LagoonBlue

My driveshaft needed some attention; First I removed old u-joints which were well and truly stuck in there. With the help of press, angle grinder and welder I eventually got them out. Transmission side yoke had quite bit of wear on it's sealing surface so I selected a better one from my hoard. All my four spare shafts came from Series 2 cars so they are a bit longer but the yokes are same (except the very late models which had staked u-joints). Well functionally same anyway, S2 slip yoke u-joint "eyes" are little beefier and two internal splines have been removed opposite each other, presumably to aid in horizontal slip. Part number and dimensions are the same and both fit my transmission output shaft. I polished the slip part of the yoke with ragwheels and rouge. Hopefully changing the yoke will not affect the overall balance. After that it was the usual blast, prime, paint. For sandblasting I was lucky enough to find rubber bungs that fit perfectly on the u-joint bores. Somehow I have avoided installing new u-joints on anything until now, not a fun job but got there in the end. Joints are little stiff but not binding so should be ok. My new universal joints are of the sealed type without grease zerks which I am not too thrilled about but that's what I had so in they went. One last touch that I will need to add is a brushed green stripe to get that factory fresh look. You can just barely see that in middle of the pic.

Got my offsite storage more or less sorted; So much room for activities! Shelves need to be reorganised but that's not a time sensitive job. All the excess inventory and Series 2 specific parts go in here before I know for a fact that they are no longer needed (like my spare rear axles for example), after that most will hopefully find a new home. Back to the job at hand. New bushings pressed in place. Easy job after finding suitable plates that the center of the bushing could fit through. After that I painted and assembled the springs. Of course I ran out of paint two thirds of the way in so had to use a random rattle can to finish the job, luckily I got away with that. Probably helped that this was done wet on wet. I applied some PTFE dry lubricant between the leaves when assembling since I had some , graphite would also have been ok. Not really needed but wont hurt either. Main thing is not to use anything that attracts dust as that will create a grinding paste. In ye olden times (way before Cortinas came along) grease was used but springs were then wrapped with leather dust boots. Clamps needed a small modification; Since all other than the topmost spring leaves came from a heavy duty set the clamps were now too long. I welded in a ~4mm thick spacer that can be easily removed if I need to add the fourth leaf. Oversight or option, I have not yet decided Shackle bushings I bought from Ebay. Paint on the clamps and couple other spots need a touchup but that was to be expected Arch looks fine with my DIY wear pads; Should be ok, at least looks heaps better now than before I started.

It has been quite wet lately so I have been busy organizing my offsite parts storage so that I can in turn empty my tent garage to have better room for painting the springs in there. As a filler, here is how I fixed my horn. First I drilled 2,5mm holes through stakes on the backside of the outer rim of horn, then with a larger drill bit I removed the remaining pressed end of the stakes. This helped to keep the smaller drill bit centered. After dismantling the horn I threaded holes to 3mm. Reason for the horn not working; Contacts were pitted and oxidised. One can clean these with sandpaper but mine had also a broken terminal so I had to dismantle the lot. Rivet was replaced with a nut and bolt, this was later assembled with high strength Loctite. Parts were soda blasted, painted and new cardboard gaskets made. There are adjustments in the backside of the horn but on this unit they were stuck in place. By keeping the gasket thickness close to original this was not an issue. Horn put back together with 3mm stainless cap screws and tested ok. I am not one to toot my own horn (pun intended) but this should do the job for MOT.

Thank you and I will There will be hardly a part that has not been touched by me when I am done. These are the remains of part number 113E-5586-A Insert (rear spring) AKA wear pads that go between the leafs; Meant to reduce friction and noise in the springs. 4 per side, nub locates part to the corresponding divot on the spring leafs. According to the workshop manual these are supposed to be made out of rubber but seemed more like hard plastic to me.. These are not available and I could not find even a picture of an intact one but I had enough clues to make my own. Lathe would be nice to have (again) but router will also do the job. Vacuum cleaner is a must, preferably one that does not use a dust bag. I have a healthy stack of 10mm thick mystery plastic bits (most likely POM) to use for the parts. Teflon would of been also ok. Heap of parts. Flange thickness is 2mm for now but I will see how these look when assembled and should they look terribly silly I can adjust as required. After selecting the best leafs from two sets of springs I sand blasted them. Quite a job with my rinky dink compressor, at least I did not have to fear about taking out the temper. Luckily I was able to fit longer leaves into my blasting cabinet by shoving them through one of the glove holes. Primed. I used only the top leaf from my old springs, rest came out of heavy duty series 2 set. Other than the top spring and additional fourth leaf they are the same. After I see how the car sits I can add the extra leaf if needed. As I am using new to me paints I will let these air out for a week before top coat to reduce the chance of solvent popping.

