Page Sixty-Two - A Well Regulated Window

 

I collected all the bits – just throw it together and call it a door, no worries, yep.  Yeah…

Finally satified with the paint on the doors, I bought all the channel runners, fuzzy strips, new cranks, new outside handles, weather stripping, stainless fasteners, te whole kit, good to go.  Cleaned, bead blasted and painted the metal bits – cracking!  I know working on doors is tedious, but nothing really to it.  Test fit the parts, take your time, don’t scratch the paint, and you’ll have new doors, right?  Just throw it together - hmm-hmm, sure!

Window Regulators

I’m just gonna say it, Rootes’ window regulator design blows, it’s flimsy, ain’t up to the task.  I bet many had failed by the late 60's.  Any looseness in the mechanism (and it came with plenty of factory installed looseness) misaligns the parts and crunchy grinding follows.

Sprocket and Gear

If you have taken Alpine doors apart, you will notice that the passenger’s side sprocket is in good nick, but the driver’s side almost always has half-eaten teeth on the sprocket.  The sprocket flexes, the gear moves on the shaft, the shaft wiggles in its mounts, shifting the gear teeth to the edge of the sprocket where overzealous yanking and cranking chews metal off the sprocket teeth – see the pic.  If the Rootes crew had made the gear a few millimeters wider, creating a larger contact patch, using a heftier shaft that doesn’t wobble in its mount, this wouldn’t be a problem.  (I would think they would have noticed this by Series IV and V.)

AND the little (meaning TINY, not up to the task) flange that holds the sprocket in line with the gear bends easily, allowing the sprocket to flex away from the gear.  AND the TINY axle doesn’t hold the gear solidly in place, so the gear itself moves some.  The gear/sprocket meshing surface is scant at best straight from the assembly line.  Yeah, the design abundantly sucks.

Half-eaten teeth exacerbate the gear/sprocket alignment problem.

What I had to do

Vendors once had replacement regulators but not anymore.  The interwebs have “kits” – a new sprocket and a gear (which probably requires a lot of fiddling to fit with the other regulator parts).

Having two sets of old regulators, I could combine the best of all the parts.  First, replace the chewed-up driver’s side sprocket with the second passenger’s side one.  (If you don't have a spare passsenger's side sprocket, I suppose you could flip a driver's side one - I didn't test this method however.)  

The caveat is that I had to grind off the factory pressed on doohickey pivoty thingy that holds the coil spring tension.  Turns out, that caused a myriad of travails, to wit.

Choose the best of the bits - yeah, they tend to rust...
A lot, especially in Alpine left to the elements for 30-ish years!

Tip: Take plenty of pictures before putting the mass of articulated appendages under the knife.  Once the arms are free to move at will, it’s confusing to get them back in the correct orientation.  I riveted the wrong end of the sprocket to one of the arms but didn’t know it until I had the whole thing reassembled, more on that coming up.

Gear/Sprocket Mesh Problem

Given that the margin of error for the gear and sprocket to mesh is damnably small, any play in the sprocket/gear/shaft and its assorted bits allows the gear and sprocket to slip alignment – hence the crunchy grinding and chewed up sprockets.

The Problems:
Yellow Arrow - a mear smidge of gear/sprocket meshing surface
Blue Arrow - gap between gear and bottom bushing
Red Arrow - TINY flange that is supposed to prevent spocket flex
Orange Arrow - Sprocket too far from the frame 

Gear Solution – Examine the regulator gear, spring, housing and shaft.  Find all the play and almost every part has some play.  The shaft can move in line with itself, allowing the gear to migrate to the sprocket’s edge – crunch.  Find some washers to take up any slack that 60+ years of exurberant cranking has created.  I used a copper washer (only one, despite the pic) at the top of the shaft between the shaft and housing and a #10 Teflon washer between the shaft and gear so that the gear seats solidly to the bushing at the base of the shaft, no play. 

I took some pics so hopefully, you can see it.

I used one of the copper washer and a #10 Teflon washer
to take up the slack at both ends of the gear assembly.

Sprocket Solution – Other than using a better-passenger’s side sprocket as a replacement, I bent the small tang that holds the sprocket tight against the metal frame of regulator.  I fear it will simply bend back over time, but we were it as Alphie rolled off the Ryton Plant assembly line back in February of 1964.

