"Project Bantam" - Orange

All the de-rusting, blasting, bodyfiller, and sanding has culminated in this weekend of painting.  A six-pack of Kubota Orange tractor/implement paint has transformed the pile of tractor parts.  Only the hood has too many imperfections for my liking.  It will have to be sanded down again and re-sprayed.  They body looks good enough, as do the grill and fenders.

  

The basketball hoop in the driveway served as a great location to paint the body.

The only part which hasn't been painted now, is the engine.  I still need to come up with a plan for the exhaust and muffler.

 

The front wheel assembly went back together easily. The new design for the wheel bearings should be much more reliable.  I can't wait to mount the rear wheels and pillowblock bearings I bought to replace the rear axle bushings (which looked rather sorry and worn).

For now the paint must dry and I can drink a beer with a sense of accomplishment.  After getting everything painted, I'll need to purchase a set of new fasteners.  Tractor Supply sells fasteners by weight, so I'll have to compile a shopping list soon.

"Project Bantam" - I was rebuilding a tractor wasn't I?

There have been delays in the progress.  I had to use someone else's sand blaster to strip the frame, since my compressor couldn't muster the pressure needed.  It all turned out rather well.  I had to fix some structural items and prime it immediately to prevent surface rust.  It turned out rather well, but still needs some more structural work before continuing the body work.

Just to remember how bad it was, it sat under this tree for YEARS.

The structural welding is done, and the body work is complete.

The next step is to start applying the final paint coats.  I'm going with the Kubota color in enamel.  Its not as pleasing to me as the Allis Chalmers orange, but the Kubota color is closer to the original as far as I can see.  Reassembly of the body is just around the corner.

In other news, the front tire went on the rim easily.  I also had to re-design the front wheel bearings.  I used sealed bearings in the center, a set of spacers, and some flanged bearings on the outside with another set of spacers.  To keep the spacers from falling out, the whole assembly will need to be arranged with a dummy-shaft, and then the axle bolt inserted once placed in the steering yolk.

(Poor little guy just woke up from his nap)

Rootes Radio Console - Auxiliary Input

Having a car with an antenna, but no radio under the dash, was a situation I needed to remedy.  However locating a good radio and console for a British car from the 1960's proved to be a challenging and expensive task.  Having one that worked was a bonus.  When I finally found one worthy of my Series 3 Alpine, I set out to modify it so that it was useful for more than just AM broadcast radio.

The radio I managed to obtain was a Rootes-labeled Motorola 515T, which came out of a Series 2 Alpine.  The brightwork looked reasonably good, and all the parts were there.

 

 

 

Wisely, I didn't believe the label that read that the radio was set up for positive ground, because someone had already made the negative ground modification.  It was wired for sound, and when the switch was turned on, it sounded beautiful.  I cleaned up the mechanisms and put some fresh grease on the moving parts.

 

Now the challenge was to identify where the amplifier input was.  The easiest thing to do is to look for the leads going to the volume control.  This particular model is delightfully simple and almost elegant.  The power supply and amp section is a separate section at the back of the radio.  The volume control leads go under the RF/IF section and simply solder to the amplifier board.  Here's the challenge with that.  The common of the amplifier is tied to +12v rather than the chassis of the radio.  That means if I want to power my MP3 player off the car electrical system, I'll need a method of isolation since the audio common of the MP3 player sits at chassis potential.

To insert the signal to the amplifier before the volume control, I had to grind off the board trace between the CW lead of the volume control and the radio's preamp output circuit.  The idea was to install a switch to go between AM audio and Auxiliary audio.  To make this seamless the switch would be internal to the radio, and actuate at the far end of the tuning band.  This proved very simple with the addition of a microswitch and a small bracket.

The orange wire on the far left of the board trace is where I ground off the board to reach the CW terminal of the volume control.  This went to the NC terminal of the microswitch.  The volume control CW terminal was wired to the black wire which went to the Common terminal of the microswitch.  The final wire was a grey wire that I connected to the NO terminal of the microswitch and out the back of the radio, along with a wire attached to the CCW terminal of the volume control.  When the microswitch closes at the far end of the tuning band, the signal input for the volume control is taken from the leads going out the back of the radio.

The ground potential problem of the audio signal was solved with an isolation transformer.  I rummaged 'round in the junk box for a small transformer with about 500ohms impedance on the output winding, and a 200ohm impedance on the input leads.  This arrangement worked fairly well and yielded acceptable sound quality, as long as I didn't try to connect up both stereo channels.  I'll just modify the MP3 player decoder chip for Monoaural output.

