The Restoration of Austin Champ 1824

[mazungumagic]

We've been using an industrial primer on the body to date, which needs significant elbow grease to rub down to a smooth finish for the top coats. It is a very hard paint and will provide an excellent base for the top coat. Anyway, after a day of sanding back the primer, and with a few finishing touches by the "Master', all was judged to be good enough for the top coat to be applied.

 

 

We were able to apply three coats, which left a beaut sheen on the body and thought that’d be enough for one day – we’ll apply a further coat of two, to the whole surface (interior and exterior), in a couple of weeks

 

 

 

Looks very good in the photos, but even better in the workshop ! The vehicle is now back on its tyres and I’ll be able to bolt on a few of the external items during the week.

 

We also began work on the bonnet and the rear mudguards today. I was able to get a reasonably good bonnet without dents, from a friend. It needs a couple of minor welds, where the metal has torn along the bottom, but is in very good shape overall.

 

We flushed out the water passages in the motor today, which brought out a surprising amount of gunk and then began the refurbishment of the motor, with some valve seat surfacing. The block seems to have a fairly level top, which doesn’t need planing, but we’ve not yet inspected the head surface – it’s an aluminium head, so we could be in for a surprise there.

 

 

The thrust bearing, cross shaft and front seal housing was removed from the gearbox. Some hard yakka was required to remove the two cross shaft cotter pins. It was only then that I found the seal I had bought for the front housing was too small and will have to be replaced. So quite a few steps forward today, with only one minor set back.

 

 

We were also able to rivet the new clutch facings to the clutch driven plate, with the aid of a small rivetting tool, borrowed from the same friend who provided the bonnet.

 

 

One more step along the way !

 

Next week and probably the one after, we’ll spend on the engine and hopefully get that to the stage where we can bolt it to the gearbox and install.

Edited February 6, 2013 by mazungumagic

[Jerrykins]

If I remember rightly the early B range engines had ally heads & used whitworth threads, UNF was on the later engines (also marked as such on the rocker box). Now I don't know if your engine was made at Crewe or was licence built by Austin. I seem to think it would have been a Crewe build, being early. The fact that the c/case appears to be undercoated with red oxide suggests Austin or a later rework as Crewe painted the c/cases using something called the SO treatment a sort of silvery finish (this almost indestructible paint included a baking process where the c/case was cooked in the black enamel ovens, it was a very good process in as much as any casting sand left inside the c/case was glued in with the paint). The final duck egg blue colour, as it was called in Crewe, was applied in the despatch dept.

 

Whilst I was an apprentice at R-R Crewe from '64 (up until I left in '91) I never saw a B40, although roughly 90 x B-range 6 & 8 cylinder engines were delivered a month, plus a small number of base overhauls were carried out every month in the Car Repair engine shop. Happy days.

 

Oh another thing - Crewe built engines utilized cast ally tappet chest covers & rocker boxes, Austin made them from pressed steel.

 

Keep up the good work. Jerry

[mazungumagic]

If I remember rightly the early B range engines had ally heads & used whitworth threads, UNF was on the later engines (also marked as such on the rocker box). Now I don't know if your engine was made at Crewe or was licence built by Austin. I seem to think it would have been a Crewe build, being early. The fact that the c/case appears to be undercoated with red oxide suggests Austin or a later rework as Crewe painted the c/cases using something called the SO treatment a sort of silvery finish (this almost indestructible paint included a baking process where the c/case was cooked in the black enamel ovens, it was a very good process in as much as any casting sand left inside the c/case was glued in with the paint). The final duck egg blue colour, as it was called in Crewe, was applied in the despatch dept.

 

Whilst I was an apprentice at R-R Crewe from '64 (up until I left in '91) I never saw a B40, although roughly 90 x B-range 6 & 8 cylinder engines were delivered a month, plus a small number of base overhauls were carried out every month in the Car Repair engine shop. Happy days.

