1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Now with matching retro caravan..

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Re: HB rustwagon. Getting a bit carried away...

Postby jpsmit » Tue Nov 01, 2016 1:18 pm

You are a genius! (and Hannah is amazing)

Can you say a little more about repairing the dash? I have to do it and am not at all sure how to proceed.
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Re: HB rustwagon. Getting a bit carried away...

Postby yoeddynz » Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:05 pm

Hannah just told me this..
She masked the cracks as close to the edge as she could,
put body filler in,
sanded it flat,
took off the tape,
carefully sanded it smooth,
painted it by brush with satin black enamel. This happened to match the dash well.

Finally a good dose of amorall a week later once the paint was well set.

Its not perfect, you can make out the repairs but you have to be looking. Im stoked with it! Cheers Hannah!!! :thanx:
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Re: HB rustwagon. Getting a bit carried away...

Postby jpsmit » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:29 am

Thanks but what is amorall?
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Re: HB rustwagon. Getting a bit carried away...

Postby chrismc » Wed Nov 02, 2016 7:22 am

jpsmit wrote:Thanks but what is amorall?


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_All
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Re: HB rustwagon. Getting a bit carried away...

Postby jpsmit » Wed Nov 02, 2016 12:54 pm

chrismc wrote:
jpsmit wrote:Thanks but what is amorall?


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_All


Got it - I sometimes have troubles with a New Zealand accent :mrgreen: :lol:
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Re: HB rustwagon. Getting a bit carried away...

Postby rizzo » Wed Nov 02, 2016 7:15 pm

ill be having words with my missus i reckon, see if she will help me out, i doubt it somehow.
Nice to see you hard at work again, shes coming on, the car that is! :D
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HB 4000 1968 Green
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Re: HB rustwagon. Getting a bit carried away...

Postby yoeddynz » Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:11 pm

Just promise her a drives in your Viva. Tell her that engine oil etc is good for the skin.

Hannah just keeps reminding me that every minute she spends on my Viva I have to spend helping her restore her Triumph wagon :-) (it would/ will be so amazing when both cars are finished and out of the workshop!!!)
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Engine back in, assembly funt

Postby yoeddynz » Wed Nov 09, 2016 10:28 pm

I thought I might try on top of the updates and post more often so avoiding such a long catch up session giving a subsequent easing of pressure on my brains hard drive.

Distributor time. I had two dizzies. One was from this engine and one from Andres stock pile. I took then both apart and rebuilt one from the best bits. The original has at some point in its life had a proper battering. I reckon it can only have been from the weights breaking away and smacking the inside. I cant think of anything else that might have caused it?

I also discovered that the early dizzy has a smaller amount of advance allowance of 25 degrees. This is specced for my lowly 7.0 to 1 low comp engine. At the risk of upsetting the initial running I have swapped in the shaft and weights from the other dizzy to allow for a full fat 33 degrees of advance. I do plan to uprate this engine if it seems OK. My near future plans are to swap out the current thicker head gasket for a standard one and have a much more useful standard comp ratio of 8.5 to 1. I believe (hope) I'm correct in that this is the way that Vauxhall changed the compression on these engines. Please fellow Viva boffins.. tell me this is true and that also I have done nothing wrong in adding a few degrees. According to mr Haynes it looks like its only a difference in advance from about 3000 up? I think Ive done right in building a dizzy that will be more appropriate for the higher compression. I understand my carb will probably need a change in needle to suit higher compression as well.

Anyway...with it all painted black and looking about as sexy as a distributor can look I fitted the electronic ignition module. Quite neat it is too.

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Then I slung the lot into the block and moved on to the next item..

Radiator fan.

All the fans I have sitting on shelves collecting dust are suckers. I wanted a pusher to mount in front of the radiator because there just isn't enough room for a sucker plus it looks ugly. So off to the local wreckers with a peice of plywood cut to the size of my radiator front. After 5 minutes I found the ideal fan sitting on the front of an old Mitsi Pajaro. A few bolts removed and it was mine for $10. I got home and discovered it fitted perfectly within my Radiator, almost clicking in place :-)

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Old mounts removed, new ones cut from some 1.6mm steel and welded in place with nuts welded in for easy removal. A bit of paint and it looks all good to me...

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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Engine back in, assembly funt

Postby yoeddynz » Sat Nov 19, 2016 9:54 pm

I am quite happy to say that I have managed to get quite a bit of work finished on this little wagon. With the evenings being brighter and warmer and having a new dose of enthusiasm I have spent more time on it and its been fun.

