Really good day today. Made some progress and started and finished a few jobs!! Woo hoo.
First thing today was to finally get those headlights out - they were badly rusted in place, so they have been drilled out. I’ve got a brand new set blackened SS screws to go back in when ready.
I then removed the driver side outer headlight bucket so I could pull out the headlight harness for better inspection. Good news is that it’s repairable and there’s still power getting there because the driver side indicator/marker is still working! Yay!
The loom appears to just have been “attacked” where the wire was exposed, so I’ve got lots of wire to allow me to match end to end. But getting to this point took me a few hours.
I will need a good full day to sort the wiring - so that’s for next weekend.
So, after that, I wanted to progress with the running of the engine and it’s cooling issue I encountered on day one.
First thing was to replace the alternator belt and A/C belt as they had stretched and I suspected to such a degree that it prevented turning the water pump.
Before I started her up, I also removed the horrid asbestos heat shield and installed a new stainless heat shield.
I also made a start (well Dad actually made the start, he deserves a lot of the credit for helping me along with this thus far) - made a start on making the “self burping” mod to the cooling system that was kindly shown to me by Stu Rees and also for which I had unwittingly taken references photos of when I visited ChrisP and his beautiful AXI 1698. Anyway, we were missing the straight brass connections off the water pump - but no matter, I’ll come back to finishing that next time.
We started her up, got her up to temp and started adjusting the mixture and we “thought” it was right. It certainly seems ok to me and Dad - it runs smoothly, idles well..... so I call that a win for now.
AND, the cooling system is flowing brilliantly front to back and the cooling fans kicking in and out!
What an absolutely excellent close to my day here in currently sunny South Wales.
The wheels are now off and going for a new set of boots in the week for just £200 fitted
That’s me for today. I’ll leave you with a pic of the loom and a short video of her running. Sorry for the red hose, it’s all I had at the time.
https://youtu.be/X7MqojD9_UE