Somewhere over the Rainbow.

[MisteR Tee]

Yes, we will be getting g those from you Mo, probably arrange to collect at supernats.

Sent from my SM-A326B using NSRA mobile app

Ok, make sure you contact me beforehand to make sure I have them & remember to bring them, you know what us oldies are like!

[Blackpopracing]

Back from the 'Hot Rods & hills' long weekend, which was most excellent with good friends for company. Lots of laughs and a good few beers were had, as well as a lot of driving.
Overall we did somewhere around 850 miles over the 4 days and the Pop returned 23mpg on the journeys which I am very happy with.

Quite a few photos of some of the cars (and quite a lot of mine, lol).









































And this is what happens on a modern car when you have drive by wire brakes. You hit the brake pedal and the computer says no - so no brakes on a 1 in 3 bendy downhill pass. Driver drove into the bank to slow it down, but this flipped it and it rolled 3 times before hanging over the edge of the road. It does not look like it in the photo but that bit of road was almost 45 degrees! It's the top of the Hardknock pass. Driver and his wife were ok, if a little shaken.




Top of the Hartside pass - Cafe is now knocked down and not even a Tea shack?


















My pop behaved faultlessly all the way.

So, back home now and back on to Phils car.

We bled the brakes tonight, one small leak where the rear T junction needed a bit of nipping tighter but then all was good. Another job ticked off the list No photos of that as nothing to photo.

Phil had got the new correct sized reducer for the top hose, so that is now fitted;



And I've started mopping a bit more of the paint as I'm away for 3 weeks from this weekend so it's not worth starting a new task on the car. This is just the first stage of polish on the rear passenger quarter but it's already coming up rather well.



988.5 hours.

[Blackpopracing]

So, back to progress. Tonight after helping Mrs Blackpop strim her allotment - I say help - I mean I strimmed it all it was back to polishing Phils car.

All of the polishing is first stage polish only with the fast cut, there are two more polishing stages and a glaze to follow.

Passenger side of roof was polished first;



Then it was on to the drivers side. When polishing anywhere that has an edge near it then it's a good idea to mask up the edges (gutter masked here) so you don't accidentally burn through the paint. The sharp edges can be either very carefully mopped after or if delicate then hand polished.




The whole roof is now done;





Drivers A pillar polished as are both inner wings, loosely bolted back on here;






990.5 hours.

[v8pop]

Looking good for a first stage Mark.

Cheers Tim W

Sent from my G3121 using NSRA mobile app

[SimonG]

It is great to see the Falcon Coupe on your trip and they look phat in the back at the best of times but compared to your local cars it must be huge.

Paintwork look very impressive

[MisteR Tee]

That event certainly lived up to its name, lots of hot rods & lots of hills!

[Blackpopracing]

Thanks chaps, Simon, there were some very big panel wagons there that made the Falcon look small!
It's a cracking weekend Mo, far better than static shows.

A small job I'd been meaning to getting around to is the rear window surround. This is a replica part and like most replica parts it does not quite fit correctly. The issue being it's a little short on height for the frame so the screws go into fresh air rather than the window frame.



So I made up some little steel tabs that are rivitted on for the screws to fit into.



It now screws up tight. I'll need to check the glass/rubber interface with them to make sure they are nowhere near the glass when fitted - shorter screws will be got for final fitting.




Then it was back to mopping the paint, rear wing is nice & shiny;



The whole car in now mopped to the first stage - it looks so good it could pass for finished actually, but it will be even better once all the stages are done.




And a little play with some traffic film remover has taken off all of the brown oils from the tyre surface and brings out the white lettering. The wheels will come off for a full treatment and pressure wash to bring the entire tyre back to full black at a later date.




993 Hours.

[Blackpopracing]

So, did you all miss me?

Back from Kefalonia where we spent a rather nice 2 1/2 weeks in glorious sunshine and I drank lots of beer - yum!

I did see some cool cars that were still there (went there 3 years ago) A Mk1 Escort, a Mk(3?) Taunus and a cool old Merc that I would love to Hot Rod. I'll post a photo tomorrow from my phone. All 3 are abandoned(?) at a car rental dealership.

Back to Phils car - I have only 4 weeks to get it roadworthy for the NSRA Supernats - yikes!! I'll have to focus hard and we will have to decide on what not to finish as we will not get it all done in that time.

Tonights work was fitting the wiper system back in, I had sourced new spindle shaft rubbers so they were sanded back to fit the body profile so it could go in. The washer jets are also fitted.






Then it was back on to the wiring, I've drawn up some of the circuits so I can now start to assemble the wiring and start to run some of the cables.



996 hours.

