Time to do some repairs

[Moes]

Hi

Almost 14 year ago I bought my Bagheera, back then it was in very bad shape, and it was my first restoration project (and on a study-budget).

I have over the year made a lot of work on the car, but I have never had the engine out, always working my way around it. The gearbox has always been bad, and it has lately been bothering me. So recently I bought another gearbox (in unknown condition), I had it opened, and the gears and synchromesh rings was clearly in better shape than on my old gearbox. I switched the gearbox and tried it out; I was very different than the old one, but unfortunately it was "singing" in 4. gear; bad bearing.
I also found out that my left rear wheel bearing was going bad, while changing gearbox..

Therefore I desided to pull the car of the road, and get all of those worn out parts changes, and do some "2.0 restoration".

My 2.0 restoration to do list is getting longer every time I look at the car:

 - New rear wheel bearings and seal kits (both sides)
 - New seals on the differential
 - Rebuild all brake calibers
 - "New" clutch (I have a spare engine with what seems to be a almost new clutch)
 - New clutch bearing
 - Make new gas tank straps (like the originals)
 - Sand down the engine bay, prime it and coat it
 - Repair bad welds at the rear half of the car (the front must wait until restoration 3.0) there is a lot of old very badly made sheet metal work/velds on the car  
 - Get all the loose metal parts sand blasted and powder coated
 - Rebuild a gearbox; I have bought a set of new synchromesh-rings, and the gear from the newly bought gearbox should do the job.
 - Get the gearbox and differential cleaned, primed and coated (or cleaned and treated with a thin coat of Alodine)
 - Replace the center engine mount
 - Clean the engine block and give it a new coat
 - Change the oil pan seal
 - Clean and paint the starter motor    

I startet out the work this weekend, and got the engine out (and the garage floor cleaned after some coolant spill) :-)  

I have attached some pictures from back when I was younger, more optimistic, and the car had just been brought home  

 - Frederik  

[Moes]

Some pictures from this weekend 

[Moes]

While removing the rear suspension, I realized that something was missing 

The cast iron piece locking the torsion bars, was not "locked" at the front end, but when realizing it, I remembered that I had seen some part with rubber laying in one of my boxes with old parts. And thankfully they were the right parts 
   
- Frederik

[Anders Dinsen]

Nice to see you're on to 2.0 - the 1.0 job you did with your car was impressive! I'm sure 2.0 will be good. She deserves the TLC she is receiving now

I like your garage - it's much larger and neater than mine I'll have to come over to see your place soon. Thanks for posting the pictures!

/Anders

[Moes]

Hi Anders

Please stop by some day  

My next step is removing the gas tank, then the engine compartment should be ready for inspection.  

If I am lucky there won’t be any welding/sheet metal work needed in the engine compartment, and i will then have to remove rust and loose paint; do I need to remove all the old paint?? It seems that a former owner have been using a bad quality paint, which is flaking off, so that might answer my question, but on the other hand, if some of the original paint is having a good bond to the chassis, then I don’t suppose that I need to spend a lot of time removing it?

I am planning to coat the engine compartment with 2-3 layers of 2-component epoxy primer, which I have always had very good experience with (the closes thing to the holy grail of primers); it bonds to metal like nothing else I have tried, it's strong, durable, does not crack or flake, and the one I am using is fluid/chemical resistant  

My question is, what top coat should I use?
The top-coat is going to be black, and not treated with any underbody sealants; I only drive it in sunny weather    

I was looking at Carbuilder.com, and they have a product called POR 15 (Paint On Rust)..  but after reading and watching some reviews online, it does not seems to be the wonder paint, which the manufacturer advertise it to be. Apparently it becomes very hard, too hard, and when used on sheet metal on cars, it starts to crack and tear of, because of movement and vibration. It might be good on old american frame chassis... But I have not tried it myself.

I have in the past used Hammerite 1-component top coat, this one is easy to use, specially the one with hammer-"effect/look" the smooth one is a bit harder to get a good looking result with. But now after some years I see the result of using Hammerite as top coat; It is not very chemical resistant, the places where oil or bearing grease have been in contact with Hammerite coated surfaces, the paint seems to go soft   And Hammerite in general does not have a very good bond to epoxy primed surfaces. And it Hammerite easily chips of if struck lightly doing any work on the car. Well, that’s is my experience.

I would like a top coat I can brush on, because it is just much easier of me to handle in my garage ( I am also applying the primer with a brush, which takes.. time).

Maybe it would be the right thing to use an 2-component acrylic auto-body coat, but I am not sure I can get a hold of that, they all seem to be water based these days, and in need of heat to harden, or am I wrong?  And I an not sure that I can use a brush with that kind of paint..  

So, does any of you have any good experiences with a specific product I can use as top-coat, any suggestions?

