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Tuesday 11th November 2008

Made a couple of thicker wooden tracks for the front seat so the seat is elevated slightly from stock. Did this in the garage at home cut a length of square timber to size, marked and drilled the bolt holes and cut the slotted hole with a jig-saw. Next chased around for a 6V 'flasher' can with 3 terminals to use with the new wiring harness in the '41. First tried the local Repco shop, Australian auto parts chain - result no 6V flasher cans. Then a specialist auto electrician, Tibby Rose - same result. Last Performance Engineering, a specialist volkswagen repair business - same again, although the guy said he might have one but wasn't prepared to search for it as he was too busy at present!
!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, arrived at the workshop late morning and started by taking out the metal pedal/steering column plate and cleaned it up ready for painting. Then looked at the headlight buckets one of which has some rust around the edge but is still serviceable, I think. Need to discuss this with Wade, but because he wasn't in today will catch him tomorrow about this and some other matters.

Next was modifying the front kick panels so that the courtesy lights, rather than hanging from the lower edges of the dashboard, were fitted into stamped holes located perfectly in the lower structure of the body bracing there. Now, I'm not great when it comes to fabrication type work, but I understand the best way to do things like this is carefully by measuring at least twice and cutting once. So there was a LOT of measurements taken on the left kick panel as well as carefully eyeballing it and the holes it clips into and the hole in the structure where the courtesy lamp body will sit. Back to the bench and careful marking on the fibre back of the kick panel to find the centre of the hole to be punched through the fibre and upholstery. Wade has a great punch set of various sizes up to 1" as well as a few custom made punches for larger sizes, Determined the 1" size would be perfect for the job at hand and a couple of good solid whacks later - a nice hole. Back to the '41 then my jaw dropped, somewhere between the measurements and marking them on the back I'd turned the kick board around! After I picked my jaw off the floor of the '41's cabin what was there to do? Why carry on of course, but this time cut it in the correct position! Didn't have another kick panel so this customised one with a 'ventilation hole' will suffice to start with. This time managed to cut the hole in the correct place! But on trial fitting the light and the kickboard found the hole needed to be larger because the bezel and glass won't clip through the depth of the fibreboard and upholstery. And as well I had to cut a square piece out of the top of the fibreboard to accommodate the tail on the body of the light. Accomplished all this then turned to the right side kickboard and I'm pleased to say I did learn from my earlier mistake.

It'll be good to see Wade back tomorrow. Although even he couldn't have saved me from my self inflicted SNAFU!

Pic's for Wednesday 5th November

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Pic's for Thursday 6th November

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Pic's for Friday 7th November

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Pic's for Monday 10th November

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Pic's for Tuesday 11th November

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Wednesday 12th November 2008

At the workshop found that Wade had picked up the EE?? carb from Carburettor Service Company(CSC) yesterday for Kevin's '35 remounted it and the '35 was running again. Albeit, not as well as Wade had hoped. Because the carb was assembled from three different carbs when re-built, there are slight differences between the top, middle and base pieces. These differences appear to be preventing adjusting the idle/mixture satisfactorily. Wade proposes to take the '35 over to CSC next week and leave it with then so they can fix it hands on once and for all. During the course of the morning Kevin arrived and was given a demonstration of how much better the '35 was now running but still with room for improvement. Also talking to Kevin, he indicated he'll probably sell the '35 in the near future once he gets it back on the road.

But back to the '41. Spent time today mounting the voltage regulator and relay to the firewall (I think these are what they are, as my identification of electrical items is somewhat lacking). As well as routing part of the new harness through a re-grommeted hole in the lower left corner of the body. Connecting up the new horn relay wiring. Re-installing the high beam switch and it's new wiring. Mounting retaining clips on the firewall to position the new harness. Doesn't sound like much but visible progress is being made and by checking and re-checking along the way to ensure the right connections are being made, problems should be avoided. Then a bit of R & R - Off to see the grand-daughters in the afternoon.

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Mal,
I would hate to mislead you, but I am about 99% sure about this; the demister (defroster here in America) hoses should each connect to the outlet on each side of the defroster. The reason is, the defroster draws warm air out of the heater, and discharges it out both of the outlet tubes to send up to the outlets. The T setup you have will send half the warm air to the T and the other half lost out of the open discharge on the right.

I hope this helps, I only know this because I just worked on the heater / defroster in my car.

Jim

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Jim,

Thanks for the heads up. There was some discussion about the inlet? or outlets on the demister blower. I'm posting before and after pic's of the heater and think I see what you're getting at. I thought there was an inlet and an outlet for the demister blower motor but your explanation makes sense.

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Mal,
I have a slightly earlier deluxe heater / defroster (demister) set up. It looks basically the same in function as yours. The bottom of the blower is open, and the top of the heater box has an opening. The defroster draws through the heater box and discharges out the two cylindrical outlets to the left and right.

My heater box had a removable plate to remove and piggyback the blower motor.

Off to the PI meet with the car at Lake Havasu in the morning, be back Sunday; look forward to hearing what you discover on this.

Best of Luck,
Jim