Appia furgoncino - A fettler's voyage

[Sliding Pillar]

I always wondered why garden tables had a hole in the middle.......

With reference to the wheel colour (we have mentioned this before in Aurelia threads) try Ford Alpaca Beige, Ford numbers CT,  MAT, or 2B.  ICI code NT 70.  It would be interesting to see how close it is to your cleaned wheel.

[DavidLaver]

That's a very familiar picture of your/my/Lou and Jason's car - I've got a copy framed on the wall

[simonandjuliet]

David, I should probably frame it properly as well since it is the original .....

Ade, it will be interesting to see how close we are with the colour. We have matched the wheels as well - I haven't found a reference for them so we are going with chips.

I have just returned from the UK following an Appia Consortium meeting with Don and Jim. We also spent a few hours going through and sorting boxes in the stores and have found a ridiculous number of new drums, second hand suspension reservoirs, wiper motors and rocker covers amongst many other bits 

Don't forget - if you need something for your Appia, try the Consortium first  - Promotional message finished !

During our chat with Don, he said that he had sent some door rubbers and track to a member. They were happy with the parts, however they were surprised when they were presented with a bill for 39 hrs to fit them - PER SIDE !

So that brings me on nicely to this afternoon's job - fitting door rubbers (and making a steering wheel removal tool)

I have been mulling over the problem of fitting the door rubbers for some time and came up with the following:

New black plastic track has replaced the original aluminium and it is very user un-friendly. It is like wrestling an octopus, you fit one end and the other end seems to come alive and wrap itself around your neck. The plastic comes in rolls and is quite rigid. the obvious solution is to warm it up, but I found that the working-time window is very limited.

I heated it to about 100°C ,any less and it is not flexible enough,but it is too hot to handle for long,  it then cools very quickly and goes hard again ....

You can't heat it in situ because you risk damaging the paint, so the solution was to make a template for the door frame, copy it in ply and then heat the track and heat/fit it to the wooden template.

Once done I decided to fit the rubber to the track and the glue/screw it in place because it is impossible to fit the rubber once the track is in place in the door frame. I have also decided to split the track/rubber because it is just too difficult to do in one piece - see octopus above

First section done and the rest should be easier now I have a method . If anyone wants templates, let me know.

I haven't edited the photo of the rubber sitting in the track because I was hoping that someone may be able to read my palm and tell me what is going to happen this year ... or how many children I am going to have !

Second job was to make a tool to remove the steering wheel. Quite straight forward because the holes used for locating the locking tab are threaded and if you make a bar to go across the column it is possible to pull the wheel off using a couple of bolts without damaging anything

[frankxhv773t]

Interestingly your steering wheel removal tool is almost identical to one I made up for use on a Beta.

[the.cern]

QUOTE       During our chat with Don, he said that he had sent some door rubbers and track to a member. They were happy with the parts, however they were surprised when they were presented with a bill for 39 hrs to fit them - PER SIDE !

That is seriously worrying!!! It reminds me of a conversation I had with Chris Gawne. I told him that for the Aurelia I had sourced a pair of aluminium trims that hold the rubber seal that the door windows close down against and that I needed to fit new rubber seals. He laughed and said words to the effect "allow yourself two weeks and start exercising to get some real strength in your hands and arms"!!!

I am sure there is a knack, but I suspect that, as usual, I will have developed said knack just as I finish the task!!!!

Time will tell and I do have one or two other tasks to tackle before I get to that one.

                                   Andy

[chriswgawne]

Are those new wiper motors the same as Aurelia perchance?
Chris

[simonandjuliet]

Hi Chris
The motors are, i'm afraid, secondhand. However, if I recall , the motors are very similar to Aurelia but the length of the arm may be shorter on the Appia. You would need to put them side by side to check.

 

[simonandjuliet]

I've had a couple of afternoons this week in between planning for our next bottling. Lots to do and organise - not to mention buying 5,500 bottles and corks .....

The seal around the driver's door is finished. For the lower half, I adopted the same system of pre-forming the track and then fitting the rubber before gluing them both in place using tiger-seal. Where the join was made I have slotted in a piece of tubular foam rubber to maintain alignment. It has worked out very neatly and made the whole fitting process much more manageable.

The seal along the rear edge of the aperture has also been fitted along with a new piece of fabric covering the door-lock peg.

All in all it has taken a lot less time than the anticipated 39 hrs !

The driver's door has also been made up. New track and weatherseal have been fitted. The original weatherseal was curved at the ends so I have copied this. The back edge was removed at the ends, the ends snipped and then it can be bent. Once done it has also been tiger-sealed into place. It removes the ridiculous fiddle of drilling and screwing the fuzzy strip in place.

