I’ve made some progress over the last few days. I’ve finished painting the steering column, hand brake and petrol tank. This has been followed by fitting these to the car. Although this should be a relatively simple job the steering took much longer than anticipated. Actually I think I have lost count of how many times I’ve had to fit and remove it to get every thing to line up. The first issue was to get the rose joints adjusted correctly so the steering didn’t touch the fan belt, while also not fouling the chassis and for the angle of the knuckle joints not to be to tight so they don’t rotate correctly. Once this was achieve I still had to take it apart a couple of more times so I could get the steering column in the correct place so the indicators switch would turn off after going around a corner! I think I’m almost there except it will have to come apart one more time as I have discovered the bushes in the column are worn! I’ve ordered some replacements so this will be another job to do at some point in the future.
With the steering column in place I have also spent some time fitting and rewiring the dash. Although this will be removed at some pint in the future to be recovered I wanted to find out what gauges were operating correctly and what were not! So far I think I have a problem with the temperature gauge reading to high along with the tachometer not working. The problem with the tachometer is probably related to the electronic ignition fitted to my car but I still need to investigate the temperature gauge.
The photo below shows the dash and steering column fitted back in the car.
This weekend while I was visiting friends in Portsmouth I took the opportunity to collect a set of heads I had bought on EBay. One of these was cleaned up and I took it to the machine shop to have hardened exhaust valve seats fitted. With a bit of luck I’ll get this back in a couple of weeks so I can replace the one on my car that is cracked.
I still have a couple of more jobs that I want to get completed this week before I return to work. The main one is I want to paint the inside of the bonnet before the car is sent off to be painted. I also want to fit the front a rear bumpers now as it will still be possible to fill and re-drill the holes if the are not in the correct place (once the car is painted this will not be possible).