Page Thirty-One - Some Bits

 

As I get ready to paint the undercarriage, I needed to tidy up a few bits.  Three Bits: A weird winker problem, some lining, and a few patch problems.

The Weird Winker Problem:  I covered headlight opening repairs on page twenty-nine, but I showed you the passenger side as the example.  When I moved to the driver’s side, I found a curious situation, a weird gap at the bottom of the headlight bucket – check out the pic.  “Sumthin tweren’t quite squar thar”, as they say 'round here.

The Problem - taint squar!

Apparently, the lower outside of the driver’s side headlight opening on the Organ Donor's front wing (OK that was too big a pile of nouns and prepositions, sorry) took a lick at some point, enough to push it in about ¼ inch.  Unfixed, Alphie would be a bit wall-eyed.  I didn’t notice it until I screwed down the headlight bucket to check the fit.  There was a weird gap.  It was too big to hammer and dolly.  It would need a creative solution.

Bucket-o-Bits

My first idea was to fabricate an arch cut to the exact length and depth of the gap.  But that would require some exact measuring – more than just slapping a ruler on it – and some tedious fabbing, hmmm.  I have found these last few years, that everything needs to be adjustable.  Measure to get it close, of course, but ultimately, everything faces the grinder for exact fitting.  Back to scrooting.

It hit me – just pile up layers of sheet metal until just a bit more than the right height, and grind down the slack, easy innit? Ya muppet!  Armed with a spot welder and a bucket of sheet metal scraps, I fell to stacking.  Hard to explain, check out the pics.

Yeah, it looks like half of Frankenstein's clutch disc - I call it a "spacer"

Vise Gripped to the corpse

I screwed down my makeshift brake shoe to Alphie’s left eye socket with some temporarily so that I could check the fit and level.  Throw the headlight bucket over it, and we’re close.

A solid round of MIGging, some grinder adjustments and some JB Weld to fill it the cracks… On to the next bit.

Smudgy pic, but all JB Welded-up and ready for sanding,
always so much sanding...

Some Lining:  I wanted to run the main brake and fuel lines before I paint the undercarriage because, I figured, I scratch everything up if I ran them after painting.  Also, there were a few hangers that either rusted off or fell victim during floorboard demolition.

First step was at the computer.  So where exactly, I mean precisely, do the brake and fuel lines run on Series IV Alpine?  Yeah, I didn’t take enough pictures when I went happily mad with cutting tools.  I search for factory diagrams, ain’t any.  I search parts catalogs and websites, nothing.  I search for diagrams drawn by fellow Sunbeam jobbers, nada.  I searched for pictures of Sunbeam engine bays, got something, undercarriages, got a bit more.  The pics showed where the bends are and where the hangers go, score!

I gathered the brake line T fittings and ordered a brake line set from Sunbeam Specialties (thanks again guys!).  The one in the engine bay has four lines running from it, a + fitting, I guess.  I’m using the nickel-copper stuff, it is MUCH easier to bend than steel, can hold the pressure, and best of all, it doesn’t rust! 

Main Brake Line - Me Like!

Check out my home-made tubing straightener.  Some sliding door wheels, two pieces of square stock and some nuts and bolt.  Cheap and easy, just like me!

And it works!

A Few Patch Problems:  I delayed finishing the kick panel areas of the floorboards, mostly because there were other fish to fry.  But pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er.

Nothing particularly impressive about this job, just needed to check it off the list.  

The one head scratcher was how to reproduce the ovals on the vertical post at the door edges.  The original was too rusty to save, and I thought this was going to be harder.

I ordered some dimpling dies to make the outer covering of the extensions of the X frame under Alphie.  (You can see one installed back on Page Thirteen (April 2020) although I didn’t cover making them in detail.  I added a pic to show you the dimple dies and what they do.)  Make a 1 ½ inch hole, dimple die it and cut it in half.  Bob’s Your Uncle – such a handy phrase.

Hole cutter and dimple die - make fabulaous holes

So I forgot to take a pic before I cut up the dimpled hole -
Sue me (please don't!)

Half a dimple in place

Welded up - but notice the piece I sized to fill up
the last hole against the firewall

Sorted and primed - not factory perfect, but no one will see it
outside of the blog, so...

There are no more holes in the floorboards.  I didn't worry with completely smoothing out the welds and making everything factory correct.  It will all be behind interior pieces or carpeting.  Fiddly bits, but important ones.

