Turkey day progress

Pulled the rear drums off today with the hope of them being in decent shape so I could help out a fellow T3 owner...alas, they're in rough shape, so they're going into the scrap bin - the NOS drums will go on the car as I've all but abandoned the idea of swapping over to rear disc brakes for now.  Who knows, by the time I get around to getting Ferris up on tires, I may change my mind and shift the lightly worn NOS units to Ferris while I put rear discs on Nigel.  Time will tell.

In other news, I also pulled the main brake line out of the center of the car.  I forgot just how much stuff is crammed into the left side of the rear of the tunnel - it's pretty tight.  I got the main line out and found these two crusty individuals as the grommets at the rear end - they don't look anything like their identified replacements, which have a MUCH smaller diameter midsection.

Because I think I've got at least two of everything - I actually have the exact replacement for these two worn out bits and they'd be a lot easier to deal with since my brake line is already assembled vs. the newer pieces.  Someday in the future, I'll be pulling this pan apart to get the floors welded in so they'll get replaced well in advance of ten years from now.  I'm hoping to have some time in the morning tomorrow to tackle some more work on the car.  All I've managed to do so far is take more parts off of the car - I've got to start putting them back if I stand a chance of putting it back on tires again.

NOS Left front indicator housing

Left side NOS turn indicator housing...now I have 3 pair in NOS condition.  I'm going to go through them in the Spring and sell off one pair, put a pair on the car and keep the last pair for the finished restoration.

3 bolt pulley shroud is added to the pile

Picked up an early 3 bolt pulley shroud from a parts pile ad in the classifieds.  It'll eventually replace the super dented one that was slated for Nigel's restoration - I can either fix that one or sell it down the road.  I've now got three lids for these shrouds.

One broken part delays the process yet again.

I bought the small clamps and straps from a guy in New Zealand who is restoring a T34 a few months ago.

I installed them today after having to concede defeat yet again with the brakes.  The car has never had a solid pedal like it should.  An attempt to bleed them today yielded another disappointing result.  Instead of just saying 'fuck it' and blaming myself for not doing something right, I examined the whole system, inch by inch, and I found the problem: The main line from front to rear has three tiny holes in it...just enough to cause havoc with both successfully bleeding the brakes and, likely, successfully stopping the car.  Since I don't have one of these lines handy, I had to stop this process - knowing that I'll have to order / find one and start again.  Since I'm at this point, I'm going to pull the whole system apart (something I tried REAL hard to not do) and replace all of the hard lines (soft lines are brand new).  I've ordered completely new hard lines for both cars (or for me to screw up once and try again).

To make myself feel slightly better, I installed these clamps and did some interior cleaning so that I could accomplish something with the time I had available.  I'll have to remove the seat belt adapter so that I can remove the rear section of the crispy rubber mat...which will then allow me to get to the rear portion of the brake line.  I'm not really looking forward to this repair.

A million little things...

 The car is back up on jack stands - which is both a good thing and a bad thing.

It's good because I was able to address a few things that needed attention.

Up front: Adjusting the steering box because it wasn't quite on the mount where it belonged - unfortunately it didn't 100% solve the alignment issue but I'll get back to that, drain the fuel tank, assess the situation with the brake reservoir and centered the steering wheel once I aligned the center mark on the box.

 In the rear: Replaced the fuel line and filter between the pan and the engine and install the balance of the fuel line on the engine along with the check valve.

There are still a few things missing on the engine but it's closer than it was yesterday.  I've got some clamps to install around the fan housing to heat exchanger yet.  Once I've made it back to the interior of the car and I can get the brake pedal rod adjusted properly, I'll come around back and hook up the accelerator cable and clutch cable.

I still hold out hope that I'll be able to get all of that done AND bleed the flippin' brakes.  It'll be a hell of a lot easier to do with the wheels off (bonus: the car is level right now).  If the weather stays mild, I might fire it up and go for a drive...but I'm not feeling quite that ambitious or hopeful.  It's tantamount to buying a scratch ticket - knowing full well that I don't stand much of a chance of winning while secretly 'wishing' that I could...wishing that I would.

NOS front indicators w/Italian spec lenses

 Last week I sold a bunch of random parts that I'll never use.  That money sitting in my PayPal account was used to buy this pair of NOS housings with Italian lenses today.

