Final chassis stripdown/ Engine Clean

This week I had some quality time with the car again! weather was perfect for it too. I   had one or two final things to strip from the chassis, these were the Fuel line cable, the rear Brake line hoses that run along the centre of the chassis to the front of the car, and removal of the fuel pump which was still attached to the front of the fuel line (I had run out of time for all these when I last worked on it last October/November. The Brake cabling is eventually going to be all braided hosing (Looks nice and to comply with modern safety requirements) so what is there currently can be stripped and just used as a sizing guide. (Excuse the milk carton 'Rat/Mouse Bait' container, we do have little critters running around here at times)

View of cabling running along the 'Gearbox tunnel' rails

I used some snips to cut through the cable ties these arent a problem to replace same applies for re-assembly really.

Remaining hoses at the rear and the sticky/cable ties holding these final items in place.

After all these items were taken off I was left with a completely bare chassis which now only requires a bit of cutting and re-welding on the front end, and then it is ready to be trailered away for shotblast/Galvanise/Powder coat in Gloss Black.

Focus then moves to the Engine, it is a very grubby looking beast at the moment and as this is another of those little jobs that requires only the purchase of some de-greaser I cracked on without hesitation.

Using a stiff paint brush, (With all items in place) I dabbed on the GUNK Degreasant (Pictured Below costs about £4.99 for this size of tin, there is also a spraycan version) to as many parts of the engine as possible, (Rocker covers, manifold cover, timing cover, Block etc.) SAFETY GOGGLES AND GLOVES/MASK essential Here.

You can see the grease and oil already starting to run down the front of timing cover

Above is a first picture showing the early stages of application, now as most of the outlets/inlets to the engine are covered by the manifolds carb, covers, it is fairly safe to pressure wash the engine as this will give away any areas of grease that are still in place, just apply More Gunk to the affected areas and rinse off I sprayed carefully using a Turbo Lance on a pressure washer, it sprays in an oscillating high powered action that has conveniently removed the flaky paint from the Rocker Covers and the Block itself (In Red) This will be rubbed down and re-sprayed in a High Temperature colour yet to be determined, There are further piccies below that show the progress.

Immaculate shiny Bell Housing required minimal cleaning.

Grubby Greasy Timing Cover.

Engine During GUNK application

Initial Spray Down showing a vastly more clean manifold cover and loose paint blasted off the Black Rocker covers.

The plan for the Black Rocker Covers is to have them blasted and Chromed so that I have a nice shiny engine, possible engraving on these covers with the Marcos Badge?

That was all I had time to cover this weekend, hoping for more summer visits to do some more work but really at this stage, the major work is to get the chassis prepped for treatment which is going to be exciting, whilst I also look for a new home for the Marcos in order to be closer to where I live so I can just 'pop out' to work on it as opposed to driving for an hour and a half each way.

More Soon.

Gazza

03-07-2012
Hello!
Not a great deal to report unfortunately, which is sadly due to lack of funding at  this moment in time I have pretty much stalled on the restoration, I'm doing a few small jobs that dont require a great deal of cash eg cleaning up the major parts of the Engine and cleaning down the Gear Box.
Very shortly I may start degreasing the tunnel section of the bodywork so that I can have this already for when heat resistant material is put down on the areas where heat is likely to affect the bodywork.
Weather has not been especially good either, but have gotten into my dads Garage as he has recently purchased a reserve Essex V6 unit to work on as a side project, this particular unit used to be from a Gilbern Invader and has a number of modifications that give a few additional features the layout hasnt changed much either. Im also looking to house the vehicle Closer to me shortly so that I can get access to work more easily on it and when I have some spare time to do so /evenings etc.

22-10-2011

Well! After many internet problems Im back on posting again! and this weekends work is what I have waited a whole year and a bit for....the engine removal which marks the end of the disassembly of the car. as apart from a few cables this is the last thing to come off the car before the cutting, welding  (modification of the chassis) commences before I send her away to be blasted, Galvanised, and then Powder coated a lovely shiny colour!

Mark (who helped me acquire the car in the first place) was bringing an engine down that My stepfather had bought, and at the same time we arranged to remove my engine too as the hoist was being used. Given certain changes to the way Im now having to manage this restoration, cutting out a few hiring actions will be benneficial to the budget.

