Weekend 21-05-2011

This weekend's work was focussing mainly on the bolts that hold the chassis to the bodywork. My recent trip to the Stoneleigh Classics show had allowed me to purchase a shiny new Impact screwdriver with which to remove some of the stubborn little bolts that didn't want to leave the bodywork in a hurry!

My new favourite tool!

The first order of the day (and possible the easiest) was to remove the side trim panels that run under the doors between the wheel arches. The impact driver was used on all these bolts as they were rusted so a couple of hits with a rubber mallet (ensuring no damage was done to the driver or the bodywork) and these would each be free.

One of the first of three under rail bolts being removed.

There were three bolts on the underneath of the rail, again using the rubber mallet I was able to remove these with relative ease using the driver.

The rear most bolt on the trim panel

After the three bolts on the underside were removed, the trim panel basically comes away from the body work revealing a further set of body/chassis screws going in from the side into the chassis. these were quite rusty too where the water has got in from underneath.

Removal  of the trim panel. When I re-assmeble, I am replacing this panel with a nice stainless steel one to tie in with the chrome elements of the exterior.

Trim panel removed note the rusty chassis bolts here. careful work with the impact driver required.

I set about removing the rusty bolts in turn, ensuring that the driver wasn't hit too hard to avoid bending/damaging the bodywork.

Again use of the rubber mallet allowed a great deal more control and 'restraint' while effecting this operation.

Eventually all these bolts were removed and I worked my way down the otherside of the car. these were fairly difficult as I don't have as much room on the other side of the car.

Almost removed Passenger side Trim panel (front wheel to the left of the picture).

All these bolts were removed from the passenger side also, so set about removing some troublesome bolts in the cabin area. mainly three bolts in the drivers footwell, and all four from the passengers side of the car.

Passenger footwell right hand side Base chassis bolt.

These footwell bolts were rather tricky to undo as it required a bit of flexibility from myself in terms of getting myself into positions to get at them! I was able to go in from the top of the passenger footwell, the drivers side was a little more difficult.

I went on to removing a couple of in dashboard bolts (only managed one as the steering wheel side one meant I couldnt get the hammer and impact driver in to do this.

Chassis bolt next to heater inlet/outlet

Suspension mounts for the rear wheels.

After I had removed these chassis bolts I went on to remove the Rear suspension mounts that hold the rear suspension setup in place. these bolts were quite hard to remove that heads aren't particularly large so it was rather easy for the spanners to fall off the bolts.

Suspension mounts from within the wheel arch. (passenger side)

A bit of WD40 was needed to loosen the bolts up so that I could start turning them, again the exposed chassis rails loooked good in these exposed areas. I was able to lodge a spanner in the wheel arch to grip the bolts as it would have taken something extraordinary for me to bend myself into a position to hold the spanner and turn!!

Passenger side suspension retaining bolts removed.

At this point the retaining bolts have been removed from the passenger side, and one of the bolts (top most bolt) have been removed from the drivers side. I had a great degree of difficulty trying to remove the bottom bolt as this was hard to get a spanner onto and wouldn't move, help required on this one. There are also two bolts in the rectangular area (visible here) that I cant get to as they are a way forward that I cant stretch to, to get any purchase on the impact driver. once these are out all bolts holding the rear of the body work to the chassis will have been removed.

Car as it is at the moment (Slowly but surely this body is getting closer to removal!)

Well I thought I'd finish on a high at this point so I will upload a bit more next time I'm over to work on the car.

Gazza.

Weekend 29-04-2011

Hello! More work accomplished this weekend as I managed to grab some assistance from my dad and set to it without delay! Main camera was dead yet again! stupid forgetful memory!

First off was to prepare the body work and engine bay for body removal as there are a number of irritating things that need to be removed from the car to effect the 'body off'.
We started by fiddling with the electrics, the main wiring loom was still in the car and had really to come out of the car, (Dad inspected the lengths of cable and found that a lot of it has melted the outer flex on the runs of wire, so Its possible that a few metres of new wire will be needed (Dad doesnt know this yet but I want him to help quite a lot on this!)

We made sure that all items were disconnected, eg. old bulbs, switches etc. before carefully feeding this through the hole for the junction box on the bulkhead. (Please see below)

Disconnected cables from the engine bay have allowed us to take this run from the front end and pull through.