 

Oh another thing - Crewe built engines utilized cast ally tappet chest covers & rocker boxes, Austin made them from pressed steel.

 

Keep up the good work. Jerry

 

 

 

Thanks for the comment and information, Jerry.

 

I had been meaning to put up this photo comparing the two distinct types of tappet covers, but now that you've mentioned it, here it is ..

 

 

The BSF cast aluminium type, is on the left.

 

The engine we are now working on, is one of the (Crewe built) early BSF types which, if I read the Engine History segment on the Champ Owners Club site correctly, would have been initially painted black. It would have been re-painted the Duck Egg Blue shade, when it was serviced.

 

Perhaps the reason you may not have seen a B40 motor while you were at Crewe Jerry, is that by 1964, most Champs would have been out of service ? Those that were still with the colours may have been in TA hands and would have been relatively few in number - maybe Austin was able to carry out any servicing on them.

 

 

Appreciate the first hand information

 

 

 

Jack

[mazungumagic]

Added a few of the rear accessories during the week and managed to strip one of the captive nuts on the Rear RH “D” ring bracket. I had a look at the nut – there is a lot of bodywork there, but you can just make it out. Though I can recognise it, a fix will be hard. My options are I think, to tap the existing 3/8” thread out to 7/16”, or to weld a narrow piece of metal plate onto a 3/8th nut, threading it through the bodywork to the front end of the stuffed captive nut and trying to get a (longer) bolt through into the new nut.

 

So, what I did was to have a go at the easiest solution first ... and it worked. I tapped out the hole from 3/8” to 7/16” and managed to get the bolt tweaked up tightly. A bit of paint and in this area, no one will ever see it !

 

 

Then we started on the engine and specifically the crank. A Mk 2A crank is very different to the Mk 5A. Among other things, the journals are drilled out and fitted with plugs, presumably to save weight.

 

 

These little plugs are a bugger to get at and particularly to re-install owing to the fact that they have a split pin, which has to be mollycoddled into a very tight space.

 

Here is a shot of why the plugs should be removed. The amount of hard sludge we removed from the drilled spaces, shocked even the hardiest of us. Two of the oilways were completely blocked by hardened sludge and would surely have caused some grief, if left unattended.

 

 

Having misplaced one of the 3/16th BSF castellated nuts which holds each plug together, we decided that to minimise stress, we should all move forward with another task and the oil pump was selected as guinea pig. Regrettably this too created a drama, when the split circlip was misplaced/ignored and the whole kit and caboodle, put back without it. That meant that we couldn’t achieve any free play and had no idea why the free play disappeared all of a sudden. The exploded diagrams in the Manual are useless for such detail, but we later found that the split circlip was missing (it was later found on the floor). By then a general feeling of malaise and unfriendliness took over and we declared the day over.

 

This pic shows the (missing but found) split circlip on the oil pump shaft

 

 

Hopefully next week I will have located the missing 3/16” nut or found another somewhere and we’ll return to the rebuilding of the engine.

 

A couple of rear bits were attached which helped with morale …

 

 

Piston rings went onto the newly cleaned pistons – the top set of rings were found to be 0.020” oversize when we needed 0.010” over, but that was an easy fix with a file.

 

 

The bonnet has been stripped of paint and looks very good in its bare metal. Same story with the two rear guards… and I’ll finish off this week, with a shot of the newly lined clutch plate.

 

[mazungumagic]

We got serious today with the engine and managed to get the bottom finished and buttoned down.

 

The first bit was the crank.

 

I took a pic of the two (2A and 5A) cranks for comparison and you’ll note like I did, that the RH one (5A) is comparatively poorly machined. We used the 2A variety in our BSF engine – it has been drilled out so weight has been saved and it does look like the better finished of the two.

 

 

After that we dropped in the pistons, attached the big ends and installed the cam shaft. Added the cam gear and oil pump, bolted on the sump extension and then the sump. So here it is in its coat of many colours ….