So where was I last update. Lets start with the doors. I knew they had rust but not too bad and in places that’s easy to get to. I have been putting off repairing them so now is the time after having just finished the last few bits on the tailgate (hatch..)

Luckily the rust was mainly on the outer skin wrapping over the inner strengthening panels that the hinges are welded to. I cut it away and let in some nice new thick sheet. I actually ground back the welds afterwards because it it made sense to have it all finished properly in a place that is hard to get to once the doors are back on. Plus the seals, speaking of which I will need to get some decent second hand ones with the originals having fallen apart, will need a good smooth surface to squash against.

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There was minimal rust along the inner bottom of one door and they fixed up well. Really glad they are in good condition otherwise with minimal dents on the outside (just dented enough I say..) While I was working on them I also had one of those ‘expecting it to be a *Bleep* but it was actually easy’ moments when I had to remove a broken screw from a window winder stub. The screw was small, broken unevenly and I sure that Id not be able to drill it central enough. But I did, it worked and I was happy..

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With the doors repaired and the repairs painted over I put them aside and started on the wiring. I enjoy wiring and have always planned to tidy all the original stuff up. I got carried away and its now pretty well hidden from view. I added some extra wires for the fan etc and decided to run the main loom out of sight via a hole I added in the tunnel. The original bulkhead grommet worked perfectly.

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Once I started hiding things I got even more carried away. I disliked the look of the fan wires running externally along the top of the bulkhead so they were carefully re-routed then back through the heater box and through another added hole.

The main loom sorted back through inside the car and I was happy with it all.

Onto the heater hoses. I first fitted them up in the original positions. Oh dear. No, no ,no.. this will not suffice !…

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Damn they are ugly hoses, just running over the engine like an afterthought, looking like a scaled up version of a badly designed Lego tecnics kit with poorly scaled pneumatics. Nup. No sir..I don’t like it!

So I rummaged through my always handy supply of random hoses and found a few Mazda items that will help in my quest for neatness, a Toyota bottom hose and a ideal tee piece. I also found a heater pipe from the Crysler Northstar quadcam V8 I have been gifted (another story…). Still not enough pieces to complete my puzzle.

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Back to the wreckers then…

I love going to wreckers, especially when they let you roam about by yourself and get your own bits, a rare thing these days with so many OSH rules. Luckily Hannah enjoys it too because she was along for this sortee. We found a variety of hoses from a Datsun something, a Mitsubishi Mirage, a Honda Shuttle and also scored an ideal inline heater valve from said Honda. A few hose clips and other handy bits. All this for $10 

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Back home and I assembled my scavenged findings together and came up with a design. It worked out fine except for one thing.. the heater valve works backwards. Hot is cold and vice versa. Luckily my other Viva, with its Chevette sourced heater valve is exactly the same. So no confusion for us.. just everyone else..

After finishing them I noticed my exhaust was not yet connected to the manifold. Then I discovered holes. Bugger! So old towels out to protect things and I carefully welded in some repairs. I am a bit upset in that the blobby welds might well restrict things and lose me a pony or two. However I shall learn to deal with this.

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Then on to the breather and brake servo hoses. I have decent PCV valve to use and some pipe now. But nothing matches. Out with my stock of alloy bits and I worked out a plan using my 1/8th bsp taps. I machined up an adaptor and it worked a treat.

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With that lot finished and looking a lot neater it was now it was time to sort out the throttle pedal to carb interface system. I am using a HC Viva floor mounted pedal like in Viva one. The original top mounted pedal system uses rods and is..ugly. I copied the design of cable clamp and pedal mount from Viva one. Noted how much cable pull was offered by the pedal. Did some maths and worked out the diameter of pully needed. Then I machined up a pully from a lump of alloy on the trusty old, leaky, English lathe.

Cable clamp..

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Measure the cable pull..

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Pedal mounting..

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A leaky (because English) old lathe and a lump of alloy..

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A new working pulley..

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Made a new cable bracket and used some old bike barrel adjuster. It was an easy enough job but just time and I’m glad its done. I won’t mount it yet as some wiring to do for the starter solenoid yet to be done.

But I’m not far from firing the little 1159cc block of fury up and I’m quite excited.

Here’s a photo of the completed heater hose layout. I’m much happier with this..

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Back to the shed now.
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Re: 1969 Viva HB Patina wagon. Engine back in, assembly funt

Postby chrismc » Sun Nov 20, 2016 9:40 am

Great engineering work on the carb. 8)

The engine bay looks good too. Plenty of work to get it looking that tidy. :D
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