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i’ve been reasonably productive over this heatwave we’ve had.
Finished all the welding required on the OS outer-sill and sorted out the retainers for the lower rubbers on the B/C-posts. Also replaced the lower sections of the channel that hold the door-seal rubber. I was fairly lucky with these. Only the lowest sections needed replacing. I managed to get a number of spot (rose) welds on the channel and tentatively managed to get some ‘tacks’ to fuse the join together. I need to do some small repairs further up around the window area on these channels. But that’s for another day. I applied some Hydrate-80 & Jotum 90 to all the new metal as a base before top-coating them.
I finalised the inner-sills by cleaning everything ‘off’ that would come off. They hadn’t been undersealed, just protected with a greasy/waxy coating. Most of the original cream primer was visible. Liberal brushing & wiping with thinners removed it all. Treating with more hyd-80 and a couple of coats of jotum.
coated the posts with some epoxy primer, flatted, then topcoated with some satin black i have left over from other projects. I find this satin, when polished up has a nice ‘aged’ look to it. not overly shiny, sits somewhere between gloss and satin. I couldn’t help but get overspary on the rubbers due to masking-tape slowly detaching when prying back to get some paint behind the rubbers. It all cleaned off.
Slowly working towards fitting all the external covers, leading to allowing the sill carpets & remainder of carpets to be fitted. I had to replace the hardboard spacers for the door-stop mechanism. They were in good nick, I tried to remove them in tact, but they broke up in the process. I made some gluing some hardboard together, then machining/sizing to correct shape.
Eventually I built up the sill covers. The replacement grey-rubbers that goes across the sill didn’t fit the channel very well. The flat bit of the rubber is too narrow, by about 2mm. This manifests as the steel not really sitting flat unless you tried to stretch the rubber and force it to lay flat. Which didn’t really work out. In the end I concluded the best option was to make the steel fit the rubber. It worked out fine, it’s all covered when the top-cover slips into the steel-channel.
Also I didn’t have the thin padding/material that was originally under the top-cover. It just broke up on removal. It was like a netting material and a very thin material of the original blue colour. Thinking about options from is it really necessary (rattle prevention?) to ordering some thinn 2mm underlay. I eneded up using some roofing felt/underlay i had leftover. folded double it gave me the ~1mm required to compensate for the deviation in sill. So I used that.
I wasn’t sure what goes on at the rear section by the side of the rear seat. So i left the felt generous there. I’ve subsequently seen on images that the seat pretty much comes to the edge of that steel cover and very little is seen. So i’ll trim it back with a stanley, save removing the cover again. Maybe a small piece of somehitng to cover the jotum’d sill if anything is visible?
Now I have a couple of quesitons…
Firstly, anyone know where these type of retaining clips are available? I have x3 out of the 4 and ideally like to replce them. I have E-clips and I can find all sorts of clips online, but not this shape.
Secondly, I’m thinking of going back to nylon fuel lines. Any thoughts on this, as to me it seems a more robust, longterm soluiton to rubber? Rubbers all perish in time regardless how resisilient they are to whatever. I know there would be rubber-joints, but these are very small in comparison and possibly viton couplings might be a better option? I’m just thinking best integrity once those sills are closed up. Of course periodic inspection is possible, but likely out of sight, out of mind until problems arise?
The front supply/return lines are as original, but the rest has been removed. The original ‘Y’ section has been retained to couple the press-reg & pump returns, but the dog-leg section has come away from the ‘Y’. It doesn’t actuall leak when inserted, but of course is not a longterm solution. I have temporarily secured it with Loctite bearing retainer to allow me to run the car as required.
I have ordered some Permabond TA4550 nylon glue in hope i can cut & drill out the remaining sections from the ‘Y’ and glue in some new tubing lengths to how it should be.
That leads me on, anyone got a image to hand of the correct routing of the nylon fuel lines for a leccy pump. The original bosh type. I found some images in the 814 manual(s), but not enough visual to gleen how it should be.
Plan now it to turn the car around and work on the NS sill. Thankfully it is in alot better condition than the OS. It looks like the only metal-work is repairing the bottom of the c-post & the ratiner for the lower b-post rubber. We’ll see.
