Stephen Brockwell's Journal

Right now I have both doors, boot lid and bonnet sanded and primed.

Although the boot lid looks pretty good, it'll take some sanding and I still have to correct the bad curve on the drivers side where the prop rod bent the lid. I welded some on the broken area but I'm no welder and its bowed a little too much.

May use some screws and a piece of curved metal to get the right shape and then weld it. Piece by piece.

Pictures taken on Sunday 26 October 2014.

I'm going to put the heater back in next.

Took about 2 hours to put on new boots or gaiters on the 78. Undid the lock nut and tie rod ends after measuring wheel to wheel distance and counting (4 times each) threads out of the tie rod ends. Put on the gaiters and then had to go to a cousins son birthday party.

Take a shower get dressed and spend an hour outside in 100+ heat in a park. Then back home. Put on the old clothes still wet with sweat.

Put on the steel clamps and then filled the steering damper with 8 oz 90 weight oil.

At 10:27 tonight took it for a run and the steering is completely different. Feels great.

Oh... the relays on the headlights doubled the light output and the relays on the stop and turn signals made them much brighter.

Lilith is getting better all the time.

Fired LILITH up this afternoon. First time in over a year.

I'd taken off the OPUS electronic distributor that had the package in it and replaced it with a new 45d distributor copy (made in china- I think) and cleaned up wiring. Mostly simplified the wiring. `19 jun 18- I think the dizzy is the 41427 from Northwest inports. a 45D type. Seems to be a solid distributor and very reliable.

I had to replace my small electronic fuel pump as it died last winter during testing so I got one on Amazon of the exact type. Kinda like the one from Autozone or Napa.

Replaced the ZS carb with a used Weber that looked to be in good shape. Just bolted it on with a little cleaning.

Cobble together an exhaust header with a piece of flex pipe and some adapters with a muffler ordered from Advanced auto (I think).

The engine would backfire terribly and I checked and rechecked the valves and distributor setting until I saw a post titled - DISTRIBUTOR 180 on the forum. Thinking my drive dog may be 180 out I set the number 1 plug wire at the 8 o'clock position and arranged the others counter clockwise in the right order. Put the dizzy in without timing or care and turned the key.

FIRED RIGHT UP AND RAN BETTER THAN WITH THE ZS CARB AND OLD DISTRIBUTOR.

Screeched the tires taking off several times without meaning to and really had a grin.

The holding plate (?) for the drive dog has a screw that seems to be kind of buggered up and I didn't want to try to move it. Breaking a screw there means a hard time getting it out. for now I'll live with it. Maybe some winter I'll fix it.

Now to clean up and time it and retape wiring harness and.........finish the relays on the rear lights. Just occurred to me that my rear lights COULD NOT have been working as I was driving on my street. I have not finished that job. SHEESH.....

Working now on brake and turn lights (adding relays). Since the headlights worked so well I wanted to do the same thing here and improve visibility in the rear. Will change bulbs and add third brake light. I'd rather be seen than rear-ended.

8 June 2014 - update - Yesterday I finished the brake and turn light relay project. Does make the lights brighter. Running wiring under the trunk area was a bit tricky. Need to clean up some more wires under there to include the fuel pump wire.

Newsflash- I had a problem with my hazard lights flashing very fast even though the turn signals worked fine. Now with the relays on the turn signal lights, the hazard flash rate is fine. Did I accidently kill a gremlin or just fix a faux-pas?

I know I did this in February 2013. Installed a relay for the low beam headlights and one for the high beams. Also added one for the cooling fans. At first it was hard to understand until I put one in.

Anyway the pics show what the difference was with about a 30 minute difference in time. At the time I tried standing at the same point beside the car. These are cheap standard sealed beam headlights.

I couldn't believe the difference in the lights with/without relays. Getting the right power to the electrical devices matters.

On to other things.