How it should mesh - more sprocket/gear surface contact.
You'll note I have a clamp holding the sprocket closer to the gear.
I bent the tang in toward the gear after taking the pic.
(Still has a gap at the bushing - the #10 Teflon washer
closed it and pushed the gear farther out.)

Behavioral Solution – Take it bloody easy when I/you crank the windows up and down.  It ain’t a race fer cryin’ out loud!

Coil Spring Mount Problem

The coil spring mount must orient to the mechanism correctly, or the spring won’t have the tension it needs to ease the crankage weight of the window.  (Hence taking pics before you start – I had the other driver’s side one for comparison, luck of the moronic.)  AND the mount must FIRMLY connect to the rear most arm, but not to the sheet metal frame where the regulator gear and spring must swivel.  Makes for tricky welding, which didn’t work like I had hoped, see drawings below.

The coil spring pivot must pivot on the regulator frame
but must not turn on the regulator arm.
BUT the arm and pivot don't have enough
metal for a solid weld

I cut a slot for a key, which prevents the pivot
from rotating under torque.
The #10 screw prevents the pivot from backing out.

Pivot Gizmo Problems

After I found the correct orientation for the coil spring groove in the sprocket pivot gizmo, I happily clamped it all together and broke out the MIG welder.  BUT I could not get a solid enough bead to keep the pivot from turning and hold it all together.  There’s substantial torquing on the pivot with the spring especially with a mindless oaf mercilessly winding away on the window crank.

Two issues here – 1. how to hold the pivot, sheet metal frame, and pivot arm together so that the pivot doesn’t back out, and 2. how to prevent the pivot from turning against the torque.

Problem 1 – I drilled and tapped threads for a #10 screw to hold everything together, simple enough once I rigged up a Rube Goldberg jig to hold it under the drill press.

Problem 2 – I cut a groove with my angle grinder into the arm and pivot gizmo for a key, which I wedged into the groove.  I tack welded the ends of the key in place then removed enough metal to get the #10 screw through it.  Hard to explain, see the drawing.

With the key to prevent the pivot from twisting and the screw to keep it from backing out, I assembled it, check the alignment (several times from different angles), then welded the screw, pivot, and arm together for good measure.

I laid it all out next the other driver’s side get-up and noticed that it wasn’t right.  After a few minutes of panic, I discerned that I had pop riveted the wrong end of the sprocket to one of the arms.  Fortunately, an easy fix that didn’t require grinding it all apart and starting over, like I said, the luck of the moronic.

Hinge Bolts Seizing Problem

I wasn’t expecting this one!  When I reattached the door hinge, one of the bolts seized solidly to the threaded adjuster inside the door.  I mean seized big time.  

Yes, I had chased the threads with a tap before it seized, to answer the question you’re thinking.

I had to drill the bloody thing out!  Now I'm on the hunt for another Series IV-V upper door hinge!

I ordered new stainless bolts and used plenty of anti-seize this time.

Nothing is as easy as you thought it would/should be, ever!

Page Sixty-one - Dash Pad for a Padded Dash

 

Rootes gave Alpines a plastic, vinyl covered plank for a dash, very utilitarian, but Alphie is getting the Full Monty, burled oak, dee-luxe edition!  (“Padded” dash like “padded” resume…  Weak I know, think of it as a dad joke.)

There’s a lot of work and money in Alphie’s dash, more than is reasonable, but the dash is one of the eye-catching things about Alpines, and I want Alphie’s to pop.  (I won’t know if all the gauges work until I power it up the first time – cross all your digits.)

Repadding the Dash

The upper dash pad has tons-o-steps, but none are that hard, BUT if you screw up a step, it’s bloody hard to fix it, so take your time and test fit everything!

TIP: I took the liberty of rewriting the dash pad instructions that Sunbeam Specialties sent – I felt they needed an update.  They are in the More Stuff column on the right on the blog’s home page.

TEST FIT!