The console enclosure was painted with a satin finish, and the components were re-assembled.  It cleaned up nicely with just some mild hand soap and a toothbrush.  All bright surfaces were then treated with a wax to protect them from corrosion.

The next challenge was to install the radio in the car, without any of the original brackets.  I did have some heavy flat stock available to make brackets to suspend the radio from the underside of the dash.  There are two rails that go from the dash back to the firewall.  These do have many holes already available for attachment.  The console was propped into position using shim wedges against the transmission hump to bring it up to the correct height, center it to the gear lever, and level it.  Using a cardboard template, the brackets were sized in-position, then the flat stock could be drilled accurately and formed to fit.  

The MP3 player sits under the dash and out of sight.  It can be controlled by IR remote if needed.  The Series 3 is now wired for sound.

Sunbeam S7 spit as polish

The brightwork on KYL95 certainly has lots of patina. I thought perhaps too much. Some of the rust on the handlebars is just surface rust. Yes there is pitting, but its not bad. The headlight surround is also ugly, but not really bad.

I was searching for methods of chrome cleaning that won't marr the surface and came across some discussions involving aluminum foil and water. It sounded reasonable. The aluminum is soft and won't scratch steel or chrome. The water provides slight Aluminum Oxide to build up, which provides the slight chemical reaction and mild abrasive action.

Mothers polish is just too abrasive.

I tried it on an inconspicuous spot and was pleased with the results. Working upside-down the water tended to run off, so I spit on it. That worked even better than water.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but it looks so much better maintaining a level of patina without the rust layer.

Sunbeam S7 clutch cable

KYL95 needed a new clutch cable. The original was beginning to fray around the upper ferrule. (I've been stranded with a snapped clutch cable and its not worth the risk.)
I obtained a Venhill universal cable kit.  It came with the following parts and a nice set of directions on how to make up the cable properly. Many of the pieces I didn't plan to use, but everything was there.
Stripping the original cable off showed the poor condition of both the sheath and cable. I was mainly concerned with the fraying, but the bends in the cable were making more slop than needed in the adjustment.
The new sheath was cut to length, and routed with the end cap that came with the kit fitted to the clutch lever.  The ferrule was slid up tight and pulled tightly by hand with the adjustment fully retracted.  The cable was then kinked to one side indicating the correct length. I then manually made a birdcage shape at the end and soldered the ferrule in place.
The cable is now straight and pulls much easier through the nylon-lined sheath.

"Project Bantam" - Tire Mounting

It turned out the best place to obtain the Carlisle Power Trac rear tires was Walmart.  They had them the following day, and there were no shipping charges.

The rims were de-rusted and the rust holes were filled in with bondo and glazing putty.  The top coat was a matte finish to hide my poor bodywork skills on curved surfaces.

 

The tires went on easily with new inner tubes.  The 4.8" width is marginal compared to the original 5.0".  They really do look good though.

"Project Bantam" - Carb corrosion

While this doesn't look too bad on the outside, inside lurks horrible corrosion to haunt your dreams.

Finally managing to coax the carb apart exposes the full horror of how much corrosion can actually enter a carburetor.  The float was split from freezing, and also made concave in one area due to the pressure of ice under it.

I've never met a float that I couldn't solder back together, and this was no exception.  I can solder anything.  It took a few hours of cleaning, careful straightening, and reforming.  The difficulty was in the brittle nature of the inner side walls.  They had to be tinned from inside and out.  I don't know if it will hold up in the long term, but its water tight now.

The final product looks fairly good. I spent an entire afternoon with the top of the carburetor in the lathe truing up the mating surfaces of the flanges.  The screw tabs were bent from over-tightening, and prevented the whole assembly from fitting together correctly without any air leakage.

It will be seen whether the corrosion of the thread holding the main jet (which prevented its removal) is problematic.  The only issue now is to set the float level and find a packing nut for the main jet adjustment needle.

On a side note, the main jet of the carb had to be drilled out to fit the new one I bought in a Stens 520-049 rebuild kit (original B-S kit # 394693).  The Stens needle valve kit 525-246 (original B-S kit # 99525) will have to wait until I can clean the tapped hole in the body with a 5/16-32 bottoming tap (once I get one).