Page Thirty – A Proper Place for Bums

 

We floorboarded back on Page Nineteen, but we ain’t finished.  With solid new floorboards, one needs a place for one’s bum.  (Arse Mounts sounded a bit randy, Oh, Behave!)

I kept the seat mounts, or at least, the pieces of them, during the excision.  So, the first thing was to “fix” at least one seat mount so that I could get the correct measurements, especially the spacing of the bolt holes.  To do this, I bolted each end of the manky old mount to the seat rails, which I bead blasted and painted.  Looking mint, ain’t they?  (Look up↑)  I cut a quick piece of sheet metal and spot welded it to the old stuff, and the jobs a good’un!

Manky but "fixed" original seat mount

Fabricating: I divided the fabrication job into two parts – forward and aft of the support that bisects the floorboard, essentially the foot area and the area behind the seats.  Aft Profile: With my large contour gauge, I mapped the contours of the aft area of the floorboard, transferred the contour to a piece of file folder and cut it out.  I fine-tuned the file folder profile to the angle of the aft of the support, half done.  Forward Profile: To get the forward profile, I held the aft portion in place with welding magnets and used the small contour gauge to map the contour of the forward of the support.  I transferred the profile to a piece of file folder, cut it out and taped it to the aft section.  After fine tuning the combined pieces to the contour of the floorboard, I used the chunk of manky old seat mount to get the angle of the interface between the adjuster and the mount as well as the total height of the mount.  A little guess work in that last bit.  (My guess was a bit off as I would find out later.)

Paper template with forward and aft profiles

Repeat the contour-file-folder-template routine for the other side – there’s a “tunnel side” (towards the drive shaft tunnel) and a “door side” (towards the door) of each seat mount, and because the floorboard contour changes from side to side, each side of each seat mount has a slightly different contour.  (Just for clarity, there are four seat mounts, two for each seat.)  If I don’t get each side’s contour correct, the seat mounts won’t be level to each other.  Not to mention the driver’s side being level with the passenger’s side.

I transferred the paper template to sheet metal and gave the bandsaw a workout.  (It destroyed one blade, dulled it to a fingernail.  It’s a lot of metal chewing!)  To fine tune the contours of each side, I clamped each in the bench vise, and assaulted it with the angle grinder.  The process includes many trips back to the floorboards to perfect the match.  That’s quick to write, but it takes hours.

Remember me worrying about getting the seat mount bolt holes in the correct places?  It matters when I make the center strip of the seat mount.  The original seat mounts used captured nuts to fasten the seats to the floor.  I needed to recreate them.  So, I cut a strip of file folder long enough to span from hole to hole and poked holes through to the original holes with a sharp punch.  The seats are held with ¼” bolts, but I cut slightly bigger holes so that I would have some wiggle room when I welded the nuts to the strip.

Original seat mount bolted to the seat adjuster to locate the holes

I cut the center strip on the bandsaw, marked the centerline of the strip, and used the file folder template to locate the hole positions.  Again, I drilled the holes larger than ¼” for the wiggle room I mentioned.  A quick comparison of the holes to the seat adjuster showed that I measure correctly.  I’m always surprised when I measure things correctly.

I centered up the nuts using an old bolt and two nuts (one to hold it flat against the center strip and one to be welded to the bottom of the strip) and set to MIGging the nuts in place.

Welding the Mounts:  I now have three pieces of the seat mount: the door side profile, the tunnel side profile, and the center strip (with nifty captured nuts), all of which must now be welded together. 

All the pieces ready for MIGging

Mid-MIGging - you'll note the nifty captured nuts

One down - this is the first one with thin metal. 
The burns show where the strengtheners are

I laid the parts flat on the welding table and butted them up to a large welding magnet.  With the front sections of each piece flat against the magnet, I marked the line where I needed to bend the center strip to match the bend at the aft end of the mount.  I clamped the center strip in the vise where I had marked the bend line and hammered in a bend.  Checked it to match the angle of the door and tunnel strips and adjusted as needed.

Clamping the center strip to the welding table, I matched up a side piece to the strip, checked and scrooted many times and MIGged on.  I MIGged in the second side and had a tunnel side seat mount for the passenger side.  Yea!  One down, three to go.