Best regards Frederik  

[Anders Dinsen]

Hi Anders

Please stop by some day 

I will!

About your paint questions. I'm in no way an expert, but could ask my neighbor who runs a car paint shop what he would do... but I have a feeling he would recommend acrylic paint as he said that to me earlier when I asked him about topcoating the zinga I'm using on my Murena as a "primer". I'll ask him about the hardening/curing process. I would guess you would be all right by just letting it cure for longer, though.

I would spray it on from a can - for an engine room, a few imperfections are almost expected, it *is* a 70's car after all

[Moes]

Hi Anders

Thank you, please ask you neighbor about the curing process when you run into him  

I don't have high expectation to the finish of the surface in the engine compartment, I really just want it to be black, and not sticky  

Yesterday I removed the rear wheel bearings from the trailing arms. I heated the area around the bearings with a small blow torch, not that much actually, probably just up to 70-80 degrees celsius. And then they where fairly easy to push out.

I have also received new parts from France:

 - New rear wheel bearings with inner and outer seals  
 - Seals for the differential
 - Other gaskets
 - Hub nuts
 - Center engine mount
 - Brake caliber repair kits (alle four)
 - New drivers side armrest
 
Today I am going to the DIY handyman shop Biltema, to buy all of there cleaning/sanding discs and brushes  

While removing some loose paint, I saw a little black spot on the "main rear bridge" (which is being used as a vacuum tank), the spot seems to be a tiny rust hole, I have marked with red on the picture, but it is hard to see. But this explains why it does not keep its vacuum for very long after shutting the engine off.

I also found several tears in the metal sheets making the engine compartment air ducts under the boot, they don't seem that rusty, so I am guessing its because of vibrations    

Best regards Frederik

[Moes]

I have also been removing the gas tank, and taking some "before" pictures

I also found a nasty scratch in the gas-tank towards the engine     I am not sure what to about that. The rest of the tank is in incredible good condition after 45 year, it does not feel brittle, they really did know how to make gas-tanks out af good plastic!  

At some point someone in the past had a hard time fitting the trailing arms, and then they choose to drill some new bolt holes, for then to realize that the new hole was not the way to go..  after that they spot welded some washers onto the original holes, so that the new holes were blocked    = more work for me..

I have also been thinking about the weird welding repair on the air duct which is not that rusty in other places.The position of the repair is at the exhaust manifold, so I am guessing that the heat from the manifold have destroyed the paint on the air duct and it rusted.. As you can see the repair has also rusted.

[Moes]

Yesterday I received a new 190 mm clutch and it seems the be the right one 

Now I am thinking that I probably should change the oil seals on the crank shaft now when I got the engine out and most of it taken apart anyway.. So I got to order those.

Back when I bought the car I did a compression test on the cylinders, and back then I found that one of the cylinders did not reach the same pressure as the other three, which was very close to each other.  Then I had the cylinder head refurbished. But I do not recall if I did the test again afterwards    So before I do to much work on it I will do a new compression test.  I am thinking that if I have a bad/worn down piston/piston rings, then I will have to deal with it, and get the engine overhauled. As a second option, I have found a couple of 6J-engines at a scrap yard (the 1592 ccm, from a Talbot). It seems to be the same engine block with a bigger cylinder bore. I guess that it is the same engine block as on a Murena 1,6, but probably a different camshaft and intake side.           

[Anders Dinsen]

Looks like you're making very good progress! That clutch looks nice. Replacing oil seals sounds like a splendid idea now you have direct access

/Anders

[Moes]

Today I got started on refurbishing the rear brake calipers.

The two main parts were corroded together, and the thickness of the corrosion itself were putting a lot of pressure on the cylinder.

I made a metal wedge to try to relieve some of the pressure between the parts; that combined with heat from a small blow torch worked very well. Note that there are a small spring loaded pin which needs to be pushed in while the two parts are slided apart (hammered)   .

On one of my calipers there seems to be one of there spring loaded pin on each side, and om the other there are only one. But on the one with two, it looks like a piece of the aluminium around one of the pins a damaged, but it is hard to see with all the paint an dirt on top.

I have two spare calipers, and the piston in one of those a completely stuck, after todays work i guess that the piston in my spare caliper is stuck due to the pressure from the buildup of corrosion, which might push the cylinder out of shape and locking the pisten.  

I am looking forward to having to brake calipers in good condition, and with a fresh coat of paint. It looks like one of them has been gold-colored in the past.

I was actually a bit surprised after cleaning the inside of the caliper and fitting the piston with the new seal, how well the piston moved afterwards, compared to before I took the caliper apart and cleaned the cylinder. I am looking very much forward to trying out the brakes after I have been refurbishing all four brake calipers, and to feel if it has made a difference to the overall brake performance    

I wish you all a happy Matra Simca Talbot Christmas        

[Anders Dinsen]

That's looking really, really good! Nice pictures This caliper doesn't look too bad at all. Looks like you have been reading Roy's guide very carefully - these calipers are surprisingly complicated. The corrosion between the frame and the housing is common. http://www.matraclub.org.uk/pdf/Brakes.pdf

I wish you all a happy Matra Simca Talbot Christmas        

Thank you - and the same to you, Frederik!