I got a Sunbeam Specialties dash pad – it’s awesome!  Fits with very little modifications.  BUT having said that, the first thing you do is lay it out on the metal dash and check that the windscreen (windshield for us Yanks) holes etc. line up, check the fit under the lip at the rear of the dash.  Stare long at hard at it – trim anything that needs it and make sure everything is ready.  I even ran a tap through the threads for the vents to be sure everything was GO.

Practice the installation steps because once you get glue involved; thangs get serious and sticky with glue!

TEST FIT Everything!  The defroster vents,
the dash pad, don't leave anything out!

Glue it!

Sunbeam Specialties’ instructions recommend DAP Weldwood contact cement.  Follow the instructions and remember, it doesn’t dry instantly, but you don’t get much time to move the pad around once you apply the glue.  Get it as close as you can before you stick it to the metal.

I installed the defroster plates and cleared/drilled the holes for the tonneau cover per the instructions.  It will be nearly impossible to find the holes after the dash is glued down if you don’t drill through the bottom layer of dash sheet metal before getting gluey.  By drilling the holes through, you only need to insert an ice pick up from under the dash to locate the stud holes.

I did not poke holes in the dash pad for the tonneau cover studs until I decide if I want to install a tonneau cover – I probably will, but I’m keeping options open for now.

Sand Bag it

How to place even pressure on the dash pad while the contact cement is curing was a puzzle.  During the practice-the-steps phase, I filled several resealable plastic bags with sand.  They apply even pressure in all the curves and prevent air gaps where the pad didn’t stick to the metal.  And you can pile on as many as you need.

I forgot to take photos of the sand bags in action – sorry.

For more blow-by-blow steps, see the Dash Pad Installation Instructions in the More Stuff column on The Alpine Project’s blog home page.

The corners require some axious cutting - see the instructions!

Install the Windscreen

I assembled the windscreen – a blog page coming to show that – and temporarily installed it on Alphie.  I will permanently install it once I have adjusted it to match the quarter windows on the doors.  Assembling the doors and adjusting the windscreen to them will also be in an upcoming blog page.

Repadding the Lower Dash Pad

Got the vinyl from a local box store, the foam from Sunbeam Specialties, I bead-blasted and painted the steel bracket that goes under the dash, now all I needed to do was glue it all together.

First, I laid out the old vinyl to get a rough pattern for the new vinyl.  I cut it with some generous margins – you can cut off more later, but you can’t glue any back on!

The sticky part (pun very much intended) was clamping the glued vinyl to the metal without smushing the foam.  The first side was easy.  I glued the vinyl down and got clampy with several spring clamps, using paint stirrers to prevent smushing the foam.

Some pics of the gluing the first side process

The second side was a bit trickier.  I couldn't use the paint stirrer trick again because I had to pull the vinyl tight to remove all the wrinkles…

So, what sticks to metal and doesn’t need clamps?  Magnets!  Off to Lowes for a bunch of magnets.  Pulled the wrinkles out, glued the vinyl and lined the bracket with magnets.  Bob is indeed your uncle!

Second side gluing with magnets!
Getting the wrinkles out was tedious and time consuming
 - keep your hands clean!

Next, I glued new vinyl to the little U-shaped piece that goes under the steering column and the grab bar piece for inside the glove box.

All the parts ready for assembly

Assemble it all including the glove box – Alphie’s Dee Luxe and embarrassingly expensive dash is ready to install – you know after I adjust the windshield, which means I have to assemble and install the doors, install, adjust and fit the door glass, etc. etc.

Fitting the Glove Box Surround

I bought a kind of one-size-fits-all version of a Tiger/Alpine burled wood dash, and I have had to modify it a couple of times – like when I routed out indents so that the switches would fit because the wood was too thick.

Fitting the glove box required similar machinations (vocab word for this page).  The one-size-fits-all dash didn’t have holes for the glove box surround.  To accurately locate them, I made a file folder template using the old plastic dash and with some staring while holding the surround up to the wood dash, I eventually felt about 80% sure I had them right – I’m never 100% - then I went after it with a hand-held drill, always a nerve wracker!