 

 

I also took a pic of the two different types of sumps fitted to these vehicles. The 2A sump is an aluminium casting, while the 5A variety is pressed tin.

 

 

There’s also quite a lot of difference between the 2A and 5A motors, inside the sump and around the oil pump. I guess it was the usual attempts at cost cutting, as the production numbers moved along the line.

 

The bonnet has now been completely cleaned to bare metal and while a bit of work still needs to be done to it, including some welding of tears and removal of dents, we fitted it to the body to check for alignment. Looks very good …

 

 

Scrubbing away at this piece of tin, has been hard work in temperatures of 40 degree Celsius, that we experienced today – thanks Brian - you'll be happy to know there’s more to come !

 

Finally, a little bit of concurrent activity is also progressing, on the floor boards. The RH front one is nearly mocked up, but needs the final front board to finish it off. Ignore the spacers ….

 

[Jerrykins]

Hi again Jack

 

Crewe built R-R engines have sludge traps in the c/shaft this went back to when Adam was a lad, it dates from the days of poor quality oil that sludged up oilways. At major overhaul when they were removed all manner of s..t came out so they served a useful purpose. All R-R motor cars had c/shaft sludge traps fitted until very recently in the Bentley/VW era.

The other thing, I'm pretty sure you'll find your c/shaft was nitride hardened (you'll notice it seems a greyish colour compared to Mr Austin's product). Crewe had a first class, if Dickensian, heat treatment plant used for Merlin production throughout the war, so everything was done in house. I remember seeing batches of BMC Mini c/shafts being nitrided at Crewe for BMC Competition dept when the Mini Cooper S was a dominant rally car.

Going back to the Champ I assume Austin was cost concious and decided to do without some of the more exotic build characteristics of the B40 when they produced B40's in volume.

Keep up the good work.

 

Jerry

[mazungumagic]

Jerry,

 

Good to hear from you again and thanks for more of your reminiscences from the Crewe days.

 

I understand what you said about the sludge traps in the crank - we extracted a great deal of unwanted gloop from these drillings. I guess that the use of detergent oils had not yet made their mark when these machines were operated by the Army, but even these oils have been around for some time now, yet when the plugs were removed, the buildup of sludge in the drillings was very evident.

 

I did read about the nitride hardening in the Tech Description manual. The 2A crank has a much better look and feel about it, than the later type, but both appear near indestructible !

 

Next week, we'll get to the top end and just maybe, we'll set a few personal goals and finish that off too.

 

 

Jack

[Rickety]

Looking good Jack. ANZAC Day is looming.

[mazungumagic]

Rick,

 

Looming large !

 

At the moment, that is our timeframe - I would like to have it ready for that big day and it is still possible - we have about eight weeks of worktime available, so we'll see. I could always ask the RSL to delay ANZAC Day this year.

 

If we get the motor completed next week, I think we can do it, but there are numerous small tasks to finish and they take an inordinate amount of time - I may have to set up a stretcher.

 

 

 

 

Jack

[mazungumagic]

Moved onto the engine today and after some false starts with a mixture of 2A and 5A engine parts – it’s surprising how different these engines are – we managed to get the fan on.

 

 

From there we moved onto the other end of the donk and the flywheel. Again the flywheels decided to be very different. Notice the fact that the Mk 2A/4 flywheel is in two parts while the Mk 5A wheel (on the left) is a single piece …

 

 

It took us a while to work out how the 2A/4 flywheel, ring gear, clutch driven plate and pressure plate all merged into one workable part, but once that was sorted out, it got bolted up to the crank with 12 bolts. Amazing that the designers decided they needed a dozen bolts to hold the flywheel to the crank !

 

 

Still need to find a spare input shaft to allow the driven plate to be aligned with the spigot bush/bearing, but I'll do that this week and finally tension the ring gear bolts.

