Report on (slow) S2 Coupe rebuild progress

[fay66]

Hi Norman,
Looking good.
Why satin for the air cleaner?
My air cleaner was nearer gloss.
Brian
8227 

[nthomas1]

Hi Norman,
Looking good.
Why satin for the air cleaner?
My air cleaner was nearer gloss.
Brian
8227  

That’s interesting Brian. I looked at lots of engine bay pictures on google and saw satin/matt finishes and gloss. I tried to figure out whether the gloss finishes were the result of people refurbishing with gloss paint. Or were the satin/matt examples just the result of gloss fading over the years. I assumed (maybe wrongly)  the former. The question applies to the radiator top, carb inlet assembly and heater air inlet box. It’s on my long list of research questions for the AGM car park this weekend when I hope to be able to look closely at a number of Fulvias. Other “originality” questions on my list relate to engine bay decals and plates, carpets/mats, screw/bolt types and boot interior fittings.

[chriswgawne]

I believe the under bonnet black Fulvia components were gloss originally. Certainly my new1973 Fulvia 3  Coupe was as was Jackys very original Fulvia 2C we ran in the mid 70's whereas Aurelia B20s for example were largely satin black including the engine bay itself.
Chris

[nthomas1]

Some more progress on engine bay components today.  All of the black painted parts have now been cleaned and de-rusted.  I tried a couple of blacks to get close to the factory finish and found that Hammerite smooth black gives a finish somewhere between satin and gloss - perhaps a bit closer to gloss - which appears to be close to the correct finish.  The carburettor air inlet box and heater box are shown in my Heath-Robinson spray booth (plastic sheet suspended from ladders). I’m quite pleased with the way they are looking.

While the paint was drying I made a start on the radiator, which had a lot of surface rust and had been badly painted with thick black paint showing lots of brush marks.  Once I finish stripping the old paint off I’ll look for a radiator specialist to give it a pressure test before I paint it to match.

It was hugely valuable to be able to crawl over some of the S2s and S3s at the AGM at the weekend.   Thanks especially to Neil Simms, David Townsend and Geoff Johnson and their partners who allowed me to inspect their cars very closely and take a lot of reference photographs.  The other wonderful cars attending the event gave me inspiration in bucket loads!

[frankxhv773t]

I use a lot of black smooth hammarite for such things and it seems to last very well.

[fay66]

Certainly looks good Norman.
Great chatting to you Sunday.
Brian
8227

[nthomas1]

I enjoyed talking to you too Brian, and it's always good to see how Fay is doing!

I made good progress in the garage today.  Finished cleaning up and de-rusting the radiator and will be taking it to a specialist tomorrow to see if I can get it pressure tested.

I cleaned and de-rusted one of the window regulators - see picture below showing it beside the other one which I'll do tomorrow. One of my window winders is missing the black disc.  I might try to make something to fit - unless someone has one lying around that they'd like to sell.

I have an update on the front window glass runner that I mentioned earlier in the thread.  It had been badly welded and the brightwork on the quarter light surround was badly marked.  I managed to buy a used driver-side door (with most components still attached) fairly cheaply on Ebay and picked it up in London after the AGM event finished on Sunday, en-route to collecting my wife from my daughter's place in Bow Quarter.  The rear runner was in even worse condition than my own, but thankfully the front runner with quarter-light attached was in a good state.

I drove home on Monday via Omicron where I collected some parts for the car including repro door caps and a new pair of rubber seals for the quarter lights.  Now that I have the latter I'll start on cleaning and de-rusting the front runner assemblies next.     

[fay66]

Norman,
if you don't have any luck finding a black disc I can probably sort you one out, although it probably would have been off a Vauxhall!
Brian
8227

[nthomas1]

Norman,
if you don't have any luck finding a black disc I can probably sort you one out, although it probably would have been off a Vauxhall!
Brian
8227

Thanks Brian - I may well take you up on that offer.

[nthomas1]

I took my cleaned-up radiator to a specialist today for pressure test and possibly a new core, and I stopped by the paint shop to see progress on the shaping of the transition between new metal and old prior to painting. Very pleased with progress so far.  A few pictures below.

[davidwheeler]

I suspect you wil come back with a new core and for the £100 or so it costs it is well worth it.   The old one is almost certainly clogged after nearly 50 years.

[nthomas1]

I've been working on the front window runners, that have the quarter light frame attached. The left one is original from my car and the right one is from a door I bought on Ebay.  They've cleaned up well, but the curvatures are quite different.  The right one is the more curved so I compared it with the one I removed from my car (the one with the large blobs of welds that I talked about in an earlier post) and it has similar curvature. So the problem is not because I'm using a part from a different car.

I don't know how much I should be worried about the difference! I've attached some pictures showing the extent of the difference as measured at the bottom end and in the middle.  Does anybody have any examples they could measure in order to tell me which is correct?  

I also made a start on cleaning up the door top external trim strip in readiness to fit new scraper seal. I naively thought that would be an easy job. However the old scraper is stapled on and quite fiddly to remove.  As soon as I started to pull a section away on the first door it pretty well disintegrated.  The final picture shows the one from the other door at the bottom of the picture - ostensibly looking to be in reasonable condition!  The first one looked like that before I started the removal process.  Interesting what you find.

[nthomas1]

Getting there!  Hopefully will be in primer next week.
I'm still puzzled by the curvature differences on the window glass front runners - see previous comments.  Would be glad of any pointers.

[fay66]

Any chance series 1& 2 are different?
Brian
8227

[davidwheeler]

I suspect past brutality rather than any intrinsic difference.