Firstly, I had to secure the Gearbox with a plank to ensure that when the mountings underneath were undone, the gear box didn't drop downwards and hit the floor.

Rearward shot showing the plank i used to keep the gearbox where it was.

The first item to be tackled at the front end was the removal of the bar at the front that I had trouble with on my last visit. This didnt take long to remove.

Removal of the Rollbar.

Once this part was removed (see above) we started to loosen all the mountings to the engine. there were a few issues with the bolts, so Mark took the top of the botl out due to access being limited through the underneath to get enough ppurchase on it. Meanwhile, I had taken out the tray that the gearbox is mounted to.

Initial strapping up of the engine

At this point a couple of nice old gnarled bits of wood were great for a bit of leverage to the engine. the hoist was strapped to the engine and shortly we were able to lift this out of the bay.

We very quickly found out that the oil that could have leaked when I took the prop shaft out, that didnt, started to run out quite rapidly at this time! the elevation was bound to bring this out, the oil though was immaculate, as if it had just been put in. Im pretty sure this Engine/Gearbox may have been rebuilt at some stage, I will run some tests with it with some knowledgable bods, and see as this will not only save time, it will save me a great deal of money! The gear box being as clean as it is may indicate this to be true.

Engine out, bit of leakage but can't be helped!

 

 

From here I discussed the modifications that Im going to make to the chassis before I send it away for work, this includes tidying up and modifying the front end of the chassis, and strengthening and bracing in the rear of the chassis just under where the fuel tank sits.

bracing will be added here, from above the bump stop on the edge rails (both sides) and be run to the verticals behind the seats. fillets will be added to the base rail to one of the uprights.

There were further mods discussed, these were the filling in of the holes in the wheel arch that allow water and other stuff to get into the fuel tank area, which must be fibreglassed in as thisll make the boot wet too! and possibly rust the fuel tank.

This are is in the wheel arch this hole leads to the fuel tank area.

This is the tunnel across the top rear of the fuel tan k that water could currently get into these curved tops need to be filled.

Well, this was a good hour and a bits work done, so next time, I hope to have bits cut that I can have welded to the chassis on my next visit (not sure when this will be though!)  so keep tuned! :)

Weekend 28 - 29 Aug 2011

Monday 29th August.
I continued to dismantle the remaining attachments to the bodywork so that I can have a completely disassembled car by the end of the year.
The previous day I had spent removing the rear suspension and brake assemblies. My dad had been available to help with this so we removed quite a lot of items.

Coil springs disconnected from the Rear Axle.

Removal of rear struts and bolts connecting axle to brake pipes.

I started the rear by undoing all the main bolts that held the struts, te rear coil springs etc together to get the axle free, I removed the half shafts from either end of the rear axle, once the drums had been removed.

Eventually we were able to take out the axle from the side of the car that had the most clearance once all the assemblies had been removed.

Axle removed, brake assemblies in place to the centre bottom of the image

The 'Removed axle' in need of some 'Refurbishment'

Once the rear axle and suspension etc were removed I went to the front of the car to start removing the drums and brake assemblies there also.

Full chassis shot with rear axle and drums removed.

The first job was to remove the track rod ends from the hub assembly, It is important at this point to ensure that when turning the track rod ends off that the turns are counted as this will assist resetting the geometry of the front end when re-assembling the car. mine were r18 and a half turns on the drivers side and 20 turns on the passenger side. ( I think!)

Once these were removed, I set about taking the hubs off the wishbones.

Track rod ends disassembled from the hub and the roll bar.

Removal of the Brake Calipers from the Hubs.

To be able to remove the hubs entirely from the mountings, there is capping on each of the front wheels, behind which a strip of 'Hairpin' clipping is passed through a hole to hold the bearings in place. this is heavily greased and has to be pulled out with a pair of pliers as the photos below show.

If you remove this, do not lose that pin!! its easily done!

Loosening the  wishbones around to the top and bottom of the shocks and springs.

I had removed the bearing and hubs at this point, so I was ready to start taking the wish bones off the front also, this would allow for removal of the leaky shocks I had.

Loosening the bolts for the Shocks.

 I must admit  I had some difficulty removing the bottom suspension strut, as the bolt was well rusted! using a combination of socket set and the break bar, I was able to get these off.

Undoing the base the front shocks.

Front end minus the wishbones and all hubs.