 

With that all done and after having to make a locator/spacer for the flywheel because the shed fairies managed to pinch one, we tipped the engine up the right way and decided we should check the timing. We attempted to instal the drive shaft and distributor, but found that the drive shaft should have been installed into the engine, before the oil pump was attached.

 

Bugger !

 

That meant we had to invert the motor, remove the sump and then withdraw the oil pump, to drop in the distributor drive shaft. All that was finally done, though there was much time spent in getting the oil pump and drive shaft in the right posture, ie the drive shaft tang has to be parallel to the engine block, at TDC. Then it was a devil of a job with much cussing (nothing abnormal in a Champ restoration), to get the nuts onto the oil pump body and secure it to the block. It would be interesting to speak to the designers, to find out why they went out of their way to provide near impossible obstacles, for future restorers. Very character building !

 

But after all that and as the sun began to disappear over the yardarm, we got everything buttoned up again and the engine is more or less back to the same condition that it was, when we left last week.

 

The head has now been cleaned and is ready for the inlet valves to go in, while three out of the four exhaust valves are also in – the last one will have to wait till I get another cam follower – the original was found to have a piece missing from one of the side openings and can’t be used.

 

I’ve now also started on the refurbishment of the radiator. I blew out the finned areas with compressed air and almost expired with the amount of dust and grass seeds which emerged. I reckon I got three good sized dustpans full of the stuff for my efforts. Quite an astonishing and unexpected result. A section of the flat bar which is used to secure the fan shroud had come loose previously and was soldered on, but I was able to file all that off and weld the two corner sections together.

 

I'm now scraping off the paint and once that's done, I’ll take it to be pressure tested to ensure it’s serviceable.

 

 

More work has been done on the sheet metal, with the bonnet, rear mudguards and grill, now ready for panel beating and welding attention, before being primed and painted.

[mazungumagic]

Earlier in the week, I managed to get the radiator to a shop and have it pressure tested. The report was mostly good, but there was a slight leak around the pressure relief valve at 10psi, so I removed the valve, made a new gasket for it and bolted it down as tightly as 3/16th studs would let me ! I thought for a moment while I was undoing the nuts, that one had broken off, as both nut and stud started to turn. Thankfully it was just the stud twisting out of the thread in the valve housing. Nine o’clock and all’s well.

 

Before and after shots of the radiator –

 

 

 

The fan shroud has now been replaced with a new one from Champ Spares which proved relatively simple to bolt up to the shroud ring -

 

 

I was also able to instal the cam followers during the week and again noticed a difference between the 2A and 5A engine.

 

 

I was also obliged to replace one of the original 2A exhaust cam followers which had become a casualty somehow and decided I should replace them all with a set of good 5A types.

 

 

The first of the four floorboards, has now been completed and is in situ -

 

 

Today we got stuck into the engine bling and managed to bolt up 80% of it. Had several frustrating occasions when dealing with two sometimes very different, engines and realising that numerous parts are not interchangeable. However we achieved a fair bit, as I think the photos show. Clearly, I'm at the stage where I need to get a couple of cans of BS 101 (Duck Egg Blue).

 

 

and

 

 

The clutch is on and bolted in place – we used a spare input shaft to ensure the correct location of the driven plate, so the gearbox should slide on, like it was a matched pair ! We'll see.

[Jerrykins]

Hi again Jack. At R-R the colour was called Duck egg blue, but there have been blogs and blogs about the proper name and code of the colour. Richard Farrant has forgotten more than most know about this and I'd recommend he gives you his Fatherly advice about the proper name and number (Fleur de Lys), to ensure you get the colour spot on. Lovely job - It's all coming together very nicely. Jerry

[mazungumagic]

Jerry,

 

Thanks for the help.

 

I've looked at a few sites about the paint and discovered various references to Eau-de-nil (Water of the Nile) as well as Sky Blue and Duck Egg Blue.