Once we had carefully removed this, (I'm not looking forward to having to put this beast back in again!) It was great to see it all laid out for inspection. (See also below)

The business end of my electrics! there are loads of lengths we need to look at as a few of the runs have melted flex, this calls for an 'unwind' of all the unsulation for further detailed inspection before we decide how many runs need to be replaced completely.the power to the drivers and passnger door mirrors could do with replacement due to earlier damage.

Other dash board bits to remove here include the heating unit that is connected  with a jubilee clip at the neck of the hose that feeds under the dash and back up to the bay. I loosened this off and dad pulled the hosing through.

Heater unit, just visibly the jubilee clip just underneath it (below the white label).

By now we were making real progress and carried on, there was a deadline to reach as with the Royal wedding that day, (Thanks to Wills and Kate for an extra day off!) we all had to be places so next we tackled the rather tricky windscreen wiper assembly that is quite nicely buried in an awkward position and has to be unscrewed in lots of hard to reach places! I had started a few months ago to take bits off here but couldnt quite complete the job (Dad had this done in under 5 minutes!!!)  certainly pays to have someone around who's done it before!!

Dad has removed the motor unit (Passenger side) and has unscrewed the little bolts on the reverse of the unit to gain access to the  'coil' type fixture inside, that pulls the wiper arms back and forth. 

Motor unit removed: note the darker rectangular bracketted area where the unit used to bolt to.

Once this item was removed, we were able to feed the piping and the arms out through the holes in the dash board. By this time, there is now nothing in the dashboard!! (I will get a better picture on here of the whole thing shown empty when there isnt so much activity in the shed!)

Next items that were quite a pain but a necessity to remove was the Door hinges, I hadnt taken these off with the doors and now I realise why! The bottom bolts on both sides had rusted so badly, that we had to spray them to death with WD40! (smells good though!) We got all but the one bolt out cleanly, the bottom passenger side bolt broke under the stress as it had rusted so badly so part of it is in the door still this will need to be pulled out with some sort of tool.

Drivers side door hinge removed

Removal of top bolts for the passenger side door hinges. note the generous application of WD40!

Hinge removed, (Note the very bottom one has sheared)

Above are of the passenger and drivers side door Hinge removals, (Note the Blue steel support bars bolted to the chassis that run up through the windscreen frames, apparently it will be good to keep these as it will add strength and rigidity to the screen which by itself is not particularly strong.

Next task was the handbrake, this is bolted on the body tub inside with all the cables connected outside and will also cause a problem when getting the body off, so we removed this dad went under the car to do this and while disconnecting, I heard a gasp! I may have mentioned earlier that I would change my gearbox to a Sierra type 9 (2.8 upwards) Gearbox with 5 speed. My dad has convinced me that I should stick to this one as it is immaculate he was vey surprised when He looked at it, it looks original, looks clean, and has everything in tact. so all I need to do is find a Triumph Gear knob with overdrive switch and I can then use this gear box. both the engine and gearbox will have covered the same amount of mileage (8168miles ) or thereabouts. sounds hilarious I know! I know that a lot of V6 Marcos owners opt for the 5 speed type 9 or MT75 units for their cars so keeping a huge part of this original will be rare and great to see. (See pictures)

Handbrake removed.

My Gearbox (from an earlier post) Dad wasn't wrong!

Well, that is all for now, also interesting to find that I have either a Cortina or Escort rear axle!! as the gubbins are fitted from the front rather than on the back of the unit! I need to source a 'wide configuration' 3.09 axle if possible?

Gazza

Weekend 22-04-2011

After another Month away from the strip down I returned to remove the bolt on covers for Battery tray and the surrounding units for the Adjustable Pedal assembly box.
I mentioned in my previous update that the bolts connecting the cylinders to the clutch and brake lines were totally shot and this meant that I couldn't remove them with spanners because they had seized. I took drastic action with the hose lines by cutting them (Don't worry, I will be changing the whole system as a modification on safety grounds!!).

Below are some more pictures of what I have accomplished:

As it is at the moment, (I had removed the rivets and screws when I took care of the fuel pump that was anchored to this panel)

Gentle persuasion!! (I mean gentle!) by careful levering of this plastic section lifted it off the chassis rails and clear of the bay.

The cover removed exposing the floor of the footwell. you would see my feet if I had been sat in here at the time.