You would hope that would be that, but when has it ever been just “that”?  The glove box surround was originally held by infuriating little one-way metal clippy thingamajigs that grip the bare posts on the surround.  Trying to remove those little @$#&*’s is how I broke Alphie’s original surround.  (The one you see in the pics cost WAY too much from eBay.)  Anyhoo…

The surround’s post stuck through the new holes and the placement was spot on (yeah, I was more surprised than anyone) but not far enough for the speed nuts (i.e. little nuts that create their own threads) to get a bite on the surround’s posts.  So, I retrieved the drill and added a Forstner bit for another nerve-wracking assault on Alphie’s gorgeous dash.  I got it done though.

Holes located, drilled, and Forstnered with the speed nuts installed

That took care of the left side of the glove box surround, but the right side remained completely untethered and easily broken!

My shed-made bracket and glove box installed
(Yeah, I see the rust - I'll get to it!)

I’m not sure how the right side was originally held in place, but my solution was a quick and simple bracket.  Using a small chunk of sheet metal, I drilled two holes, one for the surround post and one for a self-tapping screw.  After rounding edges and grinding it to fit the surround without showing from the front, I painted it, drilled a pilot hole in the lower dash bar, and mounted it with the self-tapping screw.  I reused one of the infuriating little metal clips to hold the surround post to the bracket.  Worked quite swimmingly, I might add – see the pic.

The full Monty!

As I mentioned, I have more to blog, but at this point in Alphie's resurection, I have many balls in the air because many steps required other steps to be started.  Thanks for your patience. 

It's so much fun now because with every step, Alphie looks more like a brand new Sunbeam Alpine!

All In!

I saw someone hang the dash to attach the wiring harness - 
solid idea, so I stole it!

All In!
(Ever stubbed your noggin on the steering shaft? 
You'll wrap it with a towel too if you have.)

Page Sixty - Faffing!

 

As I was faffing about on eBay – not sure how I restored cars before eBay, Harbor Freight and digital photography – I found a NOS AC Delco “flame trap” (from Dunstable, England no less) that was reasonably overpriced.  It’s one of those bits that makes a restoration more original (I’m going for “reasonably original” here), but few people seem to reinstall them.  Whatever, I snapped it up.

The flame trap is a little can, part of the crankcase ventilation system that goes between the carburetor and the oil fill spout on the valve cover.  Its job is to prevent a backfire flame from igniting the oil (and fumes) under the valve cover and crankcase - bad if it happened, I imagine.

Most Alpiners either close off the ports on the carb and the filler spout or just run a hose between them without a flame trap.  At least, I rarely see an Alpine engine with a flame trap installed, I know because I searched the web trying to find a pic showing how it’s installed.

How do you install it you ask – apparently there are two ways, and both appear to be “correct.”  The first is for Alpines without heaters, the second for those with them. 

Install #1 Without a Heater

I only know the “with or without heater” bit because I went to great lengths to install it the “without” way, only to discover Alphie demanded the “with” way.

The Parts Manual shows the “without” method where an elbow attaches to the oil filler spout and the flame trap, the trap assembly is held in place by an adelle clamp bolted to a valve cover stud then a second elbow goes from the trap to the carb.

From the Parts Manual - the "without" way

I was troubled to learn that no parts store carries ¾” heater hose elbows in stock – actually they might, but I would have to know which vehicle they should punch into the computer to find it, yeah, I have no idea.  I found two elbows on Amazon, but they use silicone hose, a bit modern (and shiny) for a 60-year-old car, but sometimes you gotta go with what you can get.

One of the few pics I found online with a flame trap.
Note,  no heater.

I found that I had to fab a small extension to attach the adelle clamp to push the flame trap away from the valve cover for a smidge of clearance.  Next, I painstakingly nibbled away at the elbows until they fit the space from the oil filler spout to the trap and then from the trap to the carb.  Painted the extension and adelle clamp and installed everything on Alphie forthwith.

Pile of parts for the "without" way, including my fabbed up clamp extension

I had taken the heater hose off the engine block to make it easier to work, but when I went to reinstall it, I learned the difference between Alpines with and without heaters.  

The real estate around the flame trap is a snake pit of heater and ventilation hoses.  There is a vent hose that runs from the valve lifter cover to the intake manifold, a heater hose from the engine block to the heater control valve and the flame trap’s assorted hosiery.  A lot of tubing jammed into a small area, which means the flame trap won’t fit that way.  Without the heater hose, it all fit splendidly but not with it.