I started refurbishing my leaf springs. Since mine is a series 1 car the top leafs have small loops at the rear; first I need to gather some parts. Front bushings I found at eBay; Quinton Hazell EM 1451 and rubber as Ford intended. Came all the way from Greece! Old ones popped out without too much trouble on the hydraulic press. Spring tie bolts I cold not find so made my own; I modified these from long 8mm allen bolts. Technically the shank might be little undersized for UNF 5/16 x24 but threads seemed to cut well. Length depends on the amount of leafs but I made mine plenty long enough, I can cut the excess after installation. Since these were made from allen bolts I did not have to bother copy the wrench slots at the bolt head. Some of the spring clamp rubbers will need to be changed. Spring clamp rubber can be bought online in long strips, but I decided to make my own. Sorry for the poor pics below, I had my camera set on macro I Bought 5mm thick rubber sheet from industrial supply shop, inexpensive at 6€ and I had plenty left to spare. You can just about make out the bearings I added on the router bit shaft to follow the guides After making a 17mm wide and 2.5mm deep channel with the router I cut sides to the correct width. Length depends on which clamp it will be installed, unlike the picture on the parts book that shows only two clamps per spring mine have four. Part number 105E-5334-A for shorter and 105E-5334-B for longer. Yes, that's an Anglia part as are the shackle bushings (105E-5719) that I still have to buy at some point. Yesterday I made a trip to neighbouring town that had it's annual machinery fair. Boot sale there was bit of a let down as Cortina parts are becoming somewhat thin on the ground but I did at least come home with couple distributor caps; New old stock Motorcraft parts and according to the parts bible correct for my car. I will rather run one of these than any pattern part made in this millennia. Not nearly as much progress as I would like but still progress nonetheless.

Got the parts; SKF VKBA 769 wheel bearing kit (x2) Payen NA583 pinion seal Bought from online parts dealer, the one with black and orange colour scheme and business practices that makes you want to take a shower afterwards but they had these in stock at reasonable prices. I went with SKF bearings since the less known brands have been known to develop a leak after a short while. For installing the bearings i first excavated my hydraulic press from the deepest, darkest corner of the garage and after first threading in the retaining plate pressed bearing at the correct orientation with an old retainer ring as a spacer between it and press plates. Old retainer ring was slightly ground inside to make a loose fit on the axle shaft. I did remember to put the modified retainer ring in there after snapping this pic.. Ideally this would be done in a press with a force gauge (544 kg for bearing, 1090 kg for retainer ring) but I had to do these by feel, it is however fairly obvious when the parts are properly seated. Shafts done. I blasted and painted the diff after it was bolted to a spare axle housing and made a tool for holding the pinion flange. Fish scale (+/- 10g) was used to check the drag before and after replacing the pinion seal. Shaft, nut and flange were marked in two places. I also counted the turns when removing the nut. I applied little gasket cement on the outside edge of the new seal and installed it flush with the casing using suitable bearing drivers (or bits of a junked food processor in this case, whatever works). Sealing surface of the flange was lubed with 80W-90 and nut was then tightened back to where it came from. Drag will not be same as before because of the new seal but should be roughly in the same ballpark. Backlash of the gears was also re-checked. To check the contact pattern I needed gear marking compound but bugger me if I could find any locally. I was not about to drive 70+ km and back just for that so I bought a set of artist oil paints and mixed in couple drops of gear oil to keep it from drying. Was very cheap and worked surprisingly well. After I was done I thoroughly washed it away. Pattern was checked in three places around the crownwheel. To get clear markings I "braked" the crownwheel with one hand while turning the pinion with other. To my untrained eye coast side looks fine. Drive side also looks decent. Pinion depth could be ever so little higher, confirmed by backlash being on the highside of limit. Considering the use case (bone stock road car) this should last me a good number of years as is. Satisfied that everything was in order the axle was reassembled. Little gasket cement was applied to bearing housings and both sides of the diff seal. All the fasteners were torqued to correct specs. Axle was filled with 1.1L of 80W-90 EP. Data tag is an placeholder, I will make a better one when time allows. It was a real joy putting everything together with nice clean parts! I made a small trolley to move the axle around as it's getting rather heavy now, even without brake parts installed. Baking paper was put in all the contact points to keep fresh paint from sticking. And I could do without smelling old gear oil for a while now