With all the front end now removed, (the roll bar at the front wouldnt come out so I had to leave this on until next time). I had quite a collection of parts that I could send away  to be treated and re powdercoated.

All the front and rear end parts ready for powder coating fuel tank is in the back ground.

same shot as earlier after steering removal.

That was about all I had time for that day. So the next post I should be updating will be the removal of the engine and gear box and finally calling completion on the strip down.

Weekend 28 - 29 Aug 2011

So it has been quite some time since we lifted body from chassis in my little shed! Looking at the car from the last set of photos, there doesn't appear to be that much left to do. but set to it I did. starting with the removal of the wheels, even more space in there now!

As the wheels were removed, I could get access to the hubs so that the rest of the axle, half shafts etc can be slid out of the chassis sections at the back.

The drivers side rear hub was easy to take off, a few taps to the rim and it came away from the rest of the hub, the pasenger side rear wheel hub was a different story, a screw was hidden in the hub which was present on the other wheel I unscrewed this and continued on.

I turned my attention to the prop shaft, this has to be dis-connected from the rear of the gearbox to the rear axle, which was achieved by taking off the 4 bolts that hold the two faces together see pictured.

Prop shaft at the 'Rear Axle end'

The prop shaft merely slides out of the rear of the gear box unit.

Once all four bolts were removed from the two faces of the prop shaft connection, it could then be slid out from the Gear box end, (caution here, as oil can start to spray out! have a bucket or similar item on standby!) This type of Gear box has a 2 litre capacity for Oil (from the research I looked into).

After this I removed the retaining struts for the suspension and took the shocks and coil springs off

The struts as removed from the rear of the car, the bushes inside these appear to be wasted so these will definately need replacement bushes when I have had the struts treated and re- powdercoated an 'acceptable' colour.
It's also really important to put the bolts back into the holes when the struts are removed so that these can be referred to for cleaning up or replacement outright, there's nothing worse than having to figure out what size bolts you need at an autojumble or parts order service. and some of them are rare too!

I'll upload the remainder of the shots over the weekend (most likely) showing the 'Monday work'. on the front end of the car.

25-06-2011 Body off at last!!

After a month away from the car it was time to make some major headway, the first things to do were to undo a few things that were still bolted through the chassis and body tub. The first item was the final suspension mounting that had been partly fibreglassed into position but had enough surface on it that we could attach a socket on it.
We undid the reinforcing steel rods that had been bolted through the chassis to provide extra support to the window frames when the roof was sawn off.
we had to attach a socket to one side and a spanner the other in each case to ensure that the bolts came through without turning in the holes.
Also to remove were the seatbelt mountings on the car, these were undone with a large spanner then hand turned till they were released.

Seat belt mountings undone from the seat tub.

Pillar support mounting.

Reverse side

Once these items had been removed it was time to start working on the removal of the body tub. We started off by using the two jacks with a couple of planks of wood placed between them and the rearward part of the underside of the seat pans, we then raised the jacks to effectively push the rear of the car up and off of the chassis.

Blocks of wood placed at the rearmost section of the seat pans on either side

Chassis rail starting to drop below the side skirt.

a bit further now!!

Seat pan gradually being pushed upwards.

At this point the body tub wasnt moving so both dad and I stood on the wheel rims and gently jumped to push the seat pans clear of the rearward chassis rails we also discovered at this point that there were two remaining chassis bolts still in the fuel tank area. The compartment though had already sheared though this is an easy-ish repair job as it just needs to be fibreglassed back into position again.

Cracks showing either side of the compartment

This can apparently be re-fibreglassed back in place.

Chassis raised at the rear end of the car.

Removal of the Manifolds to aid the chassis clearance.

We found that as well as the earlier problem within the fuel tank area, the exhaust pipes connected to the manifolds were rubbing against the chassis so it was not travelling backwards.

Chassis removed initial view of chassis looks good!

 

The Immaculate Gearbox! and pretty good chassis rails too!

 

 

More excellent condiditon chassis rails.

Body work removed.

With the chassis now removed, the next items are to concentrate on disconnecting the propshaft at the diff end of the car, and then by disconnecting the prop shap from the gearbox. The remaining steering rack can be disconnected, followed by the removal of the wheels. The engine and gearbox should be able to be removed using a hoist.
Until next time.