 

I called my usual paint shop yesterday but they couldn't find BS 101 (DEB) on their database. I will go back to them with the other number BS 381C 101 and find out if that registers a hit with them.

 

If nothing works, I'll use what I mixed up previously and used on the fan - you can see that in one of the more recent pictures.

 

 

Jack

[mazungumagic]

Found we had a problem when it came time to install the oil filter. The BSF type is clearly different to the UNF engine type, as is all the plumbing and we found that the BSF filter's top housing, was broken. As we couldn’t use the UNF engine oil filter, I had to go looking for one and I would guess that they are rare. Nevertheless, one was located in a friend’s parts collection and subsequently bolted up along with its plumbing. There’s quite a bit of plumbing on the RH side of the engine, but most of that is now in situ.

 

 

The other side is less cluttered

 

 

I did a bit of detective work looking for the Eau-de-nil/Sky Blue/Duck Egg Blue paint that every B series engine needs and discovered it wasn’t cheap – around $45 for one small (210ml) spray can or $42 for one litre. So I mixed up some of my own and the result is a quite reasonable match, I think.

 

Rather than install the engine in the vehicle – we still have some bits to bolt on and its much easier to do that with the engine on the bench – we got stuck into the remaining pieces of nicely shaped sheet metal, ie the bonnet, grill and rear mudguards. The bottom of the lip was reinforced by a second strip of thicker metal and the original as well as the reinforcement, were welded together. After some trial and error, the result was quite acceptable.

 

 

 

…. and in the process re-created the gentle swell of the bonnet edge from cowl to grill. It looks much better than the near right angle of the lip caused by the tear in the lip metal.

 

Then finished off the welding, grinding and panel beating of the sheet metal, before being trial fitted and bent that little bit further, to match up to each other. After all was pronounced acceptable, the items were given a few coats of primer.

 

 

 

The rear mudguards have been trial fitted, but we didn’t complete the preparation process on these, so they’ll be primed later.

 

A little more work will be done on the motor out of session and that may reach the stage where it can be fitted into the engine bay prior to a trial run, to check we have oil pressure and that the many connections are tight.

[fesm_ndt]

I did a bit of detective work looking for the Eau-de-nil/Sky Blue/Duck Egg Blue paint that every B series engine needs and discovered it wasn’t cheap – around $45 for one small (210ml) spray can or $42 for one litre. So I mixed up some of my own and the result is a quite reasonable match, I think.

 

 

I wonder why they would want to charge more....... maybe not a common used colour anymore? Hope youre up and running for ANZAC Day :-D

[mazungumagic]

G'day Mike,

 

Not sure that they wanted to charge more for this paint, but I am sure they wanted to charge a lot !

 

There's often a variety of solutions to any problem and I solve mine by mixing various paint colours, till I got what I think is fairly close to BS 101. That'll teach 'em.

 

ANZAC Day - not sure we have enough time left to get it to the start line, but we'll do our best.

 

 

Jack

[mazungumagic]

I’ve been having some issues over the last couple of weeks, with the front lifting bracket on this BSF engine. These brackets were revised on the later UNF engines and ended up being bolted to the front of the head, whereas the BSF variety were attached to the water pump.

 

The BSF lifting brackets were a welded steel plate (UNF were cast) and I could not understand how they were attached to the block/head, in the absence of any boss in the head or block to accommodate them. I asked the ACOC for help and both Stuart and John combined to give me a picture of the BSF item attached to a motor. The pic wasn’t all that clear, but given a certain amount of natural cunning and the revelation when I looked at two water pumps, that the backing plate on the BSF pump was longer and had holes to accommodate my bracket, the penny dropped noisily. I had been using a UNF type backing plate on my BSF water pump and the bracket had nothing to hang on to !

 

All fixed now, though I had to take numerous items off the motor (again) to fit the new backing plate and lifting bracket. Glad now that I used a non hardening gasket goo.