Rear axle seems like an important part to have in a car so I started to sort my collection of bits. To have a good look on the innards I first made a slide hammer from a great big honking bolt and a bunch of different sized pipes welded together; Switching sides on the halfshafts is not advisable so remember to mark them. I removed the halfshaft bearings and keepers with the old grind almost all the way through and split with a chisel trick. Not a scratch on the shafts! Two of my rear axles had a ratio of 4.125 and the housings were not in the greatest shape so I could dismiss them right away. One turned out to be 3.89, why Ford WHY! Had a good housing though. My original was of course the correct ratio of 3.90 but it's mounts were rotten. And lastly I had a loose mystery diff with 3.90 ratio. So that leaves me with two diffs to choose from, more on that later. Normally I like to keep things original but I did make a small modification on the "good" axle housing. Hand brake lever thingy will over time oval out the holes where it pivots. To fix this I drilled the holes to 14mm, made and welded in bushings to have a little more meat in this spot. To be fair I get it why they did it like they did, cost and less likely to get stuck with rust. Mostly cost though. In series 2 the R-clip mounts on a different spot in the shaft because of course it does; There were also small differences on the length of the breather tube between housings but I let that one slide. To prep the housing for sandblasting I made blanking plates out of acrylic sheet salvaged from old broken monitors. Nasty stuff to work with as it's quite brittle and sticks to cutting tools if it gets too hot but essentially free which is nice. To make these seal better I smeared the mating surfaces with grease. Much easier to handle without all the innards. Then it's time for; Blasting. Priming. Painting. In the middle there I had to do a small repair. I ground a v-groove almost through the material and laid a bead with the welder set to high. Easy fix. Now that I had the housing more or less sorted I gave my two 3.90 diffs a spa day. As expected gears on my original diff seemed quite worn but to verify that I checked the backlash. Diff bolted to plate to keep it upright and the pinion still. Measured in multiple spots. Backlash on the original diff was way over the limit but the spare was acceptable and the bearings on it seemed ok. I will need to recheck backlash and test contact pattern after changing the pinion seal which should be doable by carefully marking the position of pinion shaft, bolt and flange. I will temporarily mount the diff on a spare casing to do that and to paint it. If everything goes as planned I do not need to touch any settings on the diff. New axle bearings and pinion seal have been ordered and are on their way. After all is done there should be only the halfshafts and some nuts and bolts left from the original.

