Odds and Ends Accomplished

Got a bunch of stuff done today. Nothing too extreme, but a lot of little things that I had been putting off while focusing on the seats. The majority of the part links are from SpitBits because that where I bought most of it. With that, I probably "waste" money on buying nuts/bolts from them. However, shouldered bolts are not easy to find in the shoulder length that you may want or that was originally supplied. In my opinion, they put shoulders on bolts for a reason and I'd rather use something that is identical to the original if at all possible, even if it costs me a little more.

As for the seats, based on recommendations from my favorite forum and my brother, I decided to bite the bullet and buy a 75/25 Ar/CO₂ bottle from my local branch of Maine Oxy. The bottle is 60ft³, was full and cost $150. They said it was good for about 3 straight hours of welding so I doubt I will need it refilled any time soon. I also bought a 2 lb. roll of 0.023", ER70S-6 solid wire (as opposed to the flux core that is used without gas). This wire type is supposed to have more oxidizers than others and is therefore good on mild steel, like car bodies, that aren't the cleanest. Unfortunately, they didn't have the new roller for the wire feeder in the welder to go along with the thinner wire, but it is on order and should be here by the middle of the week.

With that, here we go. I'm sure I missed some more minor things...

I figured out that I put the gearbox support plate bolts in upside down. In other words, the bolt was pointing up. Gravity would work against you here, if the nut came loose, and you'd lose the whole thing on the road. So, I turned those over.
While I was there, I also finished matting up the gearbox end of the driveshaft to the gearbox extension with new hardware. Unfortunately, I didn't know that the driveshafts were balanced so I never marked it before I took it off. Guess if my teeth rattle out of my head, I need to revisit.

Driveshaft bolts and you can see the gearbox frame plate, with its upside-down bolts.

I also finally filled the gearbox with oil. I used Brad Penn "Classic" Multi-Purpose GL-4 SAE 80W-90 gear oil that I picked up from The Roadster Factory during one of their sales. The GL-4 stuff is safe for the yellow metals (brass, bronze and copper) that is found in older gearboxes. I don't know if that's really a valid concern, but having rebuilt the gearbox I can definitely say that there is a lot of yellow metal in there, so better safe than sorry.
Refilling the gearbox is a pain because it fills from the side and it's kinda hard to pour oil in a little dinky fill plug that's set parallel to the ground. The oil does come with a pointed cap to use, but it would still be nearly impossible to make it work without getting most of the oil on the floor.
In a flash of brilliance (well, maybe), I ran a piece of clear tubing from the fill hole through the firewall to the engine compartment so I could fill the gearbox from above. It worked great and I would highly recommend this method...if you have an empty hole in your passenger's side firewall, that is. I don't recommend drilling one for this purpose, of course!

Hose going into the gearbox. That green stuff is the gear oil.

Hose routing up into the hole in the firewall. This is either the choke or the heater valve cable hole.

Hose on the other side (that black stuff is the PO's fiberglass repair to the battery box. More on that later).

I then knocked out some quick replacements to include the oil pressure sender (the PO had put in an aftermarket oil pressure gauge, so had a T connection on his sender). I also put a new Lucas heater switch in (the other one was M.I.A) and a new windscreen washer bottle. Oh, and new wiper box fitting nuts and rubber.

New oil pressure sender. Taking bets on whether or not it leaks.

New heater toggle switch.

New windscreen washer fluid bottle held in place by a freshly painted washer bottle clamp. The bottle came with that famous Tudor sticker...I didn't put in on, yet.

I did a conventional tune-up to include plugs, points, condenser, rotor, cap, and green plug wires, along with a new coil. Would be great to be able to start the car and see how it went, but that's for another day.

Pretty.

The Lucas "Sport" coil. Because the car is sporty.

Next, I routed both a new choke cable and a new heater valve cable. But first, I needed to clean up the area where they route through the firewall. Since I knew this would make a mess, I pushed the front end of the car out onto the driveway and started grinding away with, what is now, my old friend. What a mess. I also got into some of the fiberglass that the PO put down to fix some holes in the battery box. Though I remembered a face mask and safety glasses, I forgot long sleeves so now my arms are itching pretty good from probably lots of little fiberglass shards in them. The stupid shall be punished and all that.

Mild clean up. Lots to go, obviously, to get the box out for eventual replacement...not the goal today.

Once this was done, I got the cables routed. The choke cable, while it needs to be trimmed, seems to work fine but will need to be tweaked. The heater cable, however, is not too hot. Doesn't pull the heater valve at all. Probably operator error hooking it up, but I ran out of time to look at it again more closely as dinner approached.

Cable routing. Still have to put those grommets in for the tach and speedo cables.

I also swapped in and bled the new, reproduction clutch slave cylinder that I bought almost a year ago. I had successfully rebuilt the original. Though it had some significant damage to the bore, it didn't leak. However, today I relegated it to the "ready spare" bench so that it wouldn't leave me stranded at some undetermined point in the future.

Original slave cylinder; the bad side where the fluid just sat and corroded. Probably just a matter of time.

Finally, I wanted to see if my windscreen washer pump worked. It did not. So, I took it apart to see what made it tick. Pretty simple design, as you would expect. I do have another that came with the '64 that seems to be in much better shape but also doesn't work. This one's rubber accordian-looking think was pretty far gone with dry-rot and broke as I took it apart, so I assume the other is the same. Wonder if I can save it somehow?

L to R: Diaphragm pump, check valve assy, plunger and housing.

All in all, not a bad start to the weekend. We have some family commitments both Sunday and Monday, so I'm not sure I'm going to get a whole lot done, but we'll see. Happy Labor Day!