I think I know what you mean regarding seal fitment. Looking at images of repair sections on CC, those tongues kinda curl out & up. I see there is a radiused profile on one side of the seal. I take it, this side is ‘outer’ that gets held in by the curled-tongue? The inner profile looks square and I take it butts up against the c-post?
yeah, i made the bottom of the c-post angled slightly upwards towards the sill. The seal-holder looks to follow suit, but that little piece is all somewhat distorted in manufacture, so it is what it is. I consider that seal is somewhat token, an afterthought. Does it actually do anything of value?
I think I may have to rework those tabs anyway come fitment to make them hold properly, I feel they will be inadequate in size to form; stick out and wrap up around the seal and hold?
I don’t know how big these seals are. they look as if they could be quite chuncky? Once I get the actual seals in hand I can see what needs to be done.
I did wonder how they fitted. I thought there might have been slots in the rubber that those tongues slip into. I guess it’ll need the appropriate OD round bar used to shape those tongues correctly?
i managed to get the seal holder to fit OK in the end. Didn’t need to shim it afterall.
After fettling the sides for optimal fit and making sure they were same profiles. I made the front piece and tacked it all together. The sides of the front piece i curved over slightly on some round bar to help get a better radiused corner after welding. I tacked it up with the seal holder in place to make sure it would fit afterwards.
I then welded it all up, dressed the welds and got some shape to it.
I then punched some holes in the bottom of the post to allow spot welding the seal-holder in place.
Spot welded the side to the sill and welded the join in the side-seam. I fettled the tongues afterwards so they came out from under the post better, crisp angle as opposed to kinda curving out and a little crooked.
on taking the above photo i saw i’d forgot to weld the inner-tab.
Job next time the welder is out.
Once its fettled for the seals to fit, those door-seal trims welded in place, protective coated and a skim of filler, it should be good.The B-post is solid apart from the seal-holder is missing. But that looks easily made wrapping some steel around a flat-bar?
interesting stuff, in particular the BT module with the remote ‘on’ feature saves hacking into a switched unit for remote/embedded operation.
in time i plan on fitting a radio/8-track player into my car as a period feature. i may go down this route. Though there is available an 8-track cassette that has a BT receiver built in which will make things simpler. I’m sure audio quality is effected, being only as good as the tape-head transfer. But’s that OK.
i have built a number of BT-speakers out of old 70s radios, removing the guts and installing a BT-kit from kitronik. it has a small amp built in and from home use can go louder than you’d ever realistically play it. audio level is controlled from the streaming device. I will use one of these just sitting in the car initially, see how it goes. Will also look ‘period’.
i haven’t managed to find and images showing the detail i want to see. areas of interest are always obscured.
Overall the carpet fits OK. but i do have some issues that need to be addressed.
main issue is that the sill carpets, when aligned with the ‘curve’ on the sill-trim and the ‘slope’ of the centre floor section. They fall short at the fronts. NS is the worst.
but, it may be OK-ish? I think the floor carpet should sit on top of the ECU that bolts to the floor. If so, it’ll fit covering those gaps? The cage that the ECU sits in looks to have a cover or somehting, with four captive-nuts ftted on the frame that something bolted too.
Also the bit that fits on the corner around the tank isn’t ideal.
ive opened up the trim, so the edging fits inside and then will be clamped back down/tight after final fitting. Again, if you align the curve on the carpet with the curve of the trim. it dictates where the carpet fits. align curves, carpet falls short at front of sill. move carpet forward to correct gaps at front. it looks odd with misalignment of curve on carpet & trim.
all carpet sets i’ve seen , including coverdale, simply have a slit, edged for this area. but its more complicated than that. there is a lip on that upper edge of the panels. the carpet slot idealy needs to be an upside-down ‘L’?
Anyway, i have time having to sort out the sills/bottom of C/B posts. during that i’ll consider my options. I’m leaning to get some more flint grey carpet from coverdale, enough for the boot and use offcuts to extend the sill carpets and fill tha minor gaps?