Well here's an rainy day project if any.. I wanted to have a key made for my steering lock but no one local did not want any part in that, guess I have to do it myself then I am certainly no locksmith but I did spend better part of two years of my life playing Pinball Dreams at vocational school to get the prestigious title of fine mechanic so I should be able to sort this. Turns out that the job was way easier than I had feared, if a little bit fiddly. Locks are for the honest but Ford at least made a decent attempt at this. Here are the details; Found on export models, possibly also an option for domestic market. Same lock used on early E-type Jags, maybe also on some MGs and Triumphs. Manufacturer Waso 5-pin tumbler lock with secondary driver pins before start position Pin diameter 2.5mm Keyblanks (cost bugger all, get plenty of extras); Börkey 787 1/2L ILCO FT6R JMA FO-FR Cole F77 Curtis WS-2 Dominion DM9 ESP WS2 Jet WS2 Orion DO9L Silca DM1R Taylor F81E Key dimensions; Note that the original key (that did not fit either of my locks) has plastic end, these are available but can be costly. First we need to remove the end cap, this can be on quite tight depending on how it was crimped. I got mine off by starting with a knife and tapping it off the rest of the way with a flat bladed screwdriver. Note the orientation of the spring between end cap and lock cylinder. smaller end goes against the lock cylinder. Now we can remove the retaining pin, removing the latch retaining pin is optional but this was easier to snap a pic of. Use a very small drill at an angle and lever the pin out with a pick, should come out without too much force. If you remove the latch cam note that the pin on the end of it goes to the corresponding hole on the ignition switch turning plate. Steering lock latch can not be easily disassembled but it can be re-lubricated in place. Prepare a tool from 10mm tube. Reduce the diameter a little and make a notch in the end. Use this when removing and installing the plug. If you do not have a working key (and can not pick the lock open) you must remove the driver pins on the locked side. Pins are under a brass cap that is dovetailed and staked to the cylinder, this can be carefully tapped off. Be sure to remove the correct cap. Do this inside a bag to not loose any parts. After the pins on the locked side are removed lever off the C-clip and push the plug out with the tool. If you want you can then remove the other side pins one by one by retracting the tool. Keep the parts in order, note that there are two different types of springs, narrower go inside the cup shaped driver pins. Key pins are reddish (nickel silver?) and the rounded end goes towards the key. Mark the keyblank and extend the marks toward the sides. File the key little by little until key pins are flush with the plug, the lock works smoothly on the reassembled cylinder and the key looks presentable (I won't show mine, OPSEC). Deburr the key. I used the best parts from two locks to rebuild mine, just make sure to keep the driver and key pins paired. Do not over lubricate. Lock body painted and assembled. Lettering on the end cap was filled with black paint (shows poorly on this pic). Make sure that the key can only be removed in lock and garage positions, you do not want the steering lock to engage while driving! New shear bolts can be bought online, Land Rover part# NTC4610 should fit.

Yet another parts haul; Saved from going to scrap, I have plenty already but for the princely sum of zero I can't say no. Most will go in to storage for now but there were couple useful bits for my project, FoMoCo lug wrench, Autolite coil, Autolite horn (needs refurbishing) and one part I did not even know that I was missing; I had a hunch on where this one goes and after consulting the parts book my hunch was confirmed. Part number 3014E-13K413-B Guard (rear lamp socket) 1pcs. and 111238-ES2 Clip (guard to body) 2pcs. And fits like this. Mine looks a little different than on the drawing, could be difference in revisions A and B. Made out of ~2mm cardboard so no wonder I have not seen one until now, most have likely turned into mush decades ago. this one is also not in the greatest shape but if nothing else makes a good template. I guess the other side will be protected by the spare wheel since only one guard is listed in the parts book.

Weather has been nasty for couple weeks now, next week should hopefully be a little better. I have done some light housekeeping and inventory stuff in the meantime. I finally went through my rear axles, turns out that two were 4.125:1 and the other three were the (right for me) 3.900:1 ratio axles, should be enough there to put together one good. I needed some fine wet & dry and got frustrated while digging into my big pile o' papers. I am surely not the first person to think this but thought it was rather clever; Took an ring binder, some folder pockets and cut papers to suit on a guillotine. Now when I need some specific grit I can just leaf to the right "page" and I'm set to go. I can also use the left over strips as is or make some sanding sticks with them. Probably not doing any favours on the cutter though but it's not like I paid any money for it

Thank you! Heh, no just a random rattle can that I had in stock. Matches nicely with the engine hoist though!

I felt like fabricating something so I prepared these parts; And put them together like this; Resulting a load leveler for my engine hoist. Apparently these are handy to have when installing engines, not that I need one right at this minute but will be nice to have when the occasion arises. Should be plenty stout enough for my needs (main beam is 35x50x5mm, plates 4mm and load bearing bolts 12mm) but I will test it with a dummy load before trusting it with my block. Made from 100% recycled materials, not that I''m an eco warrior but because I'm an cheapskate . Acme thread is from an scissor jack (had to add a second thrust bearing to it), 1/2" adapter is an old 17mm socket that had split and whatever else junk I had at hand. Spacers/rollers I cut with a pipecutter to get accurate and straight cuts. Suitable lifting brackets or chains will be easy to make as needed. Should be better than monkeying around with ratchet straps.

