bonnet.
( Having said that, I am unlikely to do that job before Sunday at the earliest. )

[lancelot link]

I always prefer the painted headlight rims ..looks more period to me ..less Cobra-esque , if you like ...yellow nose band looks great too ...

KEEP AT IT , NEARLY THERE AND ITS STILL MILD ENOUGH TO USE THE CAR AT THE MOMENT ...

[molleur]

Nicely done Paul, good works!

[davecymru]

Loving the noseband, that makes it that bit more unique to you and really fits! Same goes for the headlight covers, plus with the roads nowadays i think theyll be worth their weight in gold

Not sure about the under bonnet heat shield, theres just too many chances for something to come astray and cause all ends of problems. But thats just my 2p and feel free to disagree

At this rate we might even see you out at some meetups next year?

[Paul L]

Gary – Thanks and I’m pretty sure I stole the idea of body coloured headlight rims from your builds.

Unlike last winter, I now have a working heater, so I will definitely be back out driving after I get my 2nd MOT.

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Molleur – Cheers.

As more bits go back on the car, the overall “first impression” does keep improving.
( Which makes discovering some chipped paint on one of the headlight rims easier to take. )

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Dave – Thanks, even I am surprized at what a big difference the yellow nose band makes.

I think I will leave the heat shield material off for now and see how I get on without it.

As one of the reasons my bonnet was getting hot before was due to a blocked cooling pipe.

But the Triumph garage fixed that blockage, so the engine now runs cooler, with the added bonus of a working heater.

We will definitely have to arrange a forum gathering some time in 2018.

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Saturday – I spent some time looking for my homemade wiring diagrams, but couldn’t find them.
( As I want to double check the connections for the new stop/tail lights. )

Which, after Friday’s search for a headlight screw, has left the Summer House in even more of a mess than usual.

Thankfully, I finally remembered this morning that I had posted a photo of the lighting loom on here.



So at some point I should be able to starting wiring up the rear lights.

Cheers, Paul.

[Paul L]

Just one of those days…
I managed to squeeze a few car jobs around other stuff today, but I had mixed results.

So in no particular order...

I pulled one of my front wheels out from under the tarpaulin.



Obviously, storing these outside was going to require some cleaning before refitting.



At least that is easy to do and I even washed the insides of the wheel too.



So far I've applied two coats of tyre black…



But think I still need a few more.

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I pulled the grille and its fixing brackets out of the summer house.



And just rounded off the ends of the brackets.



I also made a start on tidying up the Summer House and found my grille badges.



But have now decided that I am not going to fit them after all.

I then had a lot of problems re-fitting the brackets holding the grille in place.

So whilst it looks securely fastened, some areas are a bit loose.



So I will need to come back to this at some point before the MOT.

In fact, I am considering following Swifty's approach of simply bonding the grille in place once and for all.



Whilst having some screws loose in the bonnet nose was bad, worse was to follow…

Still not 100% sure how this happened, but I've managed to knock a chuck of paint off along one edge.



Then, to rub salt into the wounds, I spotted where the tarpaulin had messed up the fresh paint at the bottom edge.



Thankfully, at this point I had to switch back to family stuff, so I pulled the covers back on and walked away.

End of Part 1…

[Paul L]

Sunday - Part 2:
I was tempted to just abandon the car for the rest of the day, as the grille problems were getting me down.

But I gave myself a good talking to and went back out to at least finish a few small jobs.

So I wrapped up the front indicator connectors and then zip tied all the wiring into place.
( Double checking there was enough slack to open/close the bonnet. )







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Then I retired to the bottom of the garden to start working on some 'washers' for the rear lights.

First step was to cut out some rough circles.



Then set up my 'work bench' ready for drilling.



Unfortunately, I didn't have a hole saw drill bit the right size.

So I cut the hole smaller and then enlarged it with a hand file.



The plan is that the metal of the light fitting will hold the light in place on the sunny side of the body shell.



Then I will use the washer on the inside of the body shell to form a 'sandwich' either side of the hole.



As I fear the fixing holes will be too close to the hole for the rubber around the light and they may break.

I still need to drill some holes in this washer and tidy up all the edges, before repeating this three more times.

However, that will be a job for another day.

So until next time, take care, Paul.

[deni]

Wow, you're so close mate, so close....I really like the depth of the BRG.

[micky1mo]

PaulL
Sorry for the extra work involved in fitting the lights, I really thought it would be a straight swap/fit

I assure you your car will look much better with the new lights.

[Paul L]

Deni – Cheers.

I know the weather is really starting to turn against me now, but I should be able to finish soon (ish).

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micky1mo – No worries, I know they will be worth the wait.

I was initially tempted to simply re-fit the old lights for the MOT.

But, in the end, I figured I might as well take my time and do the job properly.

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Nothing to see here
After many applications of the tyre spray, the front tyre is finally starting to look the part.
( And I haven't got around to polishing the wheel itself yet. )



That's it as far as car work goes I'm afraid.

So I'll leave you with some photos from Bonfire Night.





And this great little story that popped up on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRDUpcVcrW4

Cheers, Paul.