Passenger side mounts ready and bolted to the adjuster.  You can see the strengtheners in the upper mount (in the pic)

Repeat all of it – the contour mapping, the templated making and fine tuning, the bandsawing and grinding, the welding and I had two seat mounts for the passenger side.

Gluing Them to the Floor:  My main concern was keeping the seat mounts square with the seat adjuster.  If the mounts are the least bit crooked or uneven, the adjuster will bind, and the seat will be difficult or impossible to adjust.  My answer was to bolt the seat mounts to the adjuster and fit them to the floor as a unit.  With it bolted together, I took pains to locate the assembly to the floor.  I check the distance from the tunnel, and from the door sills as well as placing a speed square against the center beam to be sure it was all square.  Lots-o-scrooting!  Once I was satisfied, I ran a marker along each side of the mounts, marking the exact spot to weld each seat mount to the floor.

Passenger side welded to the floor

I even pulled a seat out of the shed and bolted it to the adjuster to be sure I had the spacing correct for the completed seats whenever that happens.

Next, and here’s where I screwed up, I removed the seat mounts from the adjuster and MIGged in each seat mount.  I should have done was spot welded the mounts down with the adjuster in place to be sure nothing moved during the welding.  Which is what I did on the driver’s side.

I added pieces to close off the front and rear of the seat mounts, nice and tidy.  I finished welding, ground down the welds and cleaned it all up with seam sealer.  A quick spray of primer, and DONE, methought.

I (tried) to bolt the adjuster to the newly affixed (passenger side) seat mounts but the holes were off by approximately a 1/16” as I feared.  I enlarged the holes on the adjuster, and it fixed the problem, but the passenger side will be slightly stiffer to adjust than the driver’s side.

Rinse and Repeat:  Now do it all over again for the driver’s side but try to do it better.  Four seat mounts!  Lots of sawing, grinding and welding!

Driver's door side mount test placement

Seat mounts welded in and finished with both adjuster restored and in place

Mistakes:  When I restore my next Sunbeam, I’ll crack on at fabricating seat mounts, but until then…

Mistake 1: Leave the seat adjuster bolted to the mounts to make the initial spot welds to the floorboards.  I did that on the driver’s side. 

Mistake 2:  Use 16-gauge sheet metal for all pieces.  I made one with 22-gauge – it’s the one with little spacers welded inside the mount to strengthen it.  Only one of the four uses the thinner metal, but you can't tell when everything is finished.

Mistake 3: Measure the height of the seat mounts more carefully.  You will notice that the original seat mount is about a half inch shorter than mine.  I noticed this after I had welded in the passenger side mounts, and with that, the die was cast.  I had to keep the same height on the driver’s side, or the seats would look dodgy when sitting side-by-side in the finished interior.  Fortunately, there is a lower hole where the seats pivot on the seat adjusters, so I should be able to compensate by using the lower hole.

Lower seat mounting holes will help compensate
for the seat mounts being too high

I’m sure there are other mistakes, but I’m only admitting to three.  Cheers!

Page Twenty-Nine - Jeepers Creepers

 

Before - note the gaps and
missing turn indicator holes

With all the patch panels glued on, I switched focus to Alphie’s eyeballs.  You’ll remember, the front clip is the Organ Donor’s, and it needed much fiddling to get it to fit Alphie’s snoz.

The areas below the headlights and turn indicators (“signals” to the Yanks) were rusted out, either completely or paper-thin and flaky.  My concern was how far out of round they were.  Would they match the diameter and shape of the headlight bezels?  This problem finally made it to the top of the list.  Crack on.

I had ordered repair rings from Classic Sunbeam, but I hadn’t taken the time to fine tune the fit.  To fine tune things, I needed to clean up the headlight buckets and the headlight cradle (the inner bucket with the adjusters, the thingies that adjust Alphie’s stare).  (I took the time to restore, meaning bead blast, straighten and paint, the inner buckets and trim rings.  With a Lucas headlight, they look smashing – see the before/after pic.) 

Before and After - I love a well restored part - TIDY!

With the buckets in place, I installed the headlight bezels…  I have two pairs: one pair is chromed, and the other is painted.  I thought the chromed ones may have been aftermarkets, but I noticed the mounting tabs look the same on both pairs, so maybe chrome was an option.  The painted ones are pot metal, and someone tried to pry one of them off and bent it, and it’s a bit out-of-round too (see pics).  I haven’t tried fixing it yet, and I know that if I break the piece off, I can’t re-weld it – I’ll attack that problem later.  Besides, I kinda like the chrome ones.