This should be the last chapter in the saga of interior light lens, I promise . And just in time as the outside temperatures are beginning to be tolerable. Seems that I was being overly optimistic on the longevity of the silicone molds, apparently they will last only for ca.20 units. Whether or not that is the absolute limit I do not know, especially since this is not a high tolerance part. As far as I can tell my molds are still Ok. Luckily I have what I need already cast. To polish the lens I started by very lightly wet sanding with 800 grit paper followed by 1000 grit. After that I used an headlight restoration kit since it included very nice sanding pads and spray lubricant. To reach the final shine I carefully buffed the lens with rag wheel on a bench grinder and Farecla G3 compound. The very last step was a quick wax with microfibre cloth. Did not have to buy anything for this step which was nice. To check the opacity I dug up my spectrometer and a suitable LED light source. Now we are WAY past gilding the lily Same results as with MK1 eyeball. Taking into account the yellowing of the original the closest match is the lens with light tinting. And to finish the job I installed the brass grounding eyelet. Practice piece on top of the pic and final item on the bottom. I had to slightly ground down the upper jaw of the pliers to make it fit in the slot but otherwise this part went swimmingly. And that's it, ready for installation. Now, was it all worth it? Yes and no. To make a one off lens, heck no, not even in the slightest but to learn a new skill and to have all the equipment ready to go when needed then yes. And maybe most importantly this was all in all a fun adventure.

Got the polyurethane resin. Alumilite Water Clear, seems to be quality stuff. Came in nice bottles, very easy to pour small amounts. To be on the safe side I also bought Alumlite white pigment so that there will be no compatibility issues. The downside of this resin is that it absolutely needs to be pressure cast. So let's build a pressure pot. I was extremely lucky to find an old paint pressure tank from skip. Seems that previous owner had the gasket fail on him as the pot was covered in paint (hence the skip). Wirebrush on an angle grinder sorted that out. After that I flipped the lid, made sure it was level and cast a new gasket with caulking silicone. Before the silicone set I scraped it to uniform level. Not the worlds greatest since i really need to crank on the wingnuts to get it to seal but certainly good enough. If I ever redo the gasket I might try a softer silicone The pot needed minimal modifications, I cut off the paint pickup tube and changed plumbing to suit my needs. There were no ratings printed on the pot but pressure relief valve was set at ~3,5bar which works for me as the resin needs around 3bar. In principle pressure vessels are not something that one wants to muck with but I feel Ok with this, even without hydrotesting. Manual on an identical looking pot stated max pressure of 4bars so there should be plenty of margin. Thin walled castings like this really seem to need some additional heat to cure properly in reasonable time so I have preheated the molds to about 40°C and put an old pizza warmer plate under the pressure pot set at~30°C. After 3hours I can remove the heat, let it cool over night with the pressure on and demold the part. Some experiments with the amount of pigment. Fairly tricky to get right on such small amounts (half a drop to 16 grams of resin seems to be the best so far). If making a bigger batch it would make sense to pre-mix pigment to part A of the resin and do small samples. These should fully cure to Shore 72D within week, after that I can test the best method for polishing and install the brass eyelet. Small correction to my previous post. Had a silly brain fart with calculating the Watts on the hot box, even with the worlds easiest formulas Just put your thumb over the unit you need to know and do the math. I know the resistance (R) and supply voltage (U), so 24 Volts divided by 4 Ohms gives me 6 Amperes (I) and to get the Watts (P) It's 24 Volts multiplied by 6 Amps = 144W. Congratulations you're an EE now Of course this is the real world we live in so there would also be some losses on cables and contacts etc. but close enough. Should of known better as 96W seemed a tad low.. Eh, keeps me humble I guess.

Thank you! I live in Finland close to Oulu.

