BritishV8 Forum

Car is in the back of the garage covered in dust.  But, flood repairs are largely done with just  some painting left, move is done (not unpacked yet), and old house finally sold, so have had a little time to get started.

Little stuff so far, but got the cowl bracket modified so it no longer interferes with the wiper mechanism (was keeping the posts from seating properly resulting in a leak whenever it rained).  What a pain!  With the wiper mechanism, defrost vents and AC there is no room to get much in the way of tools back there.  I ended up using a dremel tool with a flex shaft on it and a 90* adapter on the end of the flex shaft.  Dremel's 90* adapter isn't designed to work with the flex shaft, but I found a way that makes it work great.

Also ran windshield washer hose to the Jets while the dash was off.  And am recovering the crash pad - mine had the original vinyl and had a split.  Once I button up the dash area, next up will be the transmission swap.  Don't think I'll have time to do the EFI till after Dayton.

I hate dashboard work, but that's on the agenda as a winter job if I ever expect to complete the A/C on my car. Was that a brace that you added?

Jim

No, it was  on the metal dash cowl I grafted in.  What I didn't account for at the time is metal dash cars only have 2 wiper posts so there's room for the wiper mechanism bar to curve over the brace.  My car is a '76  so three posts and the middle one is very close to that brace.  The resulting interference was keeping both the middle and right posts from seating properly.

Good to know.

Dash crash pad is recovered and reinstalled.  It's not a big piece, but there must be 500 Staples in that thing.  I have an electric staple gun, but it's in one of the scores of boxes so used a regular manual one.  Blisters on both hands!

Also buffed out and waxed the cowl area since it's hard to do well once the windshield is back on.

Next up is reinstalling the windshield & frame back in the car.

Oh yeah, that's always fun.

Jim

Windshield is back in.  Would have been easier with two people but wasn't too bad by myself.

First snag.  Before I grind the head off, anyone have a super secret way to remove a bolt when the nutsert it's screwed into is spinning?  I tried pressing a small screwdriver but can't keep it from spinning.

Never mind, I went ahead and cut the head off.  I used the dremel with a diamond cutoff wheel.  I wish I'd have gotten one of those a long time ago.  It cuts way faster than a normal cutoff wheel, only throws about 10% of the sparks, makes a lot less grit and whatever you're cutting stays a lot cooler too.

Now that I have it open I took a couple of pics so anyone doing AC behind the dash can see how it was done.  You can see the fiberglass ducting I made so the blower motor could be remote mounted on the cockpit side of the firewall (I stole the idea from Ted after looking at pics of Dan's GT).

Anyway, the part I needed to get at is the flat box with wires coming out of it that's screwed to the top on the right side (as viewed in the pic).  It has a control board that controls the heater valve solenoid and mine went bad.

Good progress Rob. At least you won't have leaks when your done. Rain must have been fun last year! I had a small leak myself last year on my wind shield seal.

Yeah, will be nice to have the leak gone.

Ran into 2nd snag last night.  Noticed the capilary tube that goes to the AC thermostat switch had broken off at the switch.  Ordered a new one but I'll have to wait till it comes in before I can get the dash back on the car.

Update: They said it'd be a few days to ship the part when I called today, I recall saying something to the  effect of 'bummer, I won't be able to put my  dash back on till I get it, but OK.'  Very much a passing comment.
This evening I got a FedEx ship notice email saying it's shipped and will be here tomorrow!  This is the 2nd time Vintage Air has surprised me with great customer service.  I'll definitely buy from them again.

1st round of stuff is done.
a. Replaced windshield
b. Fixed wiper posts.
c. Ran windshield washer tubing
d. Replaced AC control board
e. Re-wired door poppers so driver door is no longer on the same button that arms the ignition

Needs a good cleaning tomorrow but at least it's buttoned back up and driveable again!

On the road again... good feeling, and important. A running car all too easily morphs into a 'project' and one day a Barn Find.

Ivor