 

 

All this success is beginning to be fun.

 

 

So with that done, the top pulley and fan belts on though not yet tensioned, the donk looks like this now –

 

 

After a little bit of tweaking, we managed to get the gearbox bolted up to the engine and decided that before dropping the engine into the body, we should test the thrust bearing lever to ensure it was doing its job of disengaging the clutch plate from the flywheel.

 

It wasn’t !

 

We removed the gearbox and tried to think of the reasons why this system was malfunctioning, but apart from the notion of a clutch plate glued to the flywheel (after two weeks - unlikely !), we couldn’t. So the gearbox went back on and the inspection plate was removed to see what was happening when the thrust bearing was supposed to be in action.

It was immediately obvious that the pressure plate fingers badly needed adjustment as the thrust bearing was about 25mm away from the face of the pressure plate boss. Off with the gearbox and we adjusted the pressure plate fingers equally to narrow the gap. Put everything back on and we now had a working clutch which disengages the gearbox from the engine when the clutch is depressed.

 

 

On then to the remainder of the painting which saw the underneath of the bonnet get three or four coats, together with the reverse side of the newly cleaned and straightened bumper bar

 

 

 

These bits will be left to dry for a few days and then mounted. At that stage we can then give the body another three or four top coats and that job will be done.

 

The rear mudguards have also been given a top coat, where they will be attached to the body. The remaining primed area will be top coated once they’re attached to the vehicle, when we do the final spray.

 

 

The windscreen frames (inner and outer) have been painted as have the numerous small bits which are part of the vehicle makeup.

 

During the week, I’ll rub back any area we primed today and do all I can to get the engine ready for a trial start next week. We want to ensure we have our oil, water and fuel connections tight, our oil pressure system is working and there are no foreign noises, just a good healthy RR purr.

[mazungumagic]

The plan today, was

a. to rub down the Champ body

b. to give it the final few top coats, and

c. to start the engine on the ground, check for leaks and oil pressure, then instal it in the vehicle.

 

A tall order, given Murphy’s Law.

 

We did roll the vehicle outside and give it a light sand in preparation for the top coats. Achieved that one.

 

We also managed to get the engine started, though not without Murphy poking his head into our business.

 

We had the motor on the ground and supported on a variety of blocks, as well as being held in place by the engine lifter. Oh, I should mention here that the radiator was in place and filled with coolant. After having tightened a few Jubilee clips on sundry radiator hoses, which were somehow overlooked, we rigged up power to the starter and wiring to the coil and the solenoid. Nothing happened. We took the starter off and opened it up to check the innards were working properly – which they were and it spun when we connected power and activated the solenoid. It was about then we realised we needed an earth to the motor and that we needed to make sure the starter was effectively earthed as well. There was a lot of new paint around all metal surfaces.

 

Once that was taken care of, we started again and were rewarded by the sounds of an engine being turned by a willing starter. So, spark plugs back in, fuel up to the carby and a check on oil flowing to the filter and beyond and we were pleased to hear the engine cough to life. Another major milestone in the restoration story.

 

The installation of the engine was a very time consuming operation and a frustrating one at that. For the uninitiated, I can tell you there is very little room in the engine bay, for the motor. It was a significant struggle to get the damned thing in – putting it politely !

 

We had to remove the clutch actuating lever – that can’t go on till the engine is in place. We found out that that little bit scrapes its way all down the nicely painted chassis rail, if left on. The lowest and smallest water pipe into the bottom RH side of the radiator was catching on the front engine mount and had to be re-arranged to go under the mount. The engine lifting bracket (described in the EMERs) had to be relocated to alter the posture of the engine, to angle tail down and various other bodges had to be undertaken to permit the engine to sit on its mounts. A great deal of mucking about then occurred, once we tried to get the engine mount bolts into place. It was a frustrating time, made no easier by the precise nature of the bolt holes – a little flexibility here wouldn’t have hurt anyone. The job was not helped by the proximity of bulkhead to engine - not much more than a zillimetre there.

