April 2005

 

I'm a bit slow out of the blocks this month. I have been doing things but I am just finishing off small items until I get the new bonnet. Hopefully, by mid month ,it will be mounted on the car under primer with all the mods. I will add a bit more bracing as well  to combat the gas struts. Meanwhile, I am finishing off the glove box with the lining and paint. I will also get the dash finished off to the paint stage. A lot of the car is being taken apart and stored, so I will need to find some room.

 

I had pondered how to actuate the boot release for a long time. I knew it had to be via a solenoid. I had acquire one off Ebay but it was a bit bigger than I would have liked. It is a Falcon unit that I was anticipating mounting inside the boot lid. The amount of cutting and shutting had me looking for an alternative. I found an old bicycle brake cable and the ferrules to mount it, so I made the decision to remote mount the solenoid and use the cable. The first pic is the cable soldered into a small hole I drilled into the solid wire so it can be clipped to the lever and easily removed later.

 The second pic is the solenoid mounted under the rear parcel shelf ( for lack of a better name ) 
The only visible sign is the 2 mounting bolts. It should be accessible in the event of  failure but I do anticipate the trim covering the bolts. I will not think about that at this time and cross that bridge if I ever come to it.

The next pic is the route the cable takes to get to the latch. You can see a couple of extra holes in the bracing. I needed to clear a passage through the middle to route the cable. It was blocked with felt. A piece of welding wire pushed through the hole  done the trick. I am also going to mount a light in the rectangular hole, so apart from the wire for the switch in the handle to operate the solenoid, it will have one for the light via an inline mercury switch. The light will come on once the boot is raised above a certain point and go off when closed. That is the beauty of a mercury switch, no need for physical intervention.  The access holes will come in handy when I do the final assembly. Once its all finished, I will put in rubber grommets to hide them.
This is the view under the parcel shelf with everything in place. I welded on a small mounting tab for the cable to attach to. There is a spring connected to the cable to assist in taking the load off the latch lever spring. The solenoid is strong enough to handle the extra load. At this stage, the cables are joined together using a brass screw block but on final assembly, they will be soldered together. It all works well except for a fairly loud clunk when it operates. I think that will be reduced when its all together and insulated. One added bonus with the solenoid, is that it has an inline thermal switch ( I think ) that will only allow power to the solenoid for about 2 seconds. This is handy in the event the switch gets stuck or the wires short out.

Next pic is the new ( well actually 68 years old ) bonnet, seconds after it arrived on Saturday, sitting on the car. It is in better condition than I expected. I will send it off to the bead blasters through the week and have it under primer and back on the car next week end ( I hope ). This is another item I acquired via the internet. I sent the word out via the RRT forum, and here it is. Thanks to Steve up in Newcastle for selling it to me, and the rodders network in getting to me.
There are some positives to come out of the destruction of the original bonnet , here is the first. The first pic shows how neat the side of the new bonnet fits compared to the original bonnet on the right.
The next positive is I dissected the original bonnet for its bracing and hinge brackets. I had concerns that the gas struts were causing too much stress when I was closing the bonnet. I thought about adding extra bracing but couldn't quite come up with a good solution. So once the bonnet comes back from the bead blasters, I will spot weld them in. Am I bit gun shy welding on this bonnet?...too right !. I will use the mig with a brass bock under each spot. You can just see the strut brackets I made for the original bonnet. I drilled them off and will use them on the new bonnet. They will fit nicely with the hinge brackets. 

The next pic is the finished bonnet with the added bracing. This took longer than I anticipated. I had to re shape the brackets to fit the contour of the bonnet. After much tapping, bending and grinding it fits like it belongs. I also cut off and welded up the original mounting holes. This extra bracing has certainly strengthened up the whole bonnet and should cope with the gas struts nicely. The mig worked out well and there is hardly a blemish to be found. I used a wet rag to quelch each spot weld.
I stripped the bonnet with paint stripper because my regular bead blaster has become too greedy and was charging way to much for the job. The old paint hung on very well, but finally it was stripped clean. There was only one small dent that I fixed. I also welded up the holes in the front where the original handle lived as I won't be using it. This is the most assembled the car has been in 5 years. Next week I'll rub the guide coat off the guards and bonnet. I'll do any small repairs that I find, then remove it all and store it until I'm ready for paint.

Time to get some hired help in...well actually he volunteered!. This is the infamous "Rod Rider" ( aka Boris ) Usually seen with a camera around his neck at many rod events. He said he would like to get down and dirty, so I gave him my old cork block as soon as he arrived. He promptly got into his work clothes and started wet block  sanding the front of the 37. I took this pic to show he does get his hands dirty!
And here's the proof that he completed the job. Thanks for the help mate...much appreciated. His efforts were well justified. It disclosed a fair bit of sin still needing attention.

The next day I went to work with the jitter bug sander. What I originally thought was low spots, were in fact high spots. Only a small amount of bog needed to smooth it out.   The driver's guard appeared to be missing the mould line just at the front. It wasn't obvious until I was sanding them back and compared sides. So a bit of sculpting fixed that up.
This is what I was doing while Boris was sanding. I made a new, longer, "U" latch. This is the second effort as the first one was not right. I did intend to have adjusting nuts, so I tapped some thread on the bar before I heated and bent it into shape. That was a waste of time cause I made the latch too short and had to do away with the nuts. I welded it in place instead. I think it looks better anyway. If I need to adjust it, I will shim it. It works really well and now double latches as intended.
Well that's it for April. I didn't achieve all that I wanted, but thanks to Boris's help, I came fairly close. Next month might see a bit less progress as I have been told my brownie points bin is low, so I have to do a bit around the house.

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