ARM RESTING

For some while I have been cutting lengths of 22mm pipe insulation to make arm rests for Marjorie. Good thing that they are only 92p for a metre length as it has taken four goes to get the right fit, that is, tucking in neatly at the front end and slipping in at the side of the back rest.

Having got them carved correctly, it was time to cover them and a metre of black leatherette fabric was ordered from an EBay supplier.

I covered the drivers side first, I used spray on impact adhesive to wrap the fabric around the foam, having first checked on an off-cut that the glue didn't melt the foam, I then trimmed and stuck down the ends by brushing on the adhesive and the finished item looked good, that was until I fitted it on the car. As I spread the foam roll to go over the side rail a large, irregular ridge of loose leatherette appeared along the top, disappointing!

OK, so it would probably be best to glue the fabric onto the foam with it in place on the car. With the fabric cut for the passenger side and lots of masking off, the glue was sprayed  and the fabric applied and smoothed down. I waited fifteen minutes or so before I removed the foam from the side of the car and then I sprayed the remainder of foam and fabric and tucked the fabric around all of the edges.

When I fitted the finished passenger side arm rest it looked just perfect, no wrinkles and neatly filled the gaps fore and aft. I am going to have to lash out another 92p for one more length of foam pipe insulation, at least I have got plenty of black leatherette fabric left over, but I am going to have to redo the drivers side.

There is a small quadrant of exposed fiber glass at each end of the dash board, above the new armrest, that still needs to be filled and I will cut a thin piece of board to fit this area and wrap it in the leather cloth to neatly trim this area.

Other jobs to be done, is to start preparing Marjorie for the MSVA test by removing all the bits and bobs, such as, spot light, honky horn and eagle mascot and fit the bull bars to the front.

MOT'D

The first step towards registration has been achieved, Marjorie passed her MOT test with no problem.

Actually Marjorie didn't need to have a MOT test as the MSVA test is the big one, which if passed allows registration, but it is considered a good idea to have an MOT test first as it will highlight any potential problems.

The six and a half mile journey through busy South London roads was nerve racking, but was achieved with only one engine cut out whilst waiting at traffic lights. The next nerve racking time was driving the car over the pit and lining the rear wheel up with the very narrow centrally placed U channel, but the tester waved me on accurately and all was well.

I stopped on the way back at the Goat pub for a celebratory pint and to phone my long suffering wife with the good news and to take a couple of photos. First one off Marjorie basking in the sunshine in the rather scrubby car park and the second one of that all important piece of paper.

The MOT appointment nearly got cancelled, as on Wednesday, during a final drive around the block, the front brakes locked up again and I had to ask a local resident for a bucket of water to cool them down. My build buddy Pete had said previously that it shouldn't be necessary to skim the pads and Arthur came up with various suggestion to track down the problem. After a sleepless night and lots of head scratching, all it took was 1/8 of an inch adjustment to the length of the master cylinder actuator rod to allow it to fully retract into the cylinder when I took my foot of the brake pedal, problem solved. Hooray.

SKIMMING THE SURFACE

I've sorted the brakes and it didn't take three hours, nothing like it.

Removing the pads was only possible by first unbolting the callipers from the support brackets and pulling the callipers complete with pads off the discs, it was easy then to remove the pads.

One by one I gripped them in the vice and applied an abrasive disc to the surface of each pad, which took only a few moments. When I put pads back in the callipers and bolted the callipers back on, the wheels spun freely, job done I thought. A couple of runs around the block and the brakes didn't lock on and the discs were only warm, but job only half done, for when I firmly pressed the brake pedal the back wheel locked up long before I felt the front brakes bite.

Not surprising really as my assault with the angle grinder and abrasive disc was a bit brutal. I put on the thinking cap and pondered how I could get a uniformly flat surface to each pad and eventually I got the answer.