And here's the problem!

Install #2 With a Heater

The Service Manual shows the second flame trap installation, the “with” strategy.  Toss my cool little home-made extension, which took about an hour and a half to make! and the adelle clamp.  Faff on!

From the Service Manual - the "with" way
(I realize it doesn't show the heater hose, shut up!)

For the with-a-heater set up, the flame trap mounts directly to the oil filler spout and the two elbows do a zig-zag between the flame trap and the carb.  This method allows the heater hose to shoot directly up from the engine block by scootching the flame trap to the side.  Installed this way, I was able to run all the hoses without any hose rubbing against another hose or the valve cover.  Kinda looks like black intestines, but cha-ching!

The "with" way - AKA the "black intestines" way -  with all hoses rerouted
(I gotta get a longer vacuum advance tube.)

In the great tradition of “faffing about,” this operation took way too much time and effort.  I see why people just toss the flame trap and plunk on a straight hose.

One Huge Cable

Next bit of faffing, running the negative battery cable from the battery box to the starter solenoid on the firewall.  Good luck finding a pic or diagram showing how Sunbeam routed the cable.  If you find/have one, please post it somewhere!

I know how its general route, but I had to make a couple of guesses.  I didn’t want to drill any new holes in the floor board or rear seat area, so I routed it through a hole already there and made it work.  Maybe it’s “correct,” maybe not, dunno!

After several trips to 2 big box stores, 2 part stores and buying 10 feet of impossible to bend 2 gauge wire, I ended up on Amazon where I ordered 25 feet of 4 gauge wire, a box of silicone boots, some hole grommets, a battery cut off switch and four eyelet tips for attachment hardware.  Yep, way more than I needed but the smallest amounts they sell.  Faff on!

Amazon haul of battery cable minutia (not all of it though)

With a propane torch for soldering (and scorching the wire insulation, as it turns out), I soldered on the tips, fitted the hole grommets and laid out the cable to cut it to length.

I found after I had cut the wire and soldered on the second tip for the starter solenoid attachment, that it was about a foot too long.  Cut off the foot and solder on one of the extra tips – I guess I only bought one too many tips after all – and Bob’s you uncle, one 9-foot (ish) battery cable!  Slip on the silicone boots, bolt it to the starter solenoid and DONE!

Battery box with shiny new grommets and cables, smashing!

This hole was already there and with the little metal tab and groove,
it seemed to fit.  I took this as Sunbeam's original route.
I fabbed up a tab of metal to reduce the buldge in the carpet

Original route?  I dunno, but it will hide under the carpet eventually.

Lots of faffing!

Page Fifty-Nine - The Nut Holding the Steering Wheel

 

(I’m the nut.)

Compared to the pics I have seen online, Alphie’s steering wheel is in pretty good nick, not to say that it’s in good shape.  Like most Alpine wheels, the Bakelite hub has a shrinkage crack running all the way down one side, a gaping chasm to be honest.

Explanatory Ramble:

Bakelite is a hard synthetic polymer that often uses wood flour as a filler (in the past asbestos was sometimes the filler, so be careful), which is hygroscopic, an impressive word that means it absorbs water from the air.  The wood flour expands and contracts with temperature and humidity changes, but Bakelite doesn’t.  Bakelite is hard, and if you have ever dropped it or tried to pry it lose, you know that it is quite brittle.  The metal hub under the Bakelite also expands and contracts with temperature, in short - expand/contract + hard and brittle = gaping fissures over time.

An unused NOS Alpine steering wheel left on a shelf these past 60+ years, would probably have some cracking.  Virtually all Sunbeamers face this problem.

Before - the parts at the start

Before - the warped and cracked original hub
with Eric's Restoration Hub*

Hub Restoration:

Method A: Head to your favorite home improvement store and get some JB Weld (the two-part putty version works best) and sculpt it like molding clay to fill the cracks and chipped off pieces.  Next, sand, file, refill, sand, file sand until you get it to shape and smooth.

Pros – cheap and readily available.  Cons – doggedly labor intensive and the results depend on your skills as a sculptor and how bad your hub was before you started.  Mine was warped off-center a bit, so the results would have only been “meh” at best.