 

Anyway, we ended up getting all the engine mount bolts into place, despite one of the captive nuts on a (new) rear mount, breaking off (that shouldn’t happen, should it ?) – which actually made it easier to place a separate nut and bolt into the hole, unrestrained by an immovable captive nut. Up yours, Mr Murphy.

 

Here it is in the vehicle –

 

 

So we didn’t get to the point where we could give it the final top coats, but that’ll be a job for next week. At the moment however, there are a lot of ancillaries which can now be installed prior to the final coat and a start can be made on the electrics.

 

One other small success story, is that I found something I didn’t know I’d lost. Another radiator turned up and I was surprised to note it had a filter in the neck, held down by a circlip. I didn’t have one of these in my radiator, but now I do !

 

 

Concurrently, the windscreen glass is being cut for the inner frame and the front seats are being upholstered. I'll do the rear seats once I've repaired the seat base.

 

Next week a final coat, connecting lots of things up and resisting the temptation to go for a ride !

[Chrisg]

Looking good. Those rear engine mounting bolts are a real *******

[mazungumagic]

Chris,

 

On a normal engine/gearbox, you could fix the problem by jacking up the rear end of the box just a little and manoeuvering the mounts, to line up. As you'd be well aware, the suspension (torsion bars) on the Champ get in the way of that fix and don't allow a jacking point.

 

You learn a lot by doing - if there was a second restoration (there won't be !), we'd be streets ahead.

 

 

Jack

[mazungumagic]

After all the torment and fury of the past couple of weeks, we had a more subdued day today. Over the last week, the clutch linkage has been connected and a working clutch has been verified. The accelerator linkage has also gone in – that’s a doozy to install. It’s a job that would suit those equipped with universal joint fingers and ring spanners (wrenches) in lieu of finger nails. Nonetheless, another testing task completed. Headlights and sidelights are also in place.

 

Then it was straight into the final few coats of DBG – which curiously, turned out to be gloss finish, in lieu of the usual satin that we’d been using. It is not of huge concern – the paint finish will be more resistant to weather, though there will be a contrast between the exterior body and the interior, as we painted only the exterior today, finishing off the third 4 litre tin of DBG, in the process. More than I expected to use, but a solid coating of paint on the vehicle.

 

The job underway –

 

 

Finished painting and back inside -

 

 

 

More bits then went on including the air cleaner, which involved removing the carburettor venturi – not really surprised at that. Champ life wasn’t meant to be easy !

Most of the tyres/rims were removed and painted on both sides – noticed one of the tyres is flatter than the others and won’t respond to air pressure. The valve looks to be further down the valve stem than normal and that will probably mean pulling the thing apart and fitting a new tube.

 

Just thinking how far we’ve come in this restoration, as we approach the finish line. Here’s a pic from Day 1 -

 

[fesm_ndt]

They got their moneys worth out of those tyres. Amazing nowdays you have to be concerned about the date tyres are made as the die very quickly

 

I guess same can be said for a lot of things, windscreen wiper blades is another item that seems to get changed a lot more than when I was younger.

[mazungumagic]

We had a reduced crew at work today, there is some flu/pneumonia outbreaks around and we have not been spared.

 

Nevertheless, the task of bleeding the brakes was on the agenda and we managed to get that done without too many problems, though I must say the bleed nipples are not well sited. At the rear in particular, they are quite hard to grip with a spanner due to the many other bits vying for space there.

 

 

Anyway, the brakes were bled and we have quite a good hard pedal, though it is only about 40mm from the floor, so there might be a need to do some more brake shoe adjustments.

 

Some of the electrical cabling was inserted as well - mainly the big cables, from generator to generator panel and the one from the panel to the switchboard.