The answer was my electric drill fitted in my cheapo drill stand and with a large router cutter fitted in the drill. I lightly oiled the the base of the drill stand so that the back of each disc would slide easily on it. Next stage was to lower the drill and cutter so that it touched the pad, I then slipped the pad out and lowered the drill and cutter by a tenth of a mil. With the drill revolving at its fastest speed I pushed a pad back under the cutter and it started to skim away the surface, I kept moving the pad around until all of the surface was moving freely under the spinning cutter.

There was an area of the pad that was still lower than the rest of the surface, so I went through the same procedure, lowering the cutter by a tenth of a mil. and after the pad had been under the cutter this time,  the whole surface was absolutely flat. The same procedure for the other three pads and then back in the callipers and back on the car and out for a test run. Perfect! I nearly hit the little Brooklands windscreen, full braking power restored and no over heated discs.

The only mistake I  made was when I took the photo I had my phone on video, at least I now know how to upload a video clip to the blog site and apologises for the appalling quality. Ohh, by the way, I wore a face mask all the time I was grinding and skimming the pads, I know they don't contain asbestos anymore, but I still didn't want to be breathing in any of that dust.

ON GUARD

They're on at last, the mudguards that is. I collected them from Arthur, Monday week ago, the pair of universal, stainless, rear, bike mudguards, aluminium stays and a pair of steel brackets that Nigel the blacksmith had fabricated, to fit under the top of each guard.

The stays were easy to fit, one set just bolt onto the back of each hub carrier and the lower stays bolt onto the back edge of the calipers, by replacing a bolt with much longer one. The guards were much to big and would need a chunk cutting off, I placed one of the guards on the wheel with what I thought was sufficient overhang at the front and determined how much to remove. A cutting disc in the angle grinder made short work of that. The steel bracket I bolted on to the vertical stay, set the mudguard onto it and marked out the drill centers.

 

With the mudguard bolted onto the top steel brace, I turned my attention to fitting the lower brace to the guard, I think the intention was to just bolt the stay onto the side of the guard, but I thought the result would be a bit flimsy. I ordered through EBay a half metre of ally strip, 1in x 1/4in and did a bit of forging, trying to match the proper blacksmith's steel one. Blowtorch a hammer and my big vice and the angle grinder and the finished result wasn't far off the pattern.

 Again centers marked and drilled and the brackets attached to guards and stay, with a angled spacer in between and I finally had a pair of rigidly attached mudguards.

I also got to fit the old bike silencers and as I hoped, on a couple of circuits of the block, the engine was now pulling well with no hesitation up the hill, great. The look is compromised, but I will leave these pipes on for the MSVA test, but after the test I will have to experiment with the Brookland cans by gradually reducing the amount of stuffing until I get the same level of power. 

However by the end of the second circuit the car started to slowdown and eventually stalled as I tried to get back up my drive. Both front brakes were smoking and the brakes were fully locked on and the car was going nowhere. I got the brakes to free up after continuously splashing water onto them to cool them and was able to continue up to my garage. The front wheels had always taken some effort to turn them by hand whilst the car had been on the trestles. I assumed that when rolling, the pads would quickly be worn down, but obviously sufficient heat was being generated to gradually expand the discs and eventually lock the brakes up. I will have to remove the pads and grind them down to provide sufficient clearance to allow the wheels to spin freely, allow an hour, but will probably take three.

MORE FIDDELING

The recent spell of good weather and the fact that she is on wheels, has allowed me to work on Marjorie outside in the sunshine.

When I launched Marjorie the long, side panels were only temporarily fitted, just in case I needed to get at anything, but once I was happy that everything seemed fine, I decided it was time to glue and rivet both side panels onto the chassis. First both panels had to come off and the chassis and the panel edges wiped down with white spirit to ensure the adhesive stuck properly. I had kept the tube of adhesive in doors to keep it warm and I was able to place two fine beads, either side of the rivet holes. The amount of glue was just right, with the minimum being expelled as the rivet gun pulled the panel and chassis together. The job was soon completed with very little mess to clean. Although I deployed my compressor and pneumatic rivet gun, for these little 3.2 rivets I found my old, hand pop riveter to be quicker.

