Ian's 145 Expressions

It's been a while since my last post and there's not been much progress. I ordered some tubular rivets for the refabricated rear door panels. I found the original tops and painted them. I purchased some replacement pinch molding for the top of the panel and for the firewall seal and got busy. I made some plastic protectors from black poly sheeting to protect it from the back side too. I think it turned out ok. The 200W 6x9s sound pretty good too.

Yeah, there's 5 tubular rivets holding the metal to the wood.

Sitting in the drivers seat getting a massage listening to Evanescence with a few dBA. VERY comfy supple 140 leather seats. Australian leather is the best.

Back when I bought this project, the panel behind the seats was damaged, including a big hole. I had the panel replaced as part of the panel n paint process.

Unfortunately the cage suffered the same fate and hasn't been repaired yet. Here is the lower section after being removed from the mesh. It gives you some indication of the shape of the old panel. The cage bolts to the top of the panel.

This will be my next focus.

I've also taken a rear caliper to have the pistons hydraulically pushed out. One moved and the other didn't. My spares won't move either.

It was the last caliper too.

Received the stuck caliper back from the brake place after they disassembled it and hydraulically pushed the pistons out. It was definitely beyond the tooling that I have available. It turns out that it was mainly gummed up with something resembling petrified brake fluid and a small amount of corrosion after the seal. With a bit of polishing with fine wet and dry paper, removal of some rusty looking stuff from the housing after the seal and reassembly with a smear of Bendix ceramic caliper grease it's as smooth as they come.

Yesterday it was raining cats and dogs horizontally so the shed beckoned. I tried mounting the caliper, however the thread in the diff was corrupted in one mounting point, requiring the disassembly of the rear hub to access and tap out. Luckily I found a 7/16" UNF tap in my collection and cleaned out both threads.

While I was in there I checked the bearing (pristine!) and seal (probably will need replacing) as well as the handbrake system. As you'd expect, the handbrake mechanism was a little sticky, however a clean up with brake cleaner followed by a little ceramic grease, sparingly applied, the handbrake works well.

So everything is now assembled and the brakes bled on that circuit. The brake pedal is nice and firm like it should be. One step closer to being legal to drive to the paint shop to have the front resprayed and a few touch-up items completed.

Some items to clarify: both rear springs will be cleaned and painted this summer and that jack was not used to support the car (a solid jack plus another solid jack stand was used to support the vehicle).

Short update: now that the weather is fining up, she's booked in to go for a bit of a touch-up early next month. Basically a nose respray and a repair of a small rust bubble under the LHS of the windscreen and some paint under the master cylinder.

Time has come to get things moving again. The weather is turning to spring, the plums are flowering and the bees are busy. The last couple of weeks had me removing the booster, master cylinder and front brake lines. I cleaned out the back of the remaining few items, then realised that I had more work to do (including one of the runners to sand and varnish).

Today was the big day, so bright and early this morning it was loaded onto the back of the tilt tray and off to the paint shop minus those two floor panels in the rear. You see, those floor panels had years of engine oil damage that has seeped into the cracks, crevices and between the plies. While that is good for preservation, it is no good for paint.

So here I am today, running backwards and forwards to Bunnings to get the closest fitting formply to remanufacture the floor boards. It turns out that the original formply was 9 layers and 15mm thick. The closest available is 9 layers and 17mm thick. I think it will be ok. The side panel for the wheel well was too small in a number of dimensions, so it is a good opportunity to make it right. And now it fits like a glove.

It has been a few weeks since the last update and the old girl is being worked upon in the shop. I managed to get the panel for the fuel tank cover completed (the corners are routed out too). We'll see whether the 2mm thickness variance makes any difference.

Some of the exploratory work has been completed on the front, guard and bonnet. Not too bad for all things considering. The replacement guard had a little bit of damage and a previous repair. The panel shop will sort this out and match the panel to the curvature of the indicator lens bracket.

The replacement front section looks pretty good for sitting out in a paddock for years and being used as a paddock basher. The rusty part of this is limited to the mating surfaces with the engine bay.

The bonnet has suffered a little were it was chipped on the corners, but it is repairable. This will be blended back and the other poor adhesion areas will be repaired as well.

The worst part is in the engine bay where the brake fluid leaked out of the brake failure block. I have another brake failure block to go in and I'll make sure this doesn't happen again. The battery tray will get a bit of attention too.

I'm in the process of trying to source the remainder of the parts required to get it registered. One of the hardest things to find is a replacement rubber boot for the handbrake lever. If anyone has a spare, please let me know.

Hot off the press: I collected the old girl today. The paint shop did a good job of matching and blending the colour. There is a bit of orange peel that I'll get them to cut out (hopefully gratis) once I've got it registered, plus the inevitable touch up here and there. Now the months of elbow grease, repairing the remaining damaged items (i.e. hood lining), plating (+ waiting) and more waiting for new parts to arrive starts. I'll be removing the dash, heater and wipers again to realign the windscreen wiper spindles in their holes and address the lifting trim issue on the dash. Every step now is a step closer to finishing this long-term project. 50+ hour weeks at work will slow it down a bit. So many things to do to list them here.

Has your lockdown continued for 25 years so far? I know it might seem a bit like it.

Found a few hours yesterday and today to do a bit. Painted the underside of the floorboards as the top looks pretty good. I might have to get a router and take a 3mm off the edge piece to sit it down a little. The old floor was 15mm and 12mm, however noone makes 15mm ply and I can't be arsed planing it down 2mm. It fits well enough.

Today's job was fitting the original flooring strips and metal components to the boards so that it all fits together nicely. I think it turned out pretty well.

Used a bit of elbow grease to clean up the Aluminium pieces for the striker plate area. There is a slight difference between the 140 and 240 versions (1 hole).

After tidying up some wiring, installing a light switch (FYI the tailgate and glovebox light switch are the same) and fixing the strap for the spare wheel, I think it looks ok.

Now to try to find a triangular lock (or make something to fit) and to purchase a new rubber ring for the round hole. Apparently the striker bars may be NLA (one website has a listing for a 145 version!). Sifting through parts catalogues and transposing numbers is tedious work.

Sad news is that I found a crack in the tailgate near the LH hinge. I'll take the tailgate to a local bloke that works with carbon fibre and see what he can do.