 One more thing to scratch off of the list.   Hopefully, they're packed well and arrive in good condition.

The seals look pretty crunchy but they'll come up for sale soon enough.

Nap time progress

While my son was taking a nap, I ventured out into the garage and got a few things done.

I had only planned on pulling the pedal cluster to check the length of the brake pedal plunger rod.  Of course, that turned into much more.

I loosened the clutch cable to find that the bow in the tube was near the max (42mm vs. max of 44/45mm).  The seal for the accelerator cable housing was filthy (shown) so I pulled that and cleaned it.  Then I pulled the bowden tube and replaced it with a new GEMO part and a gasket for the pan.  I was experiencing a weird 'click' type when pushing on the clutch cable that I was hoping to address.  After looking around a bit, I think it was partially due to the bowden tube not being fitted properly - it was resting against the pan tube vs. being fit around it properly.  I'm hoping that is the reason for the noise.

So the clutch cable bowden tube and seal were replaced, I removed and cleaned the accelerator cable tube, pulled the pedal cluster and adjusted the master cylinder plunger...although he woke up before I was able to put the pedal cluster parts back into the car...that'll have to wait for tomorrow.

One more for the shelves

Fuel pump arrived today and it's the very definition of NOS.  The fuel pump is still sealed in its original plastic bag and, just like the seller indicated - the cap is mint.  It's a BCD, not a Pierburg, but several of the parts appear to interchange between the two manufacturers.

The second heat system elbow arrived as well - so I'll be collecting those parts for powder coating and dropping them off shortly.

I'm going to collect a set of the early wheel covers and drop them off for dent repair and re-chrome.  If that set comes back in good shape, I'll send the other two sets for the same work.

My goal is that I can get some of the 'behind the scenes' work done while it's too cold to work in the garage and still accomplish something.

The slippery slope

Scored a rear hatch hinge cover this week...no dents or creases.  It came in a small lot of parts - heater controls, pinch welt for the windows and doors, and a second cut out patch of the brake reservoir for an experiment where I will investigate whether I can weld the 'bump out' part to my existing panel divider to install the 67 only brake fluid reservoir.

Other purchases:
*New seals for the back end of Nigel - engine hatch seal and both seals for the hatch.

*Two of the later heat system elbows for the engine for Ferris - they'll be sent off for powder coating once the second piece arrives and I'll have two complete pair.  That'll give me a good pile of parts for grey powder along with the front kick panels.

*NOS early bolt on fan shroud and cover, the little plugs that go in the control arms (I am rather efficient at losing them), NOS steering arms, OE bolts for the shocks, 2 pair of the small early style engine tins, NOS pittman arm, NOS Master Cylinder port hose fitting (6mm), NOS bumper bolts.

*NOS rear seat bracket support -  a part I'd searched to find for two years before I conceded defeat and had an existing set 'fixed' (they look like shit).  I'm going to take one to a stamping shop that I work with and see if they can give me a price to fabricate them...maybe see if they can do the kick panel if I can find a decent one.

*NOS 12 volt chokes, a NOS air cleaner sleeve, choke element covers (the little plastic things that cover the electrical connections for the chokes) - found them in two colors.

*NOS BCD early style fuel pump.  I negotiated with the seller to yield a slightly better final price.  It'll be the second one in my collection - this one looks to be damn near perfect.  I think this puts me at 6 or 7 of the early style fuel pumps.  I can probably stop now.

*NOS muffler installation kits.

*Warm white BA9 LEDs for the dash illumination bulbs.  I think I screwed up last time I ordered and bought the 'cool white' bulbs which don't look that great in an old car.

*Miscellaneous air filter support pieces and parts for the fuel system/hose clamps - they seem to be kind of tough to find so I bought the couple that I found.

I must have been going through 'buyers withdrawal' because I kind of went nuts...but I'm also putting together two rather large groups of parts that'll be going off in a box in the next week.

The end of the year is closing in on a slow year for progress

I've been working on some rather random parts sales/trades in the past couple of weeks.  I traded a couple of parts that had very little value to me for some parts that have a much greater value.  I'm helping a couple of people source parts and services during my 'dry spell' so parts are being collected and made ready for a departure.  I'm happy to help others out and slim down my parts stash at the same time.

