AVM's Mk2 Zephyr rebuild thread (2/17 Emblem/Gauge)

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peteleo
Posts: 1332
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2008 11:57 am
Location: San Mateo,California

Post by peteleo »

Arnaud,

Struck out this time. These s/cyls are from the Cortina mk1.
NewFord spares carries them. http://www.newpartsonline.co.uk/index.p ... _id=129501

Check to see if the s/cyl holding bracket is still attached to the bell housing.
Would also replace the flex line. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ford-Consul-Zep ... fQ&vxp=mtr

Pete
Avmaviator
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:13 pm

Post by Avmaviator »

*** I posted this on my usual car forum (Saab92x.com) so there is stuff in there to explain to them the car, stuff you guys obviously know ;) ***

A little update for you guys.

After taking the fuel tank off, I wire brushed it. Overall it is in pretty good condition with some light surface rust here and there. I got some bedliner paint that I will use to coat the tank with once I'm done cleaning the inside. I poured three gallons of white vinegar in the tank as it had a lot of nasty gunk from the old gas. It has been soaking for a few days now and it is amazing how much crap is coming at the top. I put a dozen nuts in there to shake it once a day. The nuts help dislodged any stuff on the bottom. I don't have any pictures of all that as it is nothing exciting...

Moving on to the "exciting" part, in both a good and bad way. I have run the car a few times now since I initially started it. Starts right away every time, I love it :banana: On the dash, the electrical light was on, a red light indicating an issue in the charging system. So I decided to tackle that...

The car uses a Lucas generator, with a Lucas voltage regulator. Since it sat for so long I figured that corrosion what probably the one to blame for the electrical issue. I started by removing the generator, a big hunking piece.

It didn't look too bad, just dirty and a bit corroded.

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I opened it up, which is actually really easy to do. Just have to remove two straight thru bolts. The brushes looked pretty fresh, I wonder if they were changed out, but I don't know what they look like new...

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Next, I looked at the armature (the big part) and commutator (the smaller copper part) . The armature was a bit corroded and pitted at a few spots but overall nothing alarming. The commutator looked pretty worn to me... once again I don't have any reference of a new one but when you looked at the base of it, near the armature, it looked it was well worn... I cleaned up both according to the manual.

Dirty. I forgot to take a pic of it all cleaned up :( But it just looks shiny and nice.

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I cleaned all the parts, painted the outside case, and put everything back together, and remounted it. I made the mistake of not bench testing it while it was out, which I will explain later... :angry:

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Next I focused on the regulator. Once again, I broke one of my rules of fixing one thing at the time so you know exactly what is going on. Maybe one day, one day I'll learn.

The voltage regulator is pretty neat, mechanical regulator, pretty simple design and robust. The contacts are the most important part of the system and the areas that need to be cleaned. I found some corrosion on the armature, arms, and contacts when I took it apart. I followed the manual, which was written in the 1950s in the Queen's english..., to clean and adjust the regulator. The instructions took a while to understand and seep in, hah. I cleaned everything and put everything back together. A few contacts are pitted due to normal use (they arc slightly and over time it makes a small depression). I figured that I'll put everything back and see if it works.

Mounted on the car

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The regulator pre cleaning.

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Taking it apart and figuring out what the hell I'm doing...

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I once again reinstalled everything and started the car. The light went off, engine purred, and I did the "I can fix anything/I'm freaking awesome" dance. Life is good. What else can I fix today? World hunger, aids, poverty? sure I can tackle anything.
I decided to tackle the Christmas tree instead with my son. We were in the garage working on the tree when I noticed a stronger smell then the usual rich exhaust smell from the car (fyi, I run it with the door open, so child services don't come knocking) of warm paint and a bit electrical. At first I thought that the fresh paint on the generator might be getting hot a smelling a bit, no big deal. One or two minute go by... I ask my son "Do you smell something?"... "Papa, maybe the car is on fire?"... :| :/ :eek: I go check it out and the generator is smoking! Shit shit shit. I run inside the car thinking I left something on. Key is out and the red light is on, wtf! I quickly undo the battery terminal (after frantically looking for a wrench), still smoking. SHIT! I pull all the leads off the regulator, which is quite hot itself. It stops. What the hell just happened! My high goes to a low and now I feel like I couldn't fix a thing to save my life. I walked away from the car for the night, screw you you dirty english asshole!

