Report on (slow) S2 Coupe rebuild progress

[DavidLaver]

Keep at it !!!

On the one hand it must be easier than this...on the other plenty of jobs are quite tricky the first 100 times and after that second nature.  Am thinking of this as an "easy as riding a bike" job, for someone who's never sat on a bike before, and understanding why so few amateurs take it on.

Am really looking forward to it done, and then the next person to follow the method.

[fay66]

Keep at it !!!

On the one hand it must be easier than this...on the other plenty of jobs are quite tricky the first 100 times and after that second nature.  Am thinking of this as an "easy as riding a bike" job, for so3meone who's never sat on a bike before, and understanding why so few amateurs take it on.

Am really looking forward to it done, and then the next person to follow the method.

Excellent work so far, as you say David, once you get used to doing something it becomes easier, at the time I used  to watch  the trimmers fitting them day in day out, we were building 400-500 vehicles a day.
I wonder how much easier it would be if you could fit it with the car upside down?
Brian
8227 

[nthomas1]

A little bit of philosophy today.  The psychology of rebuilding a car is interesting.  I have a habit of going to the garage with good intentions and then procrastinating over which of the many outstanding jobs I should start on! Sometimes I move things around and inspect them for a couple of hours and end up getting little done. 

I have therefore adopted a new rule that says I shouldn’t move anything that could be fitted to the car immediately.  With that in mind I took the tray containing my new wheel bolts and wheel centres and I polished the chrome and painted logos with Autoglym resin polish and then fitted them to the car.  Fitting the backing plates for the wheel centres was a bit tricky as they are a tight fit and I had to resort to a block of wood and a hammer to force them into position from the rear of each wheel.  That’s one more tray that I won’t be moving again, but the boxes of used parts for sale at the end of the rebuild are growing fast.

I think I’ve now found a way to get electric power to the garage and if I succeed I’ll have light (and heating) there for the first time so will be able to continue work through the winter once I get back from my current trip to Spain where I’m writing this.  Early progress with the rebuild has made me keen to get the car back on the road as soon as possible and enjoy that delightful driving experience again! 

Whilst in philosophical mood here are some other observations on the rebuild process:
- You can never take enough notes and photographs during the disassembly phase.  I certainly didn’t.
- At the start of a rebuild you should convince your next door neighbour to buy a well restored version of your car so that you always have a reference point.
- You can not extrapolate the time it will take to complete a job: if four identical things need to be done, the fourth will often take as long as the first three.
- Decision making on which parts to refurbish and which to replace is a never ending spiral.  Parts that were deemed to be suitable for refit at one stage in the rebuild no longer seem so as the rebuild progresses.

Having said all of that, I am enjoying the rebuild as much as I’d always hoped I would, and I find even very small steps forward very rewarding. 

[frankxhv773t]

I noticed when my son worked in a customising shop that each car had a sheet of paper taped to the screen with a list of the order of work to be done next. It might pay to plan and note the next job before leaving the garage and disciplining yourself not to be diverted from the next job on the list when you start the next session. What needs doing next is generally at the front of your mind when you have to break off working.

[nthomas1]

I noticed when my son worked in a customising shop that each car had a sheet of paper taped to the screen with a list of the order of work to be done next. It might pay to plan and note the next job before leaving the garage and disciplining yourself not to be diverted from the next job on the list when you start the next session. What needs doing next is generally at the front of your mind when you have to break off working.

Sounds like a good approach Frank.  To be honest, my comments were somewhat tongue-in-cheek!

[nthomas1]

Just home from Spain for a few days (our 50th wedding anniversary party at the Hard Day's Night Hotel in Liverpool tomorrow) so thought I'd put together a couple of simple jigs to hold the doors while I reassemble them.  Hopefully will be able to get them built up when I get back again in December.

[chriswgawne]

I like those door supports Norman...and two of them as well! Proper job.
Chris

[nthomas1]

I’m currently getting all of the door components ready for installation.   Those of you with long memories will recall that I was concerned that one of my quarter light assemblies was much more curved than the other.  Since then I’ve managed to acquire a pair of used assemblies in very good condition.  I’ve cleaned them and removed residual adhesive from the window runner channels and have given the channels a light sprayed-on coat of smooth black Hammerite as their location is quite vulnerable to moisture.  I disassembled, cleaned and lubricated the swivel mechanisms.