The parts I asked Mario to hold a couple of months ago are finally on their way - should be here any day now...I would know exactly when if the USPS would update their tracking information.  The tracking used to detail every movement of the parcel, now I'm lucky if it tells me once or twice before the box randomly shows up.  It was last scanned in NY a week ago so it'll show up any day now.  Probably when I'm not home...which means I'll have to chase it down at the post office.

I had an email chat with the Vintage Speed guy, Mr. Lee, and he says they can make a 'custom' Type 3 stainless exhaust that will allow me to use both upper and lower heat exchangers.  The lead time is 6 weeks and I owe him some dimensions with photos.  Looks like I'm going to sell off the exhaust I just bought because I really want to have both heat exchangers.  A little more research would have saved me a lot of time/money.

I'm also debating putting the Airkewld brakes up in the classifieds - who knows - maybe someone is more willing to resolve Pete's half baked product issues.  I also think I could fix what's wrong with them over the Winter since there won't be much else going on.  Still pondering what to do...would be nice to be able to use them vs. lose the money though.

I sold my last DV profile ignition switch yesterday...I hesitated to sell it because it's just so damned nice.

It's what I'd call 'super NOS' condition...very nice condition all the way around.

No progress on the car of late - still working on the yard - but I'm still hopeful that I'll get the brakes bled before the snow falls.  I know, I'm running out of time.  The temperature has dropped 25°F in the last three days (it was 82°F on Monday and 65°F today) and that, along with the panicked look on neighborhood squirrel's faces, means that cold weather is coming.

It's a real harsh reality that I didn't even start the car ONCE this year.  I'm planning on draining the fuel tank because that fuel is getting closer and closer to varnish than fuel at this point.

There's always next year...where I can hopefully make some progress.  The Winter will be spent getting things painted, collected and sold as needed to slim down to the things I really need.

Details create the big picture

This image is out of the Type 3 Workshop Manual, printed in 1965, that shows the stock engine set up.

I noticed several things that never caught my eye in the past - little details like the location of the spark plug wire holder on the left side engine tin - or that the vacuum line for the carburetor goes up and over the carb body - not around it.  It appears that the engine tin is grey vs. black based on the contrast with the black hose and air intake bellows.

This image was taken tonight after I made a few changes to the engine bay.  I'm trying to get the engine to more closely resemble the stock engine image above.  There are a few things that won't match the above image perfectly - like the oil breather that appears to be grey in color vs. the black that became standard.  I made an attempt at getting the fuel lines under the oil pressure sender but there's no way that was going to happen - it might be due to the oddball extension bit that's on my oil sender bracket.  I'm not 100% sure why it has the extension but I'm not going to screw with it right now.

I have a 4 rib boot for later when I get super anal about the appearance - the 2 rib works just fine and I've got a handful of them.  I only have the one 4 rib and it'll go on a finished car.

I'm waiting on my 'anti-siphon' valve before I connect the new fuel line and clamps (not pictured in the early car manuals).

I wound up swiping the fuel pump, stand and gaskets from my spare motor...it's now more 'torn down' than built up.  I've got to fix that - I've taken too many parts off of that motor at this point.  It's time to start putting things back on it so that I can test run it again in the Spring.

Vintage Speed exhaust

Amazing how fast this thing showed up...it's real pretty in person too.

I sold the stock exhaust today - which helped cover most of the cost of the Vintage Speed.  Now I get to figure out how to mock up the adapter for the small heat exchangers.

Watching things progress slowly

Due to digging up the yard to install new drainage pipe and the beginning of a new landscaping project, I've done virtually nothing with the car in weeks.

I did, however, finally buy a Vintage Speed muffler.  I'm hoping to get that project moving along - making an adapter for the upper heat exchangers on this muffler.

Other than that, it's been relatively quiet.  I'm not buying part lots anymore or hoarding parts - in fact, I'm still paring down what I've got.  I sold off some extra turn lenses last week and I'm hoping to have a guy who's going to buy the heat exchangers that are for a later car - he lives down state and plans to travel up here at some point.

Looks like next year is the year that I'll be able to get things rolling...the major house renovations will be done and I should be able to make some head way on getting the pan for the 65 back together.  Until then, I'll continue to collect parts relevant to the build for both cars and listen to the crickets watching my progress.