Geoff's Exocet build - Basingstoke

[wishful4444]

You'll be attending this I presume.

www.bcot.ac.uk/subject-areas/engineering/xebl016/

[phaeton]

I didn't bother with the welding of the shaft, not sure what benefit it gives, I have a MK1 rack on the Mevster & a MK2 rack on the Exocet, both depowered & unwelded

[geoff]

Moving on nicely this morning....despite the rain again!

First off I picked up a mig welder from Bournemouth for £25 this week, so spent a little time getting it tidied up, removing all the flakey paint and checking it works. Powered on...the fan ran....and on pressing the trigger the wire feed kicked into gear...phew...just need to get some gas and I will then test it...it's a Clarke Turbo 130TE, should be OK for my minimal use. New tips also ordered, came with a spool of 0.8mm wire.....mask and gloves also sorted. I will be watching YouTube to learn and practising on what I have lying around for a few weeks and see how I progress.

Now back to the car....the plan this morning was to remove the hubs and arms....but....it was so easy, I ws expecting some fights with the long top bolt...nope...every bolt came out with out any issue....I am now using Plusgas to free up the bolts, on the back I used WD40...but I do not believe for one minute that was the reason for this...the front bolts all looked like bolts from a 60k miles car, as they should. The back end seemed way more corroded. I reckon it was parked nose into a wall or something that has kept it more protected than the back. My wife said..are you sure it is not 2 cars welded together!....No!

There was also some evidence of tinkering as well, maybe that is why, the nuts on the balljoints on the passenger side were not castle nuts, they were just standard hex nuts...The lower bolts on the drivers side needed a wire brush first to get a socket on, the passenger side did not...so I think someone has been here before.

Anyway all arms and hubs off, and time to spare...OK lets get the frame off...so I put a transmission jack under the gearbox and removed anything from under the engine and quickly took off the single nut on each side holding the frame on and off it came, with no bother and actually looks in pretty good shape.



So got the homemade cribs back in action and popped one under the engine to keep it all supported....all done...so now back to wire brushing it all, replacing balljoints, and painting it all up.

[geoff]

Aug 3, 2021 15:51:26 GMT phaeton said:

I didn't bother with the welding of the shaft, not sure what benefit it gives, I have a MK1 rack on the Mevster & a MK2 rack on the Exocet, both depowered & unwelded

From what I have read, welding it improves the feel, removes the minor play in the pinion shaft when it is depowered.

[geoff]

Aug 3, 2021 13:22:18 GMT wishful4444 said:

You'll be attending this I presume.

www.bcot.ac.uk/subject-areas/engineering/xebl016/

For my minimal use I think this will be overkill.

[geoff]

So a quick update on progress, the front frame and arms are all done, no dramas, bushes removed with no issues using my home made method and new poly bushes in. I managed to pick up a much larger vice, from a local chap that had no further use for it, £15 and deal done, very heavy and a massive jaw gap, that made inserting the bushes much easier.

I have it all back on, just waiting on new castle nuts for the ball joints, all ball joint gaiters replaced.



A bit of a messy pic, but this kinda tells the story of the tight space I am working in, a single garage.

I have started to de-power the rack and managed my first weld to plug the connectors, very chuffed, I need to grind it down a bit more but looking good for my first go.



The wire feed on the welder was very hit and miss, so new liner on order, and will probably replace a few other parts on it, now that I know I can do it and fundamentally the welder works. New it was over £250, I paid £20 for it, so if I spend a few quid on consumable parts I will still be quids in.

And the big news......some of you will have been waiting for this.....and some have been asking why I have not done this already.........finally I am going to do it....so yeah not quite yet.......but yes ......today I will order the kit !!!!

[Stewart]

Wooooohoooo!!!

[geoff]

Not too much to update on this week, I received a new Teflon wire sleeve for the welder, installed that today and now I have a great cheap welder! Managed to get the other two power steering lines plugged up: 


Whilst organising the order for the kit, I noticed the wheel guard mounts and that the front ones mount on the dust guard bolts on the front....and on one side all three of mine are sheared off....so back on the bench and drilled those out, I used reverse drills and tried an extractor but each one was not moving, so resigned to just drilling a clean path to be able to mount with standard nuts and bolts. On the other side I only have one sheared and I will tackle that tomorrow.

[geoff]

Hi, Just been working on the steering rack and de-powering it, got the pinion off and cannot fathom why I need to weld it, following a Youtuber on which part to weld and I cannot see that the parts move independently at all:  




Now thinking that I won't bother with welding...any views on this?

[phaeton]

I didn't & still don't understand why they do, but what do I know?

[hutchey]

Just loop the pipe and be done with it.

[geoff]

Hey....So the steering rack is all back on now, de-powered, not welded....the large retaining nut to adjust the spring tensor, has to be torqued at something like 5lbs...and I pulled out my 1/4" draper torque wrench to find it didn't torque wrench at all, something is buggered with it, it just keeps tightening with no stop. I have probably only used it once....not sure if a calibration will do the trick, some research required on this....so I have guessed the torque for the moment, pending getting the torque wrench sorted. 

I also removed the PS pump bracket from the engine to tidy it all up. There are three bolts and one of them is blocked by a sleeve...a small length of old M8 stud that was in the odds and sods bin, passed through the front bolt hole, then screwed a bolt onto the end against the sleeve, and gave the other end a few whacks with a club hammer....a bit of Plusgas before I started and it slid out of the way to get the bracket off.




The crank pulley has been bugging me, very rusty, so wire brushed that and a coat of black paint, will probably need another coat before I am happy, and the pulley above will have to come off to remove the corrosion too...and the alternator pulley.

Whilst doing all this I am wire brushing the brake callipers, getting them prepped for paint....thinking orange.

[geoff]

Water pump pulley and alternater pulley sorted and brake callipers all wire brushed and Dremel carbon brushed in the difficult to reach areas...need to order up replacement rebuild kits for the callipers and orange paint.


 

[o55ie18]

Sept 19, 2021 6:11:04 GMT geoff said:

Water pump pulley and alternater pulley sorted and brake callipers all wire brushed and Dremel carbon brushed in the difficult to reach areas...need to order up replacement rebuild kits for the callipers and orange paint.


 

Hi Geoff, great thread and some good work here. Currently building my own as well and iv just done my brakes. If you haven't purchased the parts yet, I found a seller on the auction site called 'Frentech-uk' which do all the rebuild kits. The price for the full kit for mine was £54.95. I also then ordered caliper paint (also orange) from the rainforest website and this has given a lovely finish (the pictures are on my thread, 2nd page). Personally if I was to do it again I would have the powder coated for simplicity but still, tiv done them now and they are a decent finish.

Keep up the good progress mate

[geoff]

Sept 29, 2021 6:34:01 GMT o55ie18 said:

Sept 19, 2021 6:11:04 GMT geoff said:

Water pump pulley and alternater pulley sorted and brake callipers all wire brushed and Dremel carbon brushed in the difficult to reach areas...need to order up replacement rebuild kits for the callipers and orange paint.


 

Hi Geoff, great thread and some good work here. Currently building my own as well and iv just done my brakes. If you haven't purchased the parts yet, I found a seller on the auction site called 'Frentech-uk' which do all the rebuild kits. The price for the full kit for mine was £54.95. I also then ordered caliper paint (also orange) from the rainforest website and this has given a lovely finish (the pictures are on my thread, 2nd page). Personally if I was to do it again I would have the powder coated for simplicity but still, tiv done them now and they are a decent finish.

Keep up the good progress mate

Thank you. I have used Frentech before, they are very good. I struggled to find the right kits though as the calliper diameters were different to what I have.