Method B: Jump on the Sunbeam Alpine Owners Club of America’s (SAOCA) forum and find 65sunbeam (more on him below*); he sells a two-piece replacement hub made of Delrin, a far less problematic plastic used in a kajillion applications.

Pros – dead simple, looks brilliant and original.  Cons – a bit pricey.

I opted for Method B, and I think it’s more than worth the price. 

To close up the gap between the two pieces of the restoration hub,
I had to Dremel some cutouts to clear the steering wheel spokes.

I didn't get them perfectly aligned,
but they are mostly hidden under the horn ring anyway

Plastic Dying:

Bakelite fades to a weird brownish color over time and the steering wheel plastic had oxidized and had small spider webby lines running through it.  The interwebs says that India ink or leather dye work well as plastic dyes.  I do leatherwork, so leather dye it is.

The "test" cowl before dying.  The Bakelite turns a splotchy brown with age.

And leather dye is the bomb!  Check out the pics.

The unbroken cowl after dying and a light coat of clear paint.
It looks better than the pic shows. 
Bad photographer with a so-so camera.

I have a broken steering cowl (the casing where the turn indicator and overdrive switch mount), so I tested the dye on it.  It renews the Bakelite’s original black; the color looks great, but the shine is uneven.

On the unbroken steering cowl, I used leather dye but added a coat of clear paint to even out the shine, and with some shiny stainless screws, it looks spanking!

Steering Wheel:

First, I broke off the old Bakelite hub and sand blasted and painted the rusty steel hub underneath.

The plastic on the steering wheel itself, the part you grab, is more flexible than the hub, meaning it isn’t Bakelite.  I sanded it with 600 followed by 1000 grit sandpaper to remove what appears to oxidation.  It was a weird yellowish color. 

The rusty hub under the Bakelite hub

Alphie’s wheel only has one small crack, which I easily filled with a two-part epoxy.  I deepened the crack a bit with a small file so that the epoxy would have something to grip and be substantial enough to stay put, let it cure and sanded it smooth.

Bead blasted hub with Bakelite debris

The leather dye restored the color nicely, but like the cowl, the finish was uneven.  Curiously, the dye didn’t penetrate the epoxy leaving it clear, or at least, the color difference left the crack visible even though I can’t feel it.  I shot the wheel with some black spray paint.  I scrubbed the paint a smidge with a polishing compound and it evened out the shine.  It’s cracking! Much better than I had hoped – I love happy accidents.

The wheel had one crack, which I filled with a two-part epoxy.
(I painted the steel hub black too.)

Sanded and dyed.  Note that the epoxy didn't absorb the dye
the same as the wheel plastic - that's why I had to
apply a coat of glossy black paint.

The Horn Ring:

The horn rings - one with a good wire and bad everything else.
One with good everything else and a bad wire.

A case of combine and conquer.  The horn ring from the Organ Donor was broken, completely unusable, but it had a good wire.  Alphie’s was in decent nick, but someone cut the wire.  Easy enough fix – drill out the rivets and move the good wire to the good horn ring.

While I was mucking about, I bead-blasted all the parts that make the horn blow and repainted and shined up the horn ring itself, bada bing bada boom!

Before shot of the horn rings.
The yellow arrows show the rivets that must be
drilled out to remove and reattach the horn wire.

Cleaned, shined, and painted.
I used screws (stainless of course) instead of rivets
to reattach the wire and connector ring

*The Gibeaut Hub, A Rining Endorsement:

Eric Gibeaut, known as “65sunbeam” on eBay and the SAOCA forums, sells the restoration hub I used.  Eric put in the work to perfect his hub, which explains the price he asks.  The hub looks like it came with the car, uses metal threaded inserts for the screws, no short cuts, and is dead simple to install.  It’s better than new!  There is no better fix than Eric’s hub!

He offers a discount to SAOCA members, so message him on the forum.  Ebay requires fees, so it’s cheaper to go through SAOCA

An after pic of the wheel, horn ring and cowl.
So much better than I had hoped for!

A closeup of Eric's Restoration Hub in place.
The fit and finish are perfect!

A pic showing how well the steering wheel turned out.
Again, it looks better than the pic. The color is great, and it shines
without being too shiny - absolutely love it.