1968 Austin 1100 Mk1 (Take 2)

[fried onions]

That's nothing new with Fords. The Mk. 2 Escort has a general 'Ford Car Owner' handbook and a separate sheet that folds up for the Escort. Neither of which are any use for DIY servicing.

[treehugger]

The handbook for the radio in Mrs Rocker's Focus is thicker than the combined Owner's Handbook, Service Book and Pitman's Guide that live in the Minor parcel shelf. The handbook for the actual Focus is slightly fatter still yet completely and utterly useless. It seems to be written for the Titanium or Ghia models and us plebs with the Style just have to refer to the end of each section where it says "Some features may not be on all models". It's completely generic and therefore useless. I have found out more info from Polish blokes on Youtube.

Ford are lazy fuckers arent they?

[SiC]

Bit of an update.
 
Saturday I didn't get a chance to do anything. Sunday evening I started on trying to remove the thermostat cover again.
 
First attempt was to try the double nut method of removing the stud. Except while tightening I got that horrible feeling when it suddenly goes loose. Yup the bottom nut had stripped the thread. Even worse, I couldn't get the nut back onto thread to undo.

 
I don't have a nut splitter and even if I did, I don't think I could get one in here. So ended up cutting up the nut


 
You can see the stripped thread on the stud here.

 
At this point I was cheesed off and knew that really the only next step was violence. So I left that job for the night and went on to the next.
 
As it was half done, I decided to fit the gasket and heater valve. Simple job right? Well I got it on ok


 
Except I still managed to bend the wire into an L-shape when tightening up the trunnion.

 
Next was the radiator to expansion tank hose. This went wrong when one of the new clamps fell apart during tightening. FFS.

 
 
Finally for the night was removing the electric windscreen washer pump and fitting back in the manual push pump. The electric one worked but I just like the quirky manual pumps on old British cars.
 
Removing the dash pump was uneventful. Ignoring the scratch I put in the dash. Day really wasn't going great...


 
The old one was completely jammed up. Pulled it apart and it looks like the rubber dome has completely disintegrated. This pumps aren't made for repairing and obviously at the time would just be cheap enough to dispose then replace.

 

 
I removed the electric pump. While removing the earth connection that was made on the windscreen wiper motor, I took off its main earth spade. Very much needed a clean. Surprised the wiper motor even worked.

 
Car washer pipe is rather expensive for what it is. Instead I paid half on Amazon for some silicone fishtank pipe. Being silicone, it's an upgrade right? Colour matched the car well too.

 
I don't know the original factory route of the pipe but I put it through where I thought was sensible. Washer bottle is an original Tudor unit with some nice original script on it.

 
Thankfully the bottom of the box of crap manual pump worked!

 
Last night I took action on the thermostat housing. This simply wasn't going to come off without a fight. I really would have liked to have done it without breaking up the original thermostat housing, however they're cheap to replace and I really didn't want to damage the head or get a stud snapped in it.
 
The way I did it successfully before on the last A-series was breaking it up into smaller chunks. I did the same this time but with a grinder, multi tool and a wood chisel. Pictures show the story. Idea was basically break it up into stud sized chunks and use those chunks to unscrew the bits.







 
And then we are out. Cleaned the block up around the top surface of the head and scrapped + vacuumed as much crap out under the thermostat as I could.

 
Thermostat was supposed to be a 82c unit, so it must have been on its way out. Going by the mess it was down there and on the thermostat, the cooling system has been neglected over the years. Bit of a shame to destroy this old thermostat as I'd liked to kept it as some shelf decoration. However it was properly stuck and required prizing out.

 
New thermostat sits in perfectly.

 
That setup looked original and the thermostat looked like it had a 1967 date code on too. Bit of a shame to go violent on it but I didn't have too much choice with the tools I had. New housing cap, studs, nuts and gasket is £12.99 delivered from eBay so cheap enough to replace. The other studs are staying as I'm not going to risk trying to get them out of the block. If it ain't broke...

[Hooli]

First thing I did when I had my Midget was throw the manual screenwash pump & fit a leccy one. Mainly as using the original just sprayed water directly into the head unit rather than down the pipe.

[mercrocker]

I ran my Farina for many years with a stripped stud on the thermostat housing. I just nipped up the corresponding nut as tight as I dared and didn't hold back on the blue goo. It was fine, probably still is.....

[Hooli]

Using an oversized nut as a thick washer & doing a nut up on the good thread above it works too.

/Bodgerist.

[SiC]

Problem is that the stripped portion meant doing the bracket for the radiator up could get it stuck. Also the housing being seized onto the stud meant the stud would likely come out anyway.

Part of the charm is that you never know if you're going to get a wet windscreen or a wet leg when you push that plunger. So far my experience so far has always been a wet windscreen.

[LynehamHerc]

I replaced the manual washers on both my MGB and VW T2, although to be strictly correct the VW used a pressurised, by a footpump, reservoir.

As the MG was my daily for a few years I decided that safety took precedence over originality. With the VW I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl around in the drivers footwell blindly hunting for the connector pipe behind the trim.

[CLINT]

You animal! I would have used a gas torch on that.

[SiC]

You animal! I would have used a gas torch on that.

I do need to get a decent gas torch at some point soon. I've always resisted as I don't have a good experience with fire and have a precedence of setting the wrong things alight a couple of times - this includes my face one time.

There was the distinct smell of burning even with the angry grinder. Part of the reason why I went back to hammers and chisels. I also wanted to avoid damaging the head as much as I possibly could. The trick I have done on these is cut deep enough to weaken the housing. Then a good whack with a sharp chisel made a crack through the remaining housing. Doing it three times leaves three bits on each stud which can be twisted off individually. If you're lucky you get the stud come out too. Then you know that the stud and housing was well and truly seized together.