This was the easy part, so feeling confident I moved to the otherside. now the pedal box is the first part I intend to modify quite considerably. After the failure of the brakes on my dad's V6 returning from Stoneleigh Car show in 2010 (where a brake cable line got cut by the rim of the new alloy wheels) I have decided to use a double brake master cylinder setup so that if any of the front or rear brake hoses got cut, I can still stop in addition to having to use the handbrake.
As I have explained above, the bolts are rusted and have decided to press on and just cut the hoses connected to the aforementioned rusty bolts! Thankfully, I was prepared for a splash back of residual fluid from the system, so safety goggles were worn!

Where the pedal box would have sat before the hoses were cut. (Note: rusted bolts toward the bottom left of the image)

There is still a fair bit of fluid left in the system, as expected, so care is advised when dealing with it as these chemicals are corrosive (I found out) as I managed to have some of the bulkhead paint start to transfer onto my palms!

Looking more sparse in there everytime I turn up now!

As the Covers were now removed from the bay, I could now get access to the chassis screws that are located in the bulkead between footwells and the engine bay. I managed to remove two as the rest are also (surprise surprise) rusted solid! On good advice from a fellow V6 restorer, I can remove these with an impact driver this I will try on friday 29th when I hit this again.

Chassis screws are the round washered screws present in three places (this is the same on the other footwell) I have removed the fourth in both instances. The daylight is where the clutch,brake, and accelerator pedals would previously have come through.

So, that concluded what I managed to remove for this weekend. I have another session planned for April 29th, given the extra Bank holiday, I can make progress on the final set of irritatingly stubborn parts that refuse to move and I should have some assistance on this too. who knows...I may be able to think about getting the body off at the next stage!!

Until next time!

Weekend 13-03-2011

After a long absence from the shed, I have gone back in to try to solve a couple of the niggles that will prevent me from taking the body off in the near future.
First off, I looked into the cabling that runs to the door (when closed this cable run connects a push switch that turns the interior 'door' light off) I managed to remove the cabling on both sides here, so at least the main loom isn't connected to anything in that area now.
The next problem to tackle was why the cabling still wasn't coming out of the drivers side of the dash, I found very quickly that the main loom was looped around the pedal box adjuster stalk. Unfortunately I had forgotten to charge the main camera, so had to use my phone. see pictures below:

So with this apparent the stalk had to come out of there! The pedal box needs to be removed before the body can come off ass the pedals come down through the fibreglass into the footwell so I began by loosening the main retaining bolts keeping this unit securely fastened to the bulkhead.

Screw used to pull the pedals back and forth, looking toward to the bulkhead on the drivers side where this passes through to the console.

 
Because most of the fluids have escaped from the slave cylinders at some point or another, lots of crystalized gunk has formed on pretty much everything in this area and most of the bolts that connect cables to this box and box to the engine bay, have been obliterated by the fluids and as a result have rusted solid.
The pictures below will help to describe the process I used for taking them off, this was done by using a small spanner on one side to hold the bolts in place, while another was used to loosen the outer bolts, other wise the whole thing will spin around without any result.

Slave cylinders toward the top right of the picture are covered in corrosion and crystalised fluid

Note the two rusty bolts L&R (taken from inside the driver footwell) these had to be held in place while spanner turning was carried out on the top side.

Started to remove this clamping, but later on replaced as we had trouble finding a 'stop point' for the stalk.

At this point we managed to get the stalk out (I had enlisted my step dad to help) as it had become difficult trying to bend myself into various shapes to get to bolts but nonetheless the stalk was out and  this meant we could take out the wiring loom from the dash on the drivers side.

I've never seen it looking so tidy!!! driver's side part of the wiring loom has been pulled through the middle of the car. I am not looking forward to placing this wiring back in the car believe me!!!

The next problem visible is the Heater unit, this has a hose running to it from underneath the dash feeding up behind the engine (Making that impossible to move also!!). see piccy below.

At this point as I had managed to remove a great deal from the car, I decided to go indoors on a high! as advised. next points I wish to tackle are the removal of the heater, plus a few other pieces on the car in preparation of the 'Body-off' event.

Weekend 30/01/2011

Following the removal of the fuel tank on Saturday evening, I took some photos of the fuel tank which in the light of day looks like it could be better!!! I'm not sure whether I can continue using this one by this one repaired? I'm sure those more knowledgable on this than myself will let me know!

It does have a lot of corrosion on the edges and parts of the seam are flaking off! I have taken a number of shots from different viewpoints.

It doesn't look great, but I will make some enquiries as to whether it is still serviceable or not!

In the light of day I thought I'd grab a piccy of the car up on the stands, (I know the right hand one looks a little skew wiff but it was safe as we shook the car vigourously and nothing moved or shifted).