I then fitted new flock channel which I had bought from Omicron.  It is a different type to the original metal lined channel as you can see from the pictures below.  I cut it to length and slotted it into place in the quarter light channels and also in the rear window runners. The top edge for the quarter light sections needed to be shaped to fit into the tapering top end of the channel, and I was careful to refit the small rubber blocks that go at the very top.   

Next job is cleaning the main window glasses and getting old grease off the horizontal channels in which the window reguilators operate.

[lancialulu]

Looking good Norman. Just a small point when I did my Sport restoration I found the Omicron guide too tight on the glass (electric windows) and had to remove and find an alternative (I think from Elvisio Esposito) which is like the original. Think maybe manual winding will not be a problem but look out for extra strain on the poorly designed regulator mounting on the door. A problem if you have alloy doors....

[nthomas1]

Looking good Norman. Just a small point when I did my Sport restoration I found the Omicron guide too tight on the glass (electric windows) and had to remove and find an alternative (I think from Elvisio Esposito) which is like the original. Think maybe manual winding will not be a problem but look out for extra strain on the poorly designed regulator mounting on the door. A problem if you have alloy doors....

I wondered about that Tim.  For each of the two assemblies I actually pushed the door glass into the channel and slid it up and down to simulate the action of raising and lowering.  It is certainly a tight fit, but I don't think will be too tight for manual winding, and my doors are steel.  I'll progress with the installation and test again when the door glass and regulators are in place.

[nthomas1]

I now have the quarter-light assemblies and door glass ready for installation, and the window regulators lubricated and tested.

The quarter-light assemblies sit in the leading edge of the door and are fastened with three Number 4 machine screws.  These attach to cage nuts that fit in the rectangular holes in the three small bridging stampings welded into the gap between the inner and outer door skins (see first picture below).

I’ve not been able to source Number 4 cage nuts, but fortunately I have the six that I need from the replacement quarter-light assemblies that I bought and from the spare door I bought a while back.  Of the nine, three were damaged. None of the original six from my own car were able to be reused, as the original machine screws had rusted solid and the cage nuts were damaged as the screws were drilled out.  I bought a cage nut insertion tool and ground off part of the tab and shoulders so that it would fit into the gap at the top of the door.  I’ve fitted cage nuts before using a flat bladed screwdriver, but access for these is quite tricky so I thought it worth the few pounds for the tool.  Interestingly, the auto industry seems to have moved away from cage nuts and the best place to find them, and the tool, is from providers of web server racks, though the smallest size of cage nut that I could find was Number 5, which of course is too large for this job. 

There are two larger machine screws that hold the lower part of the window glass runner to the inner door skin but they can not be attached until after the door glass is connected to the window regulator.  More of that later.

The positioning of the three attachment screws is shown in the third picture below.  As you can see, that leading one is just below the pointed end of the quarter-light.  There’s no way to get at the head with a regular screwdriver, even a stubby one.  Something like the angled screwdriver that I’ve shown is required.  In the picture you’ll see that I’ve temporarily fitted the cage nuts (with Copaslip applied).  I did this to make sure that all of the threads worked freely, before fitting the cage nuts to the doors.  Given the difficult access to the heads of the screws through small openings in the lower quarter-light rubber seals I did not want to discover part way through assembly that any of the threads were crossed or very tight!

The final step prior to installation was getting the spacer blocks ready for fitment.  These are something I’ve pondered about for a while. The blocks, made of hard rubber, appear to have been used by the factory to get the correct alignment of the quarter-light assemblies to the doors.  Each of my two doors and the spare that I bought have a different combination of blocks, or no block at all.  The blocks that I have are in two sizes: approximately 2mm thick and approximately 5mm. 

I guess there could be variation between vehicles in three different areas: (1) the size and shape of the quarter-light assembly (hard to see where variation could be introduced here), (2) the size/shape of the door aperture in the bodyshell, and/or (3) variation in the positioning of the three stampings welded in the top of each door and to which the quarter-light assemblies are attached.  I’m hoping that the third of these is the correct reason, and I can imagine a factory assembler using a jig or gauge to determine whether each of the three fixing points need a 5mm block, or a 2mm block or none at all.  Certainly on the three doors in my possession there are significant differences in the distance from the base of these stampings to the top edge of the door.