The next day, I take everything apart and found my error... When I pushed the brushes back to slide onto the commutator, I moved one too far, which resulted in the spring slipping next to it, which in turn was keeping the brush out and not onto the commutator. On top of that, the lead of the brush got semi pinched against the case. All of that shorted everything. I took everything apart, re soldered the lead, checked everytihing for melted puddles, but everything looked good.
This time I bench tested it and saw some voltage. Not great voltage but after adjusting the brushes I got a better reading. If only I had bench tested in before I would have found the issue.
I checked the regulator and everything looked ok. After reinstalling everything, I adjusted the regulator to get the proper voltage readings. It is a bit on the low side but I think that is due to the generator being worn (I think). But, knock on wood, everything is good and the car hasn't caught on fire since.
Brett Wilkie
Posts: 1825
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:42 pm
Location: Vancouver British Columbia Canada

Post by Brett Wilkie »

What a learning curve, at least you are not sweeping up ashes.
Anglia 100e modified
Prefect 100e stock
Avmaviator
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:13 pm

Post by Avmaviator »

Brett Wilkie wrote:What a learning curve, at least you are not sweeping up ashes.
Absolutely! Makes me a bir paranoid now... I hate electrical stuff.
Avmaviator
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:13 pm

Post by Avmaviator »

Red light came back on today, guess who's not happy :x
Avmaviator
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:13 pm

Post by Avmaviator »

12/10 Update. Brakes, dash, and exhaust.

Hope everybody is doing well! Got a chance to work on the car a bit, thanks to being on call for work and not getting called out :) I have been splitting my time between the car and my wine/beer/lounge room build right now (and regular family stuff too).

All the brakes were apart when I got the car as the drums were frozen in place due to its hibernation. My buddy who got the car out ended up taking all the brakes off to make it easier to move the car. Apparently that was a lot of work... All the brake pieces were in boxes, thankfully labeled and separated.

I ordered brake rebuilt kits for the fronts, new brake cylinders for the rear (too pitted), new lines all around, and a few more things. I'm still waiting on parts from England before I can everything back together.

One purchase I made a couple years ago that I totally love is my sandblasting cabinet. I moved it to my inlaws to make room in my garage plus they have a huge compressor. So I went over there with all the drums, cylinders, and a couple other parts. I spent a few hours blasting everything. I wanted to see if under the rust they were good parts, plus to make them look better. After that I dropped them off at Napa and they turned them.

The drums after blasting and turning. I forgot to take before pics

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And the front wheel cylinders blasted and ready for paint. A little pitting but they are very thick pieces.

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After painting them with caliper paint.

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All the brake pieces that I cleaned up and inspected. Overall they are pretty darn nice.

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Since I am waiting for parts to put the brakes back together, I decided to look at the inside a bit. The seats need to be freshened up but that will later. The dash looks nice, just needs cleaning. One thing that caught my attention early on was a crack in the gauge cluster. The plastic that protects the cluster has a crack right down the middle. I figured I would take it apart and put a new piece of plexiglass in there. Well, as it turns out in won't that easy as the markings are painted on that piece, sigh. So, I'm going to have to break out my painting stuff in order to replicate it.
The cluster came out easily, and was easy to take apart. I love these old panels with actual metal sheet that back the cluster and such, pretty cool. While I'm in there, I'm wondering if I should repaint the back, and if so, what color?... any suggestions?

The crack

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The whole cluster, a bit dusty but in good condition. Sorry for the out of focus pic

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I love these old clusters!

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The round thing is the "ignition on" green light lens

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And this one is the red "not charging" light

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All the lights for the cluster just slide in the back with little leads. I wonder if there is an LED replacement for some of these... could look cool plus these bulbs are dim.



The other part that I worked on a bit is the exhaust. Somebody put a cherry bomb muffler at one point, which sat awkwardly under the car. Makes it sound great though! So I took all the exhaust out and am now rebuilding everything as to have the cherry bomb sit nice and squarely under the car, and, to have a side exhaust, just in front of the left rear tire. I don't why but I really like the idea of it... I'll mock everything up and see how it looks first.
I failed to take pictures of all this... I thought I did. I'll take some and post them :)
Avmaviator
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:13 pm

Post by Avmaviator »

Another update for today as I got a bunch of time in the garage today. I fabricated the side exhaust that I mentioned in the last post...

Like I mentioned previously, somebody put a cherry bomb muffler at one point. It was set up fart can style, all tweaked under the car. It stuck out the bottom a bunch and looked horrible. It sounded very nice though. So, I decided to take everything apart and put the exhaust system back together to put that muffler straight and tucked in, and also add a side pipe. I'm not sure why I have been wanting a side pipe on this car, maybe it is because of the cobra? I'm sure it adds 10 hp easily, at least in hope :lol:

I went to the local parts store and picked up a few tubes. It took a while to figure out the right combination but I finally found something that I like. A couple hours of cutting, placing, and welding, I had a new side pipe set up :)

The old pipe. I'm keeping it just in case for the future but I would have to rework that one a bit too to make it look nice under the car.

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The cherry bomb muffler. Straight through 1.75 inches, sounds nice.