Here is a picture of the alcove where the fuel tank normally sits, it's quite surprising as to how small this is!

Alcove shot, note the fuel line hose to the bottom left hand corner of the shot, I disconnected this after the shot was taken and stored the hose with the rest of useful hoses I have gathered from the car.

 

Another shot above of the rear part of the car the differential, the exhaust boxes and a lot of blue chassis rails are visible here, the exhausts looking the worst parts!! I have fingers crossed about the chassis sections I can't see yet, as water ran out of the top rail where the roll bar was connected to!

At this point I turned my attention to the pedal boxes, as there were a few chassis/body retaining bolts that had to be removed (4/5 in each, 3 of which I just couldn't remove as I couldn't get my arm in far enough to get any decent purchase on the bolt, the screwdriver and electric screwdriver kept jumping out of the top of the bolt and I didn't want to ruin the head of the bolt (or the surrounding fibreglass), there are enough holes in the fibreglass to repair already!

Top right behind the accelerator pedal (above), and the three bolts along the floor in the picture (below) are the retaining bolts holding this footwell part of the body shell to the chassis. This is another area that needs to be taken out of the car before chassis removal, as It may stop me getting the body off.

 

This does look pretty nasty in here! once I can get in, I will get everything cleaned out thoroughly.

The last rear cabling loom (just before I seperated the connector plug). all the rear lights, fuel level sender, boot lid lights all wire through this loom.

That about concluded what I could do this weekend, so I locked up again for 'goodness knows how long' this time! More soon......

Weekend - 29-/01/2011

It has been over two months since I tackled the car (owing to sub zero temperatures) working in a shed that might as well be open air was not the kind of weekend I had planned for myself during this time!


There were a lot of loose ends to tie up this weekend (literally), small pieces that needed disconnecting before the chassis and body are seperated from each other.
I started with the cabling, which still had a couple of connections to remove, whilst most of the dashboard is now disconnected from the main feed, cables still run to these push connectors mounted in the door which either form a connection to the alarm system, (fitted) or the door lights?

I managed to disconnect one, but the drivers side is proving nigh on impossible to unscrew!!

Remaining cables going to the front of the car this is inside the dash unit the wiper motor assembly mainly disconnected now, is held in place purely by the jets poking through the top of the shell, and the rod running through the behind the bulkhead of the body shell.
The heater unit (just right of this image) won't budge at the moment, as a hose coming up from underneath is connected and doesn't allow much movement.

View of the Wiper rod arm, just above where the Steering rack would have gone through the fabric flange on the bottom right of the image. You should just be able to make out the hole in the back of dash unit where this rod passes through to the centre & passenger side of the dash.

Not having much joy with this unit, I took the cables and disconnected them from the rear of the car, there are now no electrical cables to the rear of the car, as I have isolated the connectors that are positioned just behind the bulkhead below the fuel tank, at this stage the fuel tank is still in, but help arrived later on in the form of my step dad to assist in jacking the car up and being there whilst I attempted the job I dreaded, of being under an otherwise low ground clearance car, with the diff and most of the rear struts and exhaust staring down at me!
The fuel tank has three bolts arranged in a triangular formation inside the boot that one person has to turn and one person (me underneath) has to offer a wrench uip to to hold the retaining bolts in place or these will just turn forever!  once undone, the L shaped plate comes out first and the fuel tank can be pulled out of its alcove under the parcel shelf.

Whilst I had the car in the air, I took the opportunity to capture the condition of the chassis and inner most workings on camera.....and boy was I surprised!!!!!

I pointed the camera forwards and caught an excellent shot of the gear box!! this looks immaculate (not sure if this item was ever removed but it is the 4 speed with overdrive unit that normally adourned Marcos V6's of this period.

Afew more shots below that show more of the Chassis and the rusty exhausts (the only items I can see apart from the diff that are rusty underneath!

Most of this surface dirt comes off to reveal a blue painted chassis, (I did get some in my eyes too unfortunately but I washed them out with water)

Another gearbox shot with the exhaust running to the left of the image (looking towards the front of the car).
By this time it was nearly 6 o'clock and pitch dark outside so after we had drained 1 red plastican petrol container-and-a-half from the fuel tank, we went inside. This car has had fuel in it for at least 12 years! so lord only knows whether it is Unleaded, LRP, or residue four star? It can't be very good fuel by now, (we'll try it in the mower and see how it does!).