Report on (slow) S2 Coupe rebuild progress

[nthomas1]

Over the last few days I've fitted the freshly repaired rear lights and done some finishing off work in the boot,  Cleaned and fitted the rubber seal around the top edge, fitted the mouldings over the inner wheel arch seams and put the new mat in place.

I then applied two coats of smooth black Hammerite to the entire inside floor of the car and the footwells and bulkheads.

I cleaned up the horns following the damage repair to one and gave them both a coat of paint.  A lot of other parts have been cleaned ready for re-fitment. There have been plenty of bolts that have been stuck and needed to be drilled out, and missing hardware that I’ve had to source.  It seems like wherever there should be, say, four bolts, there are only three, or one that’s to the wrong spec!

I’m now working on tidying up the engine bay ready for re-fitting the chassis plates and applying new stickers for battery warning and oil information.

[jimbo64]

Hi norm I’m following close  behind wonder if you could help I’m missing the headlining hoops or bars not sure what  they are called any idea where I could get them
Cheers Jim

[nthomas1]

Hi norm I’m following close  behind wonder if you could help I’m missing the headlining hoops or bars not sure what  they are called any idea where I could get them
Cheers Jim

Hi Jim - I've never seen the hoops for sale.  Somebody breaking a car may well have them.  I know of a couple of people who you could contact.  If you pm me I'll share the contact details.  A good strategy is to look at people listing multiple second-hand Fulvia parts on Ebay and contact them via the "contact seller" feature to see if they have them.  Other than that I'd be happy to provide precise dimensions and you could try to have some made up.

[fay66]

Hi norm I’m following close  behind wonder if you could help I’m missing the headlining hoops or bars not sure what  they are called any idea where I could get them
Cheers Jim

Try Google for list rods for headlining.
Brian
8227   

[simonandjuliet]

Hi Jim, I may have a set but can't look for a couple of days, let us know if you get sorted beforehand

ps Norm, car looking great !

[Parisien]

Norman, you have an email, hope it helps

P

[nthomas1]

Thanks Frank. I’ll forward the e-mail to Jim. I’m sure he’ll be pleased.

[chriswgawne]

Cars looking great Norman.

[jimbo64]

Thanks Frank. I’ll forward the e-mail to Jim. I’m sure he’ll be pleased.

Thank you norm and frank email sent so problem solved , love the power of the forum
Regards Jim

[nthomas1]

A few more small jobs done today.  Chassis plate and BS plate riveted back in place, and new stickers for lubrication and battery information applied. I put the headlamps back together with new Osram bulbs and tested all of the wiring before fitting them to the car. I've been putting off working on the headliner but it has to be done next as it's on the critical path for so many other jobs.  I'll make a start on it when i get back from France at the end of next week!  One question for you all:  every time I fit something to the car (like the 3 screws that hold each headlamp in place) I wonder how soon before corrosion might appear where there's metal to metal contact and the likelihood that paint will be scraped off leaving bare metal.  Is there anything I should be putting on the screws and bolt threads to help protect against this?

[rogerelias]

Looking really good Norm

[simonandjuliet]

Love the detail

[davidwheeler]

How about silicone gasket from a tube on the screws?     Should seal them against rust.   My headlamps were attatched via spire nuts anyway.

[nthomas1]

Thanks for the tip David.

[nthomas1]

I made a start on the headliner yesterday.  I’ve pulled together all of the materials needed for the job.  I have a pack of Noico sound deadening material, ten new plastic receptacles for the ends of the rods, six boxes of fold-back clips to hold the headliner around the edges before I stick it in place (about £8 on Ebay), and a tin of Alpha AF178 brushable contact adhesive.   The fold-back clips looked very useful in a YouTube clip that Brian Hilton kindly pointed out to me.

The rods and three retaining brackets  (two front, one rear) have been de-rusted and painted. I’ve had the headliner for some time now, although it came with a main section and separate pieces to use for the A and C pillar covers - rather than as a single unit with the pillar covers attached like the one I removed from the car.  There was also a piece of material for the narrow strip between the rear window and the parcel shelf.

The first step was to clean the roof, then apply the Noico butyl sound deadening mat.  The mat has adhesive on one side with a peel-off protective backing.  The other side has a quilt like appearance to aid application.  The mat is rolled in place with a roller until the quilt marks disappear.   Unfortunately my roller broke part way through this so I’ll need to get another in order to finish the task.  I put one large sheet of the Noico pad in the centre of the roof, and then filled in the gaps around it with smaller pieces.  All relatively straightforward except is was hard to eliminate air bubbles upon initial application so I resorted to making small incisions in any air bubbles with a knife to let the air escape.  I’ve bought a sheet of the felt-like pad to glue on top of the Noico but I’m not yet sure there’s enough room for it.

Next step was to push fit the plastic receptacles in the ten holes around the roof perimeter - five on each side of the car.  I then decided on a trial fitting of the five rods, partly to make sure which lengths fitted where.  When I originally removed the five rods I thought they were all the same length.  I should have checked more carefully as I found out subsequently that there are three of one length and two which are slightly longer.  It would seem that the longer ones fit at front and rear.  The rods were actually tricky to trial-fit.  With the arcs pointing downwards the rods are slightly narrower than the gap between the corresponding pair of receptacles.  Only when rotating them do the rods flatten against the roof of car and stretch in length so that they fit in the receptacles both sides. ***CORRECTION.  I have since been told that the two longest rods go in the two front positions. *** 

The two end rods are hardest to put in place but easiest to keep in place once positioned thanks to the retaining brackets.   Given that the next time I fit the rods they’ll actually be in the pockets on the top of the headliner I wanted to be sure to know whether to start at the rear or the front of the car.  It transpired that the rearmost rod could only be rotated from the rear of the car forward ( in a clockwise direction if you imagine looking at the side of the car with the rear of the car at the left), and it would not be possible to do that once the central three rods were in position.  The front rod could be rotated in the same direction (clockwise) so it would therefore be possible to fit that rod last.

The next step is to prepare the new headliner.  I made paper templates in the outline of the A and C pillar covers, stretching the old fabric out as much as possible, tricky as it was fairly stiff with age and glue, remembering to allow for the hem at the top of each where they will be stitched to the main headliner section.  I’m somewhat nervous about cutting the angled corners of the main headliner section  in readiness for attaching the A and C pillar covers.  I’ll take some careful measurements of the inside of the car roof and compare them to the dimensions of the old headliner to see if the old headliner has shrunk at all and if any adjustments need to be made.

I’ll need to find some foam to pad out the pillars as the foam that I removed is in poor condition..