[Simon Lewthwaite]

Is that bit of wood straight?
I might be screwing some angle iron on the back of it……:)

[Simon Lewthwaite]

With the cotton mops, its the centripetal(fugal) forces of the spin that makes the working edge firm, as it were.
You can get a mop mandrel for a drill but I wouldn’t fancy my chances with it – its so easy to catch an edge and the piece to flip. I would worry if it were the drill to flip.

A bad scratch needs sanding out though. This is where solid mops, made of leather like material, and grinding paste bars are used. I had 3 grades that took you from plain metal to a matt finish that can be then polished.
Frost A.R.T used to sell them but didn’t last time I looked.

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Paul Burridge wrote:

a big challenge is polishing. i don’t want to go and buy 20 tubes of autos from Halfords so need to work out an industrial scale way to polish everything that needs polishing. Bumpers would probably benefit from minor scratches being removed too.

I used to make reproduction medieval armour so had to get hammered mild steel up to a mirror finish.
A heavy duty polishing kit with mops and compounds that you use with a bench grinder did the trick.
You apply the solid bar to the mops, kind of making a bespoke grinding wheel of differing grades.
You then use softer mops, again with compound bars that get closer to liquid compounds as you go.
I have used this to repolish some of my DS parts and although it certainly works, its a lengthy process and I would expect to pay £££ for someone else to do it.

[Simon Lewthwaite]

It looks amazing Paul.
Gris Nacre?

I’ve gone for the that colour but with a black roof. A little anachronistic for a ’73 car perhaps but I dont care.

[Simon Lewthwaite]

One way to mask the tyre is to use playing cards. Poke the cards between the tyre and rim, overlapping the cards.[/quote]

This is exactly as I have done, but using index cards.

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Thanks everyone.
Great pointers as to an order of work and where to go.
I’ll get on it

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Thankyou both
Cripes, lots to do!

I do have a compressor so will look to getting the Sealey kit

[Simon Lewthwaite]

I ordered from CPC-Farnell in the end, a 2.2k 5% NTC which seems to work well. I’ll plot the curve when I get a moment. They were 30p each, so I ordered 10. Handling charge was about £4. Still a cheap solution. Next day delivery too.

I’ll order some of those 200ohm ones too for future use as I dont have a broken air temp sensor nor a body to use.

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Thanks Paul,
Really useful going forwards.

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Here is how I got on.
These thermistors cost around 30p each. Got 10. I decided to attempt a compete OEM look, otherwise, little point. In the end, I could always have just used wires to connector.
Heat shrink

Soldered onto original connectors

Epoxied into housing using the female connector as a ‘guide’

Then filled the sensor body with thermal paste (most tricky bit – a long needle to back fill would have been useful. Then all expoxied back together

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Re carpet edge binding.
Hard to explain.
I would definitely get a walking foot attachment to prevent the carpet ‘curling’

With the carpet face up, Lay the binding away from the edge and stitch it to the front, along the line where you want it to reach.
Now, fold the binding over on itself, around the edge and stitch it again, just beyond the first line. In this way, no stitching at all will be seen, given its black thread on black carpet. Its easier if you do this step with the carpet turned over so you can keep the binding taught and neat. I did initially run some contact adhesive to help this step but quickly got the knack and stopped using it.
There are some very nice videos online of a guy stitching carpet in a variety of ways, tips and tricks. Cechaflo I think

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Just running through topics I had started.
I have the answer to this one – I have no reversing lights! (face-palm)
There are holes in the rear cross member thing which no doubt once had them, there are the wires from the gearbox in the engine bay and I recall some strange cut off wires behind the rear seat back rest that went no where.

Mystery solved.
I’m in no rush to refit at the moment as the originals look rather bulky but perhaps a semi-hidden modern light would be wise in the long run.

I had kind of assumed the reversing light(s) were in the main light cluster but when I tried to refurbish those, it was clearly not the case. I say ‘tried’ because I completely failed to re-chrome the plastic. Just ended up with a gloss grey in the end.

[Simon Lewthwaite]

You have no doubt seen it Julian, but this is what I did with my boot.

Boot lining

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Brilliant description.

I have heat sink compound whe we were assembling a PC but the core came already loaded with it.
I have a syringe of something called MX-4 thermal compound. I guess that would work? But thank you for the kind offer.
I’ll follow instructions and post once the thermistors arrive!

This is of course totally unnecessary since the sensor is virtually invisible but when has necessity or lack thereof prevented playing with stuff!
Thanks again
Simon

[Simon Lewthwaite]

Running very well. Stable and throttle also much more responsive.
And, yes, the air temperature sensor now has a beneficial effect on the idle. I guess the ecu was receiving unbalanced information.

Dismantling the original sensor is fairly destructive but delivers a workable body and, if necessary, connector housing. Inside diameter is 5mm so easy to fit a bead thermistor. We’ll see.

[Author]

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