Well, todays temps hit a nice dry 100 degrees, and I couldn’t think of a better thing to do than to pull the transmission out of the Rapier. Any sane person would have done this type of job in the morning, or at the very least pushed the car in the garage for some shade… but not me!
No siree BOB!!!
So just past noon, while the kids were at school, I wrestled that driveshaft and trans. Now, I suppose it would have been easier if I had removed the hood, and I imagine I woundn’t have gotten so much grease on my stomach if I was wearing some kind of shirt, but hey, it was hot, and I was in a zone, even if it was the dirtbag backyard mechanic zone.

I also pulled out the front and rear seats, and was disappointed to find a really rusty floor pan with and even scarier patch job. this might be a setback.

Tags: driveshaft,interior,transmission
Categories: transmission

I had a chance to go over the all of the engine tin once I got it back from Crown plating. For the most part, the tin pieces were in good shape and not real banged up. Some rusty pitting on some bits, but overall not terrible. The old issues that I could see that I would have to resolve before I started painting, was a cracked braze on the side cover vent tube and a broken weld on the oil pan splash guard. I had a bit of time to repair the vent tube, but the oil pan would have to wait.

With the tin nice and clean, the brazed crack was easily noticeable. I soaked the tin in brake cleaner to degrease the cracked area, and blasted it with an oxy/ace torch. After a few blobs of braze, the tin looked good as new, and ready to paint.

Tags: engine tin
Categories: engine

I spent most of the morning collecting parts today. First, I stopped by Six States and picked up the pressure plate and friction plate. As promised, they did them both for under a hundred dollars… SWEET!

Then, I picked up the radiator and fuel tank from Intermountain Radiator

And Finally, I stopped by Crown Plating, and collected the engine tin that I had acid dipped and chrome stripped.

Tags: clutch,fuel tank,radiator
Categories: clutch

I dropped the clutch friction plate and pressure plate off at Six States to be redone. They seemed to think that they would be able to overhaul both for under a hundred dollars….fingers crossed! The pressure plate didn’t look terrible, but being so old, the spring tension concerned me. The friction plate, however, was in sad shape; oil soaked and unevenly worn.

After returning home from Six States, I spent some time on the internet researching parts suppliers and engine coding information. I made a great discovery when I happened upon the Hillman Club of South Australia website and found this engine code page which linked to this page from Team.net. It was all the engine number information I would even need, thank you MR. INTERNET! But the discovery soon proved to be bitter sweet. It seems that the engine in our 1959 Rapier series 2 ( B1008462 H LSX) was originally from a Hillman Minx Series 111A De-Luxe Special (09/23/59). Major bummer, especially since the motor was suppose to be original.

Tags: clutch,engine
Categories: clutch, engine

I took apart the starter motor this afternoon to clean it out and check the brushes. I bench tested the starter, and to my surprise it functioned as it should. I was not thrilled about how the bendix gears looked, but my figured was that if the internals were ok, maybe I would just clean it and run it. Well, as luck would have it, as soon as I pulled the armature out of the case, one of the brushes broke loose from it’s crimp weld. A simple solder job would not fix it, so it looks like I’ll need to either get new brushes, or find a new starter. I do kinda have my eye on one of those fancy high torque starters that BritishStarters.com stocks. Hmmm…

Tags: starter
Categories: starter