I can’t imagine that in the factory the doors would have been assembled, then fitted to the car and then removed and the block configuration adjusted if the door closing gaps were incorrect.  That would have been a very inefficient practice.  I may well be wrong!  Worst case I may later find myself disassembling and adjusting.

As shown in the fourth photograph below I will be fitting two rubber blocks to one door and one to the other - in the same positions as they were removed, and even though I’m not re-fitting the original quarter-light assemblies.     

Tomorrow I’ll be doing the installation.

[nthomas1]

I started door assembly yesterday.  I had previously fitted the driver side door mirror as access is quite difficult after window glass is installed, and I had thoroughly treated the inside lower surfaces with Dinitrol cavity wax..

[nthomas1]

The first assembly task was inserting the window regulator mechanism, in fully wound down position, into the door cavity.  It is important to do this first as the quarterlight assembly can not be fitted after the assembly is in place as there’s insufficient room in the door cavity.  The regulator winder spindle was pushed through the hole in the inner door skin but the regulator was left loose (no machine screws attached at this stage ) to allow it to be jiggled around during glass installation.

Then the rubber spacing blocks were positioned in the mounting brackets at the top of the door and the quarter light assembly, with the three mounting screws in place, was then lowered into the door aperture. This is done by pivoting it 90 degrees (see photo) to get the lower bracket through the narrow opening in the top of the door.  It is then swivelled back through 90 degrees and tilted back to allow the swivel mechanism that projects from the bottom to be hooked over the top of the mounting brackets.  It is then tilted forward so that the three machine screws line up with the holes in the mounting brackets.  It's important to ensure that the projecting lower leg of the quarterlight assembly passes between the window regulator and the outer door skin (not the inner door skin). 

The three machine screws in the door top should be fastened about half way at this stage, allowing some movement in the quarterlight assembly during glass fitment.  The offset screwdriver shown in an earlier post was used to turn the leading screw as access is not possible with a normal or even a stubby screwdriver.

The pictures below show the left door.

[nthomas1]

Next, the window glass, with bottom rail attached (conventional wisdom is to never remove the bottom rail from the glass) was lowered through the opening in the  top of the door and the bottom rail lined up with the two pulleys on the regulator.  It's quite a tight fit.  Note that at this stage the regulator has not been attached to the door skin.  The door glass was then slid back as far as possible towards the trailing edge of the door so that the pulleys could be hooked onto the rail.  Some jiggling of the regulator was needed to achieve this. See first and second pictures showing before and after connection. They are from the right door. The forward pulley hooks into the leading edge of the rail, and the trailing pulley fits through a gap in the bottom middle of the rail.

The window regulator was then connected to the inner door skin using three machine screws and spring washers, which fit into small cage nuts surrounding the regulator spindle (see picture).  The lower portion of the quarterlight assembly was then loosely fastened in place using two Number 5 machine  screws and spring washers, which fit into cage nuts in the inner door skin. .

The window glass was then pushed forwards to slot it into the forward runner channel, and while holding it in place (pushed forward), the window regulator was wound to it’s top position.  This allowed room to feed the rear runner channel into the door cavity.  It was pushed onto the trailing edge of the door glass and then attached to the door skin with two Number 5 machine screws and spring washers which fit into cage nuts.  The top one of these is in the inner door skin at the top, and the second (lower one) is positioned on the trailing portion of the door (that connects inner and outer surfaces.

At this stage I wound the window glass up and down a few times, and at first could see a gap at the top between the glass and the forward runner.   Pivoting the quarterlightlight assembly backwards slightly and tightening the trailing one of the three quarterlight attachment screws eliminated the gap.  At this stage all of the fastenings were tightened and the up-down motion checked.

In my car, the effort required to open the window increases a lot as the glass gets to about 70% up and beyond.  (As Tim warned in his earlier post).   I’ll play a bit with the mounting screws, and also see if the window moves any more easily with spacers between the lowest quarterlight assembly mounting screw and the inner door skin - just in case the front and rear runners are not completely aligned.

Finally I greased  the pulleys in the sliding rail at the bottom of the window glass.

[simonandjuliet]

Looking great - but doesn't it all take time !

Maybe try some talc on the window channels until they bed in ??