[Moes]

Hi

No, I had not seen Roy's guide; but wow that is great! I struggled the most figuring out that the two main pieces was locked with a spring loaded pin; at first I through it was a "pipe-pin", which would be very tough to get out/drill out. But my dad was a car mechanic in the 70´s, and he gave me the clue, that it might was a spring loaded pin.

From reading Roy´s guide, I have noticed that there should be an anti-rattle spring, which I do not have; and I have been having brake pad rattle (which might was partly because of a bad rear wheel bearing..), but that spring would definitely help!

The wedge I made was not very good, it only worked two times, then I was to worn to be used for a third time, and I had to reshape it.. It was quickly made with an angle grinder.

The second brake caliper was not in as good shape as the first one, and I had to find one of my spare ones, and give it the same treatment, but now I have two, which is ready to get the old paint and rust removed, before primer, a nice red top coat, and the final assembly.

Today I have been working on the engine. And I have found what seems to be a production error/production sloppiness. The aluminium piece holding the oil seal behind the flywheel was not aligned with the crankshaft, it was forced in place, and was app. 1,5 mm out of alignment, which meant that the oil seal was quite a lot more compressed at the bottom, than on the top (ses the second picture). I have been comparing with the assembly on a spare engine I have, and on that one it was a much better fit. It seems that the aluminum piece can not be placed correctly at the moment, I think I have to carefully remove some material from the bottom of the aluminium piece, so that it will align better with the crankshaft, the bolt holes in the panel are much larger than the bolts, so I will not have any problems with adjusting the alignment, after a litter reshaping. It is also evident that the aluminium piece have been forced in place, one of the guides that should keep the piece aligned with the crankshaft is a bit damaged, and inside the hole in the aluminium piece, material has been scraped into a collar.  

I have ordered a complete gasket and oil seal set for the crank case, and I am going to replace all of those gaskets and oil seals.

I have run in to something that is troubling me    The timing chain seem a little loose, but I have no idea if it is all right, or if it is to loose  
The timing chain is less loose on my spare engine, but that engine has not been running for 20 years, and old hardened oil in the chain might be fooling me, to think that the chain on my other engine is to worn; so I have called in my dad to check it out  

I did the compression test on the cylinders, and the result was good, but I am still not sure about the overall condition of the engine. And if the timing chain is worn, is the camshaft and the rest of the engine then also worn    I do not want to do all this work, to find out in a couple of years that the engine should have been overhauled; but on the other hand, if it does not need to be overhauled, then there is no reason to do it, but I do not know how to make that call  

So for now I will focus on getting the chassis and engine compartment ready, until I have figured out what needs to be done with the engine.

[Anders Dinsen]

Hi Frederik, you're a lucky man having your dad around to give you some advice from the period
Well done renovating that caliper without the guide!

it's interesting that the engine has been running for all those years with the aluminum cover wrongly attached Someone in a factory in France gave it a good beating instead of fitting it carefully.... and it worked. Well, why not? 

Someone else will have to give you advice on the tension of the timing chain. I would not worry too much if the chain is in good shape. These chains to tend to extend over time but since it's short, I wouldn't be too worried. I don't know if these cams can be ground to better specs, but I do know that tuning cams are available, which would suit the car, I guess, so why not take the old one out and inspect it? And if new chains can be found, then you might want to replace that? Overall, though, it sounds like you have a healthy engine there I'm looking forward to hearing what your dad's verdict will be!

Happy new year!

/Anders

[Moes]

Hi Anders

My originally through was to keep the engine as it was, and "only" change clutch and repair the gearbox, and do what was necessary; but things seems to change as i go And the to do list is getting longer..

Changing the camshaft to a more sporty one does sound a bit intriguing    And I guess it can be done without stripping the crank case completely, even though there is not much left on it as it is..

I can see that Politecnic has a custom crankshaft: Maxi Gr.2" raised 7.60 mm (260 ° ad. X 296 ° Ech.)  And it would se me back app. 600 euro (with new pushers and shipping). I know very little about camshafts, but i guess that the one from Politecnic is more aggressiv that a standard, and have a higher rais. But I do not know how to tell if it is a good "allround" sporty cam, or a race cam  I would like one that allows a little more kick, but without being to extreme.

Do you, Anders, or any of you know any other (that Politecnic) who deals with sporty Bagheera camshafts?  Or is Politecnic just the right place for such a camshaft?   

Best regrads Frederik    And happy new year!