 

The bridge weight sign was bolted up and one of the horns I have been preparing, has been test fitted

 

 

 

I’ve been thinking about the position of the front indicators and found that there are few natural places for these. I’ve seen them on the front of the mudguards and bolted onto brackets on the side of the grill, but I’ve decided to place mine on brackets which I’ve now made up, to fit just above the bumper bar, using the two bolts holding each side of the bumper bar stays. I’ll include a pic of these next week, when I’ve got them finished/painted and fitted.

[mazungumagic]

First task today was the fuel tank guard which needed to be test fitted and then have the forward angle iron strengthener, tack welded, before being removed again to finish the welding on the bench. As has now become normal, very little lined up, probably due to the fact that the guard originated on a different vehicle and has also had a number of rust areas, patched. That would have caused a certain amount of distortion and the result was that one or two of the bolt holes in the rear, didn’t line up with the captive nuts in the body. That problem was soon eliminated, but we then found that four of the other holes (with captive nuts) which should have been in the rear body, weren’t. They hadn’t been noticed when we replaced the rear tow hitch panel. Anyway, that was soon fixed as well and the fully welded tank guard was then painted and left to dry.

 

 

Next task seeking attention, was the exhaust system. As everyone knows, the Champ system has a flexible steel pipe between the forward exhaust pipe and the muffler. We used some (expensive) stainless steel pipe here and the complete contraption was test fitted with excellent results.

 

 

Before that could happen however, the muffler needed attention. This seemingly enormous piece of kit, was well rusted at the rear flange. We wanted to use the original muffler we had and so we cut off around 25mm of the rear end of the muffler and welded on a new end plate, replacing whatever external and internal piping were affected, as we went. The result was pretty good and will hopefully provide a few more years of service to Champ #1824.

 

 

The indicators have been installed – but not yet wired up. I used some spare light fittings I had saved for a rainy day, at the front and some glass lensed types at the rear.

 

 

Last job of the day was to fit the inner windscreen, which took a fair bit of time as we found there was a clearance problem between inner and outer frames where they come together, at the bottom. We then noticed that a couple of the spot welds on the rolled steel edge at the top of the outer frame (into which, slides the inner frame) had broken away from the main tube on the right side and had to be removed for welding. Once that was done, we test fitted the inner frame and spent a good deal of time solving the fouling problem on the bottom of the frames. Finally got it more or less solved, but there is still very little room and that will be exacerbated, when it comes time to instal the rubber strip around the inner frame. We need to do more work here later.

 

Also got the snorkel in place.

 

 

The fuel tank saw a little attention today as well, with a start made on using the POR 15 internal tank sealer. Actually after reading the instructions, we shelved that task – there was talk in the data sheet about shaking the tank for twenty minutes, so there were no volunteers for that - yet. There was a large hole which had been punched in the front of the tank and “sealed” with a cork, so that seemed easy. The large soldering iron was found and we tinned up a bit of steel plate and sweated it onto the tank (hole).

 

Maybe we’ll get started on the POR 15 application next week – I’ll explain to my four co-workers the meaning of teamwork, ie if each of the mutinous swine pitch in, we’ll only need to agitate the tank for five minutes each !

 

[fesm_ndt]

The fuel tank saw a little attention today as well, with a start made on using the POR 15 internal tank sealer. Actually after reading the instructions, we shelved that task – there was talk in the data sheet about shaking the tank for twenty minutes, so there were no volunteers for that - yet. There was a large hole which had been punched in the front of the tank and “sealed” with a cork, so that seemed easy. The large soldering iron was found and we tinned up a bit of steel plate and sweated it onto the tank (hole).

 

Maybe we’ll get started on the POR 15 application next week – I’ll explain to my four co-workers the meaning of teamwork, ie if each of the mutinous swine pitch in, we’ll only need to agitate the tank for five minutes each !

 

I have to do a Ural tank and I am thinking of ratchet strapping it to a cement mixer bowel