People, Don't pry parts!

The thing is the chrome bezels are slightly smaller than the painted ones.  I discovered this as I was comparing the match between the headlight openings on the wings and the mounted headlight buckets and bezels.  I also discovered that I would never get them to match exactly.  It could be that Sunbeam used the thick gasket between wing and bucket to mask the mismatch; I don’t know, not having a factory unrestored car to compare to.  (Judging by other Sunbeam fit and finish features, door gaps, etc. they probably didn’t worry about getting an exact match.)

A tad out of round

To match wing and bezel, I cut the gap below the headlight opening, giving me a way to adjust the diameter/fit with the wing.  I temporarily attached the repair ring with screws to the wing and adjusted the diameter to get the best match I could.  That sounds easier than it was.  I would screw the ring in place, re-install the bucket, the headlight cradle and bezel and check the fit.  If it wasn’t good enough, and you know it wasn’t good enough, I would take it all apart.  I would re-adjust the gap, re-screw the repair ring and re-install the headlight buckets, many times.  Scrutinizing every time.

My pictures are rubbish, but maybe you can see that I got the outside curve to match the bezel passingly well, but on the inside curve, the wing sticks out just a bit.

Once I got the fit as good as I could, I welded the repair ring to the headlight opening and fitted new metal below the headlight.  Next step…

It appears I used the Playboy fuzz filter,
but wing matches the bezel on the outside. (chrome bezel)

It's hard to see with the blur, but the inside curve
doesn't match as well. (painted bezel)

Turn Indicators:  On both sides, the screw holes where the turn indicator assemblies mount had rusted through, and I didn’t trust their placement given all the “adjusting” I did to the headlight openings.  On the passenger side someone had drilled a second hole and there were remnants of brass, indicating a brazed “fix” at some point.  So off to the shed to find the turn indicator assemblies for a match up.

With shrinking cuts, but without turn indicator holes.

I “installed” the indicator assemblies in place using a mishmash of screws and wing nuts and went about scrutinizing.  I checked that the assemblies weren’t crooked and that they fit the curve of the snoz, and, of course, they didn’t.  The passenger side was worse.

Indicator hole template made using the indicator gasket

When I pushed the wing to fit Alphie’s chin, it puckered out the turn indicator opening on the passenger side.  I tried pounding it back in shape – gentle pounding, of course – but didn’t fix it.  I needed to shrink the metal, but how?  After several scrooting sessions, I decided to Sawzall small cuts that would allow the metal to shrink, and when I got the contours right, I could weld up the cuts.  And Oi if it didn’t work – yeah, I’m surprised too.  See the pics below.

Next problem were the vanishing and misaligned screw holes.  On the passenger side, they weren’t there.  On the drivers, they were in the wrong place.  Passenger side first: using the assembly-to-body gasket as a guide, I made a paper template with the holes, see the pic.  Transferred the paper to 16-gauge metal and fitted it to the opening.  I drilled oversized holes to give some room for adjustment and tack-welded it in place.  With the assembly installed, I scrooted the fit from outside and inside the wing.  I refitted and trimmed as needed until I had the final fit.  I MIGged everything including the shrinking cuts, re-installed the assembly and re-scrooted.  I can’t emphasize how much scrooting!

All welded in but it needs grinding.

The driver’s side got similar treatment, but I only needed to weld up the holes and added a tab of metal for strength.  Both sides needed some final grinding to finish the fit.

The factory used sheet metal screws to attach the assemblies to the body, but that seemed insufficient.  I got some #6X32 screws and nuts, re-installed the assembly with them (scrooted the fit again) and welded the nuts in place.  Tidy!

I can see that it doesn't fit tight to the opening.  Adjusting the bucket/wing fit will close the space. It fits the top of the wing. Some slack please!

Another view.  Looks better from this side.

Cracking fit if I do say.  Next came clean-up.  I ground welds inside and outside the wing.  I used JB Welded as filler to cover welds and bring the profile in shape.  (I’ll fine tune the profile when I get to final body work before painting.)  I also MIGged some rust-throughs on the headlight openings and ground the welds and JB Welded to make a flat surface to mount the headlight assemblies.  A touch of primer and Bob’s Your Uncle!

Sorted, Brilliant!