Well this got complicated, luckily I like learning and on account of the bitter cold outside have nothing better to do Made a heating box from whatever junk i had lying around ; 96W worth of heating elements made from NiChrome wire, adjustable DIN rail thermostat with added relay (to switch from NO to NC), temperature cut off switch and some insulation. It would of been easier to modify a toaster oven but those are not that common in these parts. Worked really well for properly curing the epoxy resin in reasonable time. First decent pour with epoxy, needs polishing since it's an almost exact copy of the old original below. Could have also used ever so little more tint. Shame that I do not like it A quick and dirty lesson on common casting resins; Polyester: Cheap, easy to find and use, long pot life and curing time, polishes ok, stinks to high heaven, very brittle. Epoxy: Affordable, can be found on arts and crafts type shops, fairly long pot life and curing time, safe(ish), tough, yellows with age (even if UV-protected), does not polish very well, goes bendy above 50°C. Polyurethane: Costly, hard to find and use, very short pot life and curing time, somewhat hazardous, requires pressure chamber for best results, very tough and stable, polishes well. In short, different resins for different uses and for this application the winner would be clear polyurethane resin. I am the type of person that likes to learn by doing and feel the difference of materials in my own hands. Since these take only ~20g of resin per shot experimenting has not been a huge loss, I can use the remaining polyester and epoxy for other less demanding uses. Anyways, I found good quality clear urethane resin for a reasonable price in Poland(!) and ordered some. Will likely take quite while to get here so in the mean time I can make a pressure pot. I am not brave (or stupid) enough to DIY a pressure vessel but found a good starting point for that little project.

Thank you! I do love to tinker, especially fun challenges like this where it's ok to fail at first. Like yesterday with my epoxy test piece; Oopsie Next time I will remember to check that the mold is properly closed. Also this did not seem to cure properly, might have been too cold? I will cobble together a heating box and try again.

Thanks! It has crossed my mind and the mold should last for at least 200pcs. or so but the export logistics and (after a certain total value) tax issues might be too much of a hassle. So much unnecessary red tape these days Regardless, first I will need to be happy on the quality and materials.

Something I have wanted to try my hand at for ages has been resin casting. Since good interior light lenses are so hard to find I chose that as my first subject. I selected the best lens that I had and gave it a good wash and polish. Certainly nice enough to use as is but the plastic in these tends to turn into dust with age. I also carefully removed the brass grounding eyelet. For making the mold I had some fancy pants Smooth-On Dragon Skin 10 platinum cure silicone. Though to stay true to character it was manufactured in 2014 (recommended shelf-life is 6 months), worked just fine regardless. I used a high tech modular molding box system of Danish origin as a base to get registration dimples for the first part. Since these blocks are prone to seeping from the cracks I chose to use paint sticks for the sides. Luckily sticks happened to fit perfectly between the studs. Blue tack keeps the part off from the bottom and prevents silicone seeping underneath the part. Mold release was applied to all surfaces within the box. After mixing the silicone I degassed it with my smaller DIY vacuum pump. This is just a fridge compressor and a suitably sized pot. Clear plastic lid with a rubber gasket goes on top. Ugly but does the job. Next up was the other half of the mold. I flipped the previous side, removed blue tack from it and again applied mold release. After cutting a pouring sprue and riser to let air escape the completed mold was ready; I was quite impressed with the level of detail; Very nice, clean and crisp and fit together like.. Legos? For testing the mold I used polyester resin since it was locally available and cheap. Absolutely toxic smelling stuff so had to do pouring in the boiler room while wearing a full face respirator. I made a small stand to keep the mold upright. Since the stand is made of clear plastic I can backlit it and (just about) see where the resin is at. For mixing the resin I used a precision scale (±0.01g) and degassed the resin in vacuum before pouring. At first I had difficulties with air bubbles and voids but after couple test pulls I had my technique sorted and a fairly good copy of the lens; Polyester resin was too brittle for my liking so I have ordered proper clear epoxy casting resin. I will also try to use less pigment (was two drops for 20g, maybe try one) and install the grounding eyelet. I might also try curing in a pressure pot to avoid bubbles. But that will have to wait until I have the epoxy in stock. To be continued..

Thank you! Happy days! Seems that I finally found correct pistons for my worn out standard bore 2737E 1.6 HC block. This was my previous set of oversize pistons that I had bought with a bunch of other parts; I guess these are not great but merely O.K. Note the valve relief cuts and lack of oil channels for the bottom ring. Might be for 711M block? Also these have split skirts, that would be an old hat trick to prevent heat seizure. Weird to see in automotive application. Fine pistons for someone else but not for me. After a fair bit of research I came to the conclusion that I needed a set of these; That should do it. These have become a bit thin on the ground so cost about the same as a set of pistons from Burton but those start from +.030" and I would rather leave as much meat in the bores as possible. Of course I do not know 100% sure until the block has been machined but for now I will call this piece of the puzzle sorted.

