Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Peter_L]

I read on another post about painting the clutch and wondered what fussy things other people do. I ma sure that somethings just gives us a better feeling inside but are not critical. Are they ?

My age means that I was brought up in the "old school".

My mentor insisted that oil was applied to the valve stems when grinding in the valves, he could not bear to think of the unlubricated contact between the two parts.

Brake grease was always applied to the points where the shoes touched the backplate. The threads on adjusters would be thoroughly cleaned and lubricated and hub back plates and the inside face of the road wheels would be cleaned of any rust and a smear of high temp grease applied.

Wheel studs would be wire brushed and a nut run down them backwards to clean the threads, certainly never any lubricant on the wheel studs or nuts.

If the rocker cover came off then it would be shine like new on the inside before being replaced.

[clan chieftain]

That takes me back and brings back memories to when I served my apprenticeship with Royal Mail as a mechanic in the early sixties. Good grounding it was though.It is standard practice though to oil the valve stems and oil the bores when fitting pistons. I can remember one dodge being that if a big end rattled a pice of toilet paper was cut and fitted behind the shells and it did stop it rattling until it went through the market.I can also remember being told that reversing a castle nut and running it down the thread acted like a die. Old dodges die hard.
PS..The toilet paper in question was Izal and boy was that sore on your a..e
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The Clan Chieftain

[Peter_L]

Hi 71. I lived only a few miles form the IZAL factory.

It is a product that Captain Kirk and Mr Spock would have found useful, as it dealt with Klingons very well.

[clan chieftain]

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The Clan Chieftain

[old gto]

Fussy things?
I spent WEEKS replacing the rotted wood in the 1931 Chevy with square tube steel. After hours and hours of grinding, cutting, and welding, I noticed that when the passenger door was closed, the body lines were just a little crooked.
I originally planned to pinstripe the body lines as an accent, but now it would show up that it`s not exactly straight.
No problem, I`ll just eliminate the pin stripes, and nobody will notice it.
Then the wife wanders out to the garage. She notices it right away, and tells me....
"That looks terrible. I`m not riding around in that car looking like THAT! ESPECIALLY on my side of the car! Fix it."
I try to tell her what all is involved to fix it. She says, "Well, you have a grinder, and a saw."
So I spent 2 more weekends cutting, grinding, and re-welding, just to move the cowl a quarter of an inch.

All said and done, I`m glad it`s fixed. But I would have left it if she hadn`t seen it!

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"The only thing I`m sure of.....is that I`m not sure of anything!"

[Greeney in France]

I have a thing for "slotted screws"
The slots must be in the same line as each other
Very often especially Jaguar and others have slotted screws in cups on interior wooden door trims. So go and check them now!!
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www.OldFrenchCars.com

We do these things not to escape life but to prevent life escaping us

[47p2]

[Rick]

[clan chieftain]

I am the same with slotted screw heads having to be in line. I go into a lot of garages with my work and I hate to see a BMW or a Jag or and car for that matter with a self tapper holding on the number plates........poor standards
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The Clan Chieftain

[buzzy bee]

Hi

I used to be like that with Screwe heads, but I tend to stop when they are tight now, unless I am going into wood with steel screwes, as I had a spate of shearing screwes off.

Pozidrive doesn't bother me either too much now, in it's place of course, like on a nut and bolt job, definateley not!

One thing that does get me, is having Flat washers upside down, I have been known to remove nuts my Friends have helped me in doing up, to turn the washers the right way around! The rounded side has to be facing out, Flat downwards!

Cheers

Dave

[Dirty Habit]

[Greeney in France]

[ukdave2002]

I don't like to see stuff "over" restored, i.e. engine bay with chrome plated brackets and over polished alloys that would never have been there originally.

I do look for even door gaps on restored cars, imho is a pretty good indicator as to how well a resto job has been done.

As you might expect I'm quite fussy about electrical stuff, really don't like to see the DIY coloured insulated crimps when originally un-insulated one’s would have been fitted, also when the wrong coloured cables or wrong tracer are used . Soldered cable joints are a no in my book; very few electrical joints were ever soldered in vehicles and properly done crimps are more reliable than soldered joints.

Interestingly cross head screws are more common in my 57 MGA than slot head I guess crosshead screws were standard in post war cars to speed up production ?

[Uncle Joe]

I'm not sure that I should say this, but the pickets on my fence when I made it were exactly 62.5mm apart. In my defence, I do have a good reaon for that though!

[Dirty Habit]