[Blackpopracing]

This is the abandoned(?) Merc. It was there 3 years ago when we visited and its not moved at all. Its been restored in the past as it's got a nice cream interior in good condition. Bodywork looks perfect too.

[v8pop]

Glad you had a good time Mark, lots to do in 4 weeks as you say.
Merc looks very interesting, would make a cool ride.

Cheers Tim W

Sent from my G3121 using NSRA mobile app

[pop-up]

Yes Mark we've missed you, my daily pop fix before I head off to work in the morning, keep up the good work cheers john

[Blackpopracing]

Thanks chaps.

Tonight was a bit of a non progress night

Phil came over with a box of bits ready for refitting. We started with the inner screen surround, this is temporarily fitted so we can drill the dashboard top for the bottom surround (many Pops don't have this but Phil has one) and we will line up the trim with the top surround. I'll need to bring home some 6mm mdf to put in the window rubber to make sure we don't fit the trim too tight to the rubber.

Next we did a tiny bit of wiring - 2 wires to be exact! Then I tested the wipers to make sure they were parking correctly with an arm fitted (away from the body) but it turned out they were sweeping the wrong way for the arms.

Hmmmm.......OK, spin the wheel boxes 180 degress & that should sort it. Except that made the motor not fit its mount anymore. So, dissassembled it all and tried the wheelboxes the other way up - but they don't fit. The new steel the previous rodshop fitted for the dash mounting fouls them. I guess with the wipers out he just did not realise there might be a space issue.

A bit of massaging and grinding of wheelboxes later and they 'just' fitted. The motor could be bodged a bit by fitting a 13mm spacer under the mount but then we found the drive tube between the arms needed to go through the steel dashboard braces......bu55er!

So the whole lot came out again and got reassembled back to how it was - the simple answer is new wiper arms with the opposite 'hand' bend in them. Luckily the wiper spindles are equal amounts both sides of the screen so it won't cause any problems with wipers fouling the screen edges etc. It also makes the sweep the correct way as modern cars so overall not a disaster, just an additional expense for new arms.

998.5 hours.

[Happydaze]

Is there going to be something special or interesting, like a nice cake and fizz, when the clicker reaches 1000, in an hour and a half? Commemorative t shirts maybe, party hats, dancing girls?

Chris


Sent from my SM-T515 using NSRA mobile app

[Blackpopracing]

Yep, topless go-go dancers in the garage for the night

[Fegsta]

Would that be you and Phil doing the dancing then. Blimy Charlie. I’d go for the cake and fizz.


Sent from my iPhone using NSRA mobile app

[Blackpopracing]

I was reminded on another forum that on some newer motors the park ramp can be swapped in the motor 180 degrees to reverse the sweep, I had forgotten that was an option (older ones can be drifted down the shaft & rotated if I remember correctly as well).


Well, excellent news tonight, I pulled the wipers out again(!) and removed the drive wheel - and it is indeed the new type with the swappable ramp, so it was a simple job of moving that over & reassembling it and then refitting.


Sorted


Spent a little time on working out connector plug positions and terminating some of the wires ready for installing into the multi connectors. 50% of the rear loom is now terminated to connect up at the front.


1000 hours.

[Fegsta]

Glad that worked out for you with not to much hassle. Party on.


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[Blackpopracing]

Woooo it's hot!

A sultry 29 degrees C in the garage today and yesterday. Both ends were open so it was not too sweaty but its still very warm.
Plodding on with the wiring, 90% of wiring is the theory and working out wiring runs, the actual termination of the wires is the quick bit.

Still looks a mess here but most of the runs are roughly in place, I can start to tidy it all soon once I know exactly the run & position of each wire.



Much of the time is drawing out wiring diagrams for future use and also to plan all the wires before building it in real life.



Yesterday I made up a bracket for the screenwash pump;



This was bonded to the inside of the dashboard with PU adhesive.



Today Phil came over with the exhaust and one of the rear wings (which is not polished yet) so we fitted it to the car as Phil was keen to see how it looked with the narrowed axle. I did a 30 second bit of mopping on the rear edge to see how it looked against the polished body.



Phil is very happy with how it all fits - body is still a bit high as no weight is in it yet. Of course it needed a back light added for looks



The seat frames got done in satin black as well, another job ticked off.



The exhaust manifold got painted in satin black high temp paint too.



Nearly all of the wiring runs are now in, only the stereo wiring and the handbrake warning wires left to run.

1010 hours.

[v8pop]

Looking good Mark, you've made the 1000 hours then

Cheers Tim W

Sent from my G3121 using NSRA mobile app

[Blackpopracing]

Yes Tim, I reckon another couple of hundred to finish.