Another job was to fit the seat belts, Arthur advised me as to what and where, and Stafford Vehicle Components provide me with a pair of static rear seat belts. It was only when I sat in the seats and adjusted the belts that I realised that long, over the shoulder straps, should cross over at the top of the back rest on way to their respective anchorage points. So it was off with the barrel back again to allow access and swap them over, it looks right now.

I said earlier that I was not happy with the engine, I hope I have identified the problem, if not yet fixed it. I had pulled out the old Moto Guzzi silencers to fit them for the MSVA test as I thought they would be quieter than the Brooklands. I chopped off two 4in lengths from each of the bikes old header pipes, to act as a reducer for the cars smaller side pipes. I got one silencer ready and popped it on in place of the Brooklands and started the engine and it actually sounded louder than my stuffed Brooklands silencer on the other side of the car.

Have I overstuffed the Brooklands? resulting into much back pressure, that might explain the loss of power as I climb a slight hill on my test runs around the block, she's fine on the level and downhill. Next job then, is to semi permanently attached the old bike silencers to the car and do a few runs around the block and see if she pulls better, if that is the case then I will have to start fishing some of that stuffing out of the Brookland silencers. Fingers crossed that it is as simple as that.

I'VE GOT IT COVERED

The hubs that is. I contacted a small firm of precision engineers, based in Sussex, they had originally modified my wheel hubs, before WheelWise laced the hubs and rims together. They quoted a week to make the three hub covers and true to their word they called me on Thursday to say they were ready, the next day I went and collected them. Superb, they fit perfectly and all I now need are the mudguards and stays and Arthur is getting that organised as I type

The other outstanding job was finding out why the speedometer wasn't working. I managed to wiggle my way in between pipes and cables, detach the cable and extract the worm drive from the gearbox, all fine there. Eventually I realised that the ferrule at the instrument end of the cable had worked loose, effectively shortening the length of the inner cable to the extent it wasn't locating in the square drive at the gearbox end.

I pushed the ferrule back on, temporally connected up the speedo and tried it out and it worked fine. I was able to do this as the reversing box has a central neutral position, with the engine running and in first gear the gearbox turned over, but drive wasn't passed onto the back wheel, allowing me to see the speedo working without leaving the garage. I fixed the speedo back into the dash and ticked another job of the task list. Just want to get the number plate to fill that space between the rear lights.

FIDDELING AND FETTLING

Wow! I had to come down to earth after Marjorie's big day and get on with all the little jobs that became apparent after a quick run around the block.

But first thanks to Dejavw for his comment and Jacquie hopes that his reference to co-pilot relates to her, rather that five year old Emily. Also thanks to Dave from California and Sean for your good wishes.

First thing that needed attention was the tickover, I couldn't keep the engine running without choke. I ordered a pair of vacuum gauges, removed bonnet and engine cowling, connected the gauges and got the carbs balanced and ticking over at 1000RPM, but the gauges reacted differently as I opened the throttle, so I readjusted the tappets and now the gauges respond pretty much in the same way, hopefully that will stop the right cylinder running much hotter, indicated by the bluing of the header pipe. Engine not quite right yet, maybe the change of silencers and air filters requires the carbs to be re-jetted, a few more runs around the block required to determine.

Other jobs attended to was readjusting the gear linkage as initially I could only get 1st and just about 2nd gear. I moved the leaver back one spline on the shaft from the box and that made a big difference, but getting into 1st and and changing down was now difficult, fortunately every part of the linkage is adjustable so by shortening the final rod, I got it just right and now I can go up and down the box without a problem, for smooth down changes she still needs a blip of throttle,but it always did on the bike.

I have made basic adjustments to the steering; toe in and camber and Marjorie rolls much more freely now. The wheels looked nearly parallel whilst she was on the trestles, but tyre marks on the ground indicated I had far too much toe in. The steering wheel is now out of center and will have to be
adjusted accordingly.

By placing a chromed plastic edging strip around the rear I have tided up the back end, although It will have to come off when the barrel back, along with the other panels, are sent for spraying.

Next job is to find out why the speedo is not working and to glue and rivet the right side bottom panel in place. Plenty more jobs to do yet.