The screws that hold the aluminium trims in place are a tiny #2 1/4" phillips screw that you have to be very careful tightening because you can easily twist the heads off (I found out the hard way !) - I suspect that steel screws would be less brittle than the stainless ones I have been using.

ps , all the aluminium strip is cleaned up and polished using red or grey scotchbrite

The window and mechanism were cleaned up and refitted (nb fit the rear slider first) and the final job was to repair the spring that fits behind the handle. One end has snapped off so I straightened out one of the coils and reformed it. It definitely makes the handle return more cleanly, even with a reduced strength spring.

The bracket was originally riveted in place so that was ground off and the holes tapped to take M4x0.7 set screws

We are off skiing in the Alps for a few days, so it will be quiet for a while !

[simonandjuliet]

More ......

[DavidLaver]

Will it keep the weather out...  I'm also keeping my fingers crossed it shuts nicely without needing too firm a push.

Tricky to reform the spring?

Any felts to stop the door pull and lock links clattering?

[simonandjuliet]

Back after a wintery trip skiing in Switzerland ..... complete convert to "winter tyres" - see separate post

David, the spring was not too difficult, I clamped the coils I wanted to keep in the vice and then opened up the final coil with pliers before reclamping the straightened wire. I didn't try and make too small a radius on the end, hence the hook

There are felts on all the actuator rods, including the vertical ones for the locks

There should be and additional flat rubber attached to the door edge that comes into contact with the aperture rubber, I will fit this once the door aperture rubbers have settled a bit. Because the doors are aluminium they don't have as much weight behind them so you are right, you don't want to push them too firmly !

[simonandjuliet]

Dog came round for a cup of tea and I persuaded him to give me a hand to fit the driver's door - impossible on your own

With 2 people it only takes 5 mins, but you have to take great care because it is a close fit. The door closes nice and neatly and the rubbers compress easily, so I can now fit the rest of the door seals (door-side) and door opening springs. I think that the latter may be quite a job ...

Handle fitted as well

Last picture shows the new tyres waiting to go on, but still need to strip and paint the wheels

[stanley sweet]

Hope you remembered to give Dog his cup of tea. Very neat shutlines - must be a relief to know that nothing has crept out of line with all the cutting and replacing.

[simonandjuliet]

Yes - big relief since this was the wing where we made a new rear edge

I am grabbing a few minutes here and there at the moment, doing little detail jobs until I get a day on the van

Yesterday was fitting a discrete fuel filter under the newly refitted engine "cowl" - is that what it is ? They are quite complicated shapes  and it took quite a lot of fitting. The radiator tap had to be rotated slightly as well in order for it to line up.

The TAV is quite different from my car because it only show a RHD set up.

I think these are a faff , so often get left off, but if anyone needs this part for a LHD car, I think there are several in the consortium stores

Second TAV picture shows the door breakdown with the various felts and rubbers that stop the rattles - parts 4 & 51 David !

[simonandjuliet]

Couple of nice little jobs this afternoon. Fitting the steering wheel, removing and repainting the starter motor and then fitting the undertrays on the driver's side - plus taking the wheels to have the tyres removed

The steering wheel took a while because I had to modify the fitment to make it work.....

There were a couple of issues, first was that when I re-assembled the hornpush as per the TAV, it short circuited the electrics. It didn't fuse anything, it just didn't work. I eventually sorted it by turning the bottom brass cupped washer over so it didn't touch the underside of the chrome bar. I have been very lucky to find an original and new chrome bar. Mine was OK but needed rechroming to look as good as the steering wheel

Second problem was that the pointed spike that connects the horn push to the steering wheel was too short, so I found a long spring that fitted around the peg but still slid into the hole

Another job was to make the pick up brush for the steering column/ steering wheel. I bought some 5mm graphite rods cut it to size (12 mm for ref) and then put some heat-shrink around it because it was a bit loose in the insulated tube on the column

Last little piece to make was the peg that holds the horn centre in place - I used a 5mm piece of welding rod that is held in place by the plastic collar. It has a notch to locate the peg. I added a bit of insulation tape around the collar because I found another one that had broken at the notch so I re-enforced this one

All back together and makes a suitable noise when pushed

The starter motor works well but was my spare and susequently had not been cleaned properly, so that came off  was cleaned and repainted and refitted

Last up was to refit the undertrays on the other side, having first replaced the jury-rigged throttle spring and correctly fitted the split pins - all detail but needs to be done !

I have put some petrol in the tank, so today she ran without a pipe running from a jerry can