Well, I think we can at least deduce that Cortina is a much better car since mine cost 11.360FIM when new Burtons were having a Black Friday sale so bought some bits and bobs; Still not the cheapest but savings in postage compared to buying them separately elsewhere more than made it up. Quality wise I have never had any issues with their parts.

Brr, I hate winter Too cold to work in the garage but I that will not stop me tinkering with some little stuff indoors. A good while ago I had bought a boot lock with keys in near mint condition and wanted to make those keys work on my door lock, especially since I had no keys to begin with for the doors. To kill two birds with one stone I set out to clean and rekey my door lock. First task was to take all my spares to bits, wash everything in ultrasonic cleaner and see what I had to work with. To get barrel out from the push button I had to lift the lock plates with a pick one by one as it came forwards. These lock plates and springs were either damaged, worn or surplus to needs. I chose the right plates by dangling them in the grooves and seeing that the ends were level. Got it right on the first try! Either I was very lucky or more likely there are not that many different lock plates in these.. All my locks (manufactured by CEM) were a little different than pictured in the workshop manual so here is how these go back together. Square cut seal goes to thin groove on the push button. Adjusting bolt has a sliver of plastic on it but one might want to use some Loctite when setting it up. Since I do not live on an island this one is for the left side but should otherwise be same as the UK models. Not pictured; two mounting screws, 0.8mm gaskets between door and handle. I used VERY little amount of thin oil for the barrel and grease for other moving parts. And the completed handle with lock. Works as good as it ever did, I actually have to use a key with this Was way easier job than I had thought!

First for me also, has Lucas and oil in raised lettering on it. Might have been cost reduced out of existence in later years Here is one in a C39/C40 end plate. Mine was quite stuck in there so would not surprise me at all if these were summarily discarded the first time a generator was oiled. Does not do much but won't hurt either. What really bothered me the most on the cheapo copy was not the "artesanal" build quality but that the thrifty Indians had cast the end plates in iron, that thing is heavy!

Thank You! I was going through my parts stash and came across the generator that I had bought ages ago; Indian made copy of the Lucas C40, new but of questionable quality. And the pulley I had was for a tractor (part# 54214804, 3,5" O.D.) Let's make something little more appropriate.. I gathered my spares, and bought one more locally for 20€ to get the correct pulley. And took them to bits; I picked the best parts of each. The one in the center is C40T (T = tachometer) and has a different end plate but for some odd reason a normal armature. Maybe an old recondition job To get the end bush out I dropped a small spacer in the hole to protect the star shaped washer between felt and bush and wound the old bush out with a tap. After soaking the new bush in oil for two days I pressed it in the end plate. New brushes were fitted after this. New front bearing (6202-Z), retainer and bearing shields. According to the catalog these were for Lucas ACR series but were identical to ones that I took out. Commutator had plenty of meat left in it, cleaned that and undercutted the segments. And assembled. I even fitted the often missing rubber oil cap in the end plate. I have quite bit more faith in this than the Indian made unit, that one can go live in a Massey Ferguson or something

I think it is fair to say that summer is over and I am mightily miffed about not having the car in paint Well, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.. Not for the lack of trying, the thing is that I trust in only few places to do the work and as expected their schedules are quite full. Just have to be patient and wait for my turn. In the meantime I have been working on that famous last 10% that takes the 90% of the time, boring little stuff. Here is one particularly silly example; My light switch had some contact issues. Took it apart and found that contacts had the barest whiff of silver plating on them. There was no way for me to silver plate them but I do however have this nifty gold plating kit; Meant for repairing card edge connectors and the likes. Stupidly expensive but I got this for naught since it was rescued from a bin. Even had couple pens in it that had not dried up.. Order of operation was cleaning, polishing, cleaning again, nickel plating an gold plating. Nice and shiny As is tradition this can be assembled in many many ways but only one is correct. I guess Poka-yoke was not a thing back in those days.. Note shape of the contact leafs, one goes in different orientation to the other. The difference is very subtle but allows the switching to be stacked (off, 1on+2off, 1on+2on). Generous application of dielectric grease kept all the plungers and springs in order whilst I put it back together. Tabs bent back in place and heat shrink tubing added for good measure. As good as new