[Paul L]

A Token Gesture:
It was late afternoon before I had a chance to do any car work.

So I stuck to the simple task of finishing off the washers for the new rear lights.

Apologies for the poor photo, but the first washer now has the three fixing holes drilled in it.



I then used this washer to mark out how much extra I had to file away from the remaining washers.
( After using a hole saw. )



Eventually, I had all four washers done.



By which point it was pitch dark outside the Summer House.



I know the photo is blurred, but you can just about see how much space around the chair I had to work in.

With a bit of luck I might be able to get a bit more done tomorrow.

Cheers, Paul.

[Paul L]

Sunday - Morning:
It was back to the Summer House, where the plan was to take the wired up plugs from the old rear lights…



And graft them to Lucas lights that Micky1Mo sent me.



First job was to double check they could be wired any way around.



Then after a lot of searching in boxes I finally found this set of connectors that came with the donor car.



It required a significant amount of pressure to crimp the wire end.



But eventually I had the first indicator light all wired up and ready to go.





I had to do a bit more testing for the stop/tail light to work out which connector did what.



I then drew an S for Stop on one side so I didn't forget.



I'd already made a note of which colour wire in the plug did what, so they went in like this.



And another light was finished.



Tail:



Stop:



End of Part 1…

[Paul L]

Sunday Morning - Part 2:
One thing I did discover is that the two Stop/Tail lights have different internal fixings.

So one takes the bulb with the 'lugs' equally placed and the other takes the one where the lugs are staggered.



The fact I have both bulbs to hand means that the replacement plastic Stop/Tail light I bought was also different to the original one.

Still, I now had all four lights wired up and ready to go.



I also dragged the next wheel to be cleaned out.



But I didn't get a chance to start on that as I had other family stuff to do.

Note:
I should point out that there was a short break in the middle of the morning so I could observe the 11am silence & watch the first wreaths being laid at the Cenotaph.

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Sunday Afternoon:
I peeled back the covers at the rear of the car, so I could drill the holes for the lights.



As expected, there wasn't enough bodywork to play with (hence the big washers).



One down, three to go.



Apologies for the blurred photo...



But by now the sun was setting and the temperature was dropping.



So by the time I'd finished drilling the other side…



I was now working by street light.



And there was no chance of getting a decent photo of all the lights in place.



So you will just have to take my word for it that the lights look great.

I still need to finally bolt them into position and connect/test them, but that is one job closer to completion.

Until next time, take care, Paul.

[Jaguartvr]

The bayonet style connectors are best soldered otherwise the wire just pulls out if you try and disconnect them.
`the white multi plugs `i found very good, I fitted a thin zip tie along the length of them to stop them coming disconnected accidentally, nothing worse than trying to rectify loose connections at a later date.

Nearly there!

[Paul L]

Jag - The box of connectors did have some ends that needed solder, but these ones needed crimping.
( Admittedly they needed a HUGE amount of force to crimp them, but they are definitely secure. )

Thanks for the zip wire tip, I'll do that when I finally tidy up the wires in the boot area.
( All the connections at the front have been wrapped and taped up to keep the elements out. )

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Monday Bonus:
Got a chance to squeeze in some car work around other stuff today.

So at least I got a chance to get a decent photo of the rear end in the daylight.



It still looked just like that over an hour later, but at least all the lights were bolted into place and the wiring connected up.

So I removed the covers so I could start the engine and check the lights and found this.



Which explains some of the fresh marks on the paint, it is Snail S***!

First test of the rear lights showed the drivers side was wrong.



As it turned out, this is the side where the lugs on the bulb are not staggered.

So simply removing the bulb and turning it through 180 degrees fixed that.



Then a couple of blocks of wood allowed me to test the brake lights.



Which were now working properly on both sides.



And here is a full house of hazards, rear & fog lights.



I double checked the headlights and both side and main lights worked.





End of Part 1…

[Paul L]

Monday - Part 2:
I really thought that an MOT pass as far as lighting went until I remembered to check the rear number plate light…

Nothing.

Now, quite by chance, I'd seen a spare bulb in the Summer House the other day (while looking for something else. )

Swapped the bulbs over and still nothing.



So I found a spare indicator bulb and used that to test the wiring loom inside the boot.



So at least I know the wiring is fine and it is the bulbs that are broken (new ones now ordered).



Just a few other odd jobs.

I had a closer look at the chips in the yellow paint and it was caused by tightening the grille into place.



So I removed all the fixing brackets.



And removed the grille itself.

So the next job will be to rough up the painted surface so I can get a good bond when I fix the grille into place.

I made a start on cleaning up the second wheel.



And loosely fitted the first wheel that I cleaned.



The car is still on blocks of wood as I still have a couple of small jobs to do on the underside.

But, overall, it is actually quite close to being ready for the MOT, hopefully within the next couple of weeks. < Tough Wood >

Cheers,

Paul.

PS
I even managed to get a poor photo of Jupiter and Venus this morning.

[molleur]

Moving along nicely Paul, won't be long now. Car is looking very good!