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Now, starting to fab the new section from the cherry bomb to the side turn down. I had to fab a few things to make it work. PS, I love my welder!

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i mated the 1.75 pipe with a 2" turn down section. Looks better that way.

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The new section is done.

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The muffler sits much better now

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Now, I made a new hanger using something that is familiar to you guys... ;)

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Overbuilt hanger :check: Pipe is done except for figuring the length sticking out the for the turndown. I'll do that tomorrow.

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Brett Wilkie
Posts: 1825
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:42 pm
Location: Vancouver British Columbia Canada

Post by Brett Wilkie »

It's nice to have a welder and other assorted tools handy, makes life easier.
Anglia 100e modified
Prefect 100e stock
Avmaviator
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:13 pm

Post by Avmaviator »

Brett, I have done soooo many projects with my welder, so valuable!

The pipe is all painted and reinstalled. There is only one hanger left to build at the junction of the header and cherry bomb. I thought I could get away without it but it does move a good amount when I tested it out tonight. Speaking of which, below is a video/sound bite of the exhaust. Of course it doesn't sound quite the same as IRL but you get the idea. There is a pretty good stumble right off idle which I believe is coming from the accelrator pump, gotta fix that.

https://youtu.be/vwl40XFvpLE

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Avmaviator
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:13 pm

Post by Avmaviator »

Lots to update. I have been waiting on a bunch of parts, and with the cold weather I have been working on inside projects a bit more. I'll try to report on all the things I have done recently, starting with projects that I have finished or am almost there.

Fuel tank is done and reinstalled in the car.

I coated the inside with a sealer, and the outside with undercoating.

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Steering wheel restoration. The steering wheel had some pretty good cracks near the hub, due to shrinkage with age. There were some cracks where the spokes meet with the wheel too. To fix that, I use a dremel to enlarge and clean the cracks. I bought some Quickstep metal epoxy putty. After you fill in the cracks with the putty and do a basic shaping, you just sand it to match the adjoining surface. On the wheel, you can't even tell where the cracks were, pretty cool. It is a pretty easy but a bit time consuming project. I then painted the wheel, wet sanded it, then clear coated it, well, at least I try. The clear coat reacted with something on the wheel and it got all jacked up. So frustrating! So now I have to sand it back down to the plastic and redo the painting process.

Cracks in the wheel

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Cracks filled in, not yet sanded

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I'll have more pictures of the wheel when it is complete.


Gauge cluster restoration. In previous posts you can see the gauge cluster when I took it out. The "glass" (plastic) was cracked in two and some of the paint was faded. Here is what it looked like.

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I very luckily found a replacement plexiglass for the cluster! (more on that later). The replacement plastic was a bit rough, with scratches and some rust on it, transferred from the metal housing it touches. After a bunch of sanding and polishing I got the plastic to look pretty good! For some reason, the lettering for TEMP has some very minor cracks, but inside the piece, very weird.

Plastic when I got it.

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I polished it then taped it off to paint the white borders.

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Old vs restored one.

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I also spent some time on the background and face of the gauges. I refreshed the red portions of the TEMP and FUEL part.

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Then I painted the main background of the gauge. The closest color match I found was a bit darker than the original but I think it looks fine like that.

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And I put everything back together (also cleaned up the chrome piece that goes in front of the gauge, and continues on either side of the dash)

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The horn ring needed some attention too, heck, everything needs attention after all that time.

It was dirty and a bit pitted but still in good shape. I popped the emblem off.

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The emblem was flaking so I decided to redo it too. I have to look it up but this emblem has a gold center. All the Zephyr models I have seen, especially over seas, have a red center on the emblem. The emblem on the grille has a gold center too. I wonder if that was for the left hand drive, US cars.... In any case, I wanted to give it a red center. I started by carefully removing the paint in the center and polishing the plastic base.

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Then, I painted the back with some red paint. I was looking for metallic paint but just settled for this more flat red as I had a can open at home.

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After polishing the face with some PlasticX, I reinstalled the emblem in the horn ring, which I also spent some time polishing. Turned out pretty nice I think.

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Next post, probably tomorrow, will be on the brakes and some parts update.

Thanks guys!
Brett Wilkie
Posts: 1825
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:42 pm
Location: Vancouver British Columbia Canada

Post by Brett Wilkie »

The cluster and steering wheel turned out well but I noticed something that may be just a casting line on one of your brake drums. It might be worth looking at closely though as it looks like a radial crack in the picture???? Hopefully it's nothing.
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Anglia 100e modified
Prefect 100e stock
Avmaviator
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:13 pm

Post by Avmaviator »

Hey Brett.

Good eyes. After blasting the drums I noticed that. Upon further inspection with a small chisel it turned out to be extra material from the original casting. The drums are in good shape :)
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