1968 AMC Rebel

[AMCrebel]

Finally managed to bolt on the Y pipe. Took much longer than is should have.

I bet it will leak as well. You can see the heat riser here -

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This is the heat riser - gutted and blanked off. These were a butterfly flap in the exhaust that was operated by a bi-metal spring to be closed when cold - the choked off exhaust gases were directed along a small pipe to warm up the inlet manifold to warm the engine up quicker. Loads of US cars had these - I have yet to see an original working one -

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Other side showing birdshit welding for O2 sensor threaded bung.

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[AMCrebel]

Finally got around to having another go at the steel pipes that take the auto trans fluid to the rad. They are absolute sods. In the end I had to admit defeat and take off the Y pipe that had taken me fucking hours to put on. Thankfully it was a bit easier putting it back and I put the starter back on too. Times like this I wish I had a lift or the use of one - no way to justify that though so I have to keep jacking the fucker up and crawling underneath.

Quite chuffed I have finally got the pipes done but fully expecting them to leak or some other shit thing to happen

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[PhilA]

Is it my eyes or do the transmission pipes touch by the starter motor? There should be periodic rubber rings on one of the pipes to stop them chattering.

My bimetallic heat flap works, by the way.

[AMCrebel]

Is it my eyes or do the transmission pipes touch by the starter motor? There should be periodic rubber rings on one of the pipes to stop them chattering.

My bimetallic heat flap works, by the way.

You have a keen eye, sir. I removed the rubber heater hose held on with cable ties that served this purpose when I bought it in order to fit the pipes, I will mackle something similar up once it's all connected. The pipes actually have some little spring steel S clips to clip them together too.

[AMCrebel]

Managed to drop the fuel tank without blowing myself up.

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[AMCrebel]

I haven’t decided whether to use this tank by drilling holes in it or use one of those custom ones.

[LynehamHerc]

You could do some stress testing on it to set Mercs and Hoolis minds at rest, see the things wiv wings thread.

[AMCrebel]

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Not fastened in yet, but this is roughly where it will go. I connected the battery and dropped the roof to check it doesn’t foul the tank in this position and it’s OK. Thanks to Mr E Honda for the idea and link for the mounts.

[AMCrebel]

This arrived from a scrappy in the USA

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It was sold as spears ore reapers, but once I connected the motor to the old Absaar battery charger, it burst into life (a bit) - it was slow and lacked power

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It's so nice to be able to take things to bits without them disintegrating. The motor is a standard DC thing with brushes. One the tiny compression springs that forces the brush against the commutator had rusted away - hence (I thought) the sketchy operation of the motor -

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By the way, there's a little overload protector in there too - a bi-metal strip and some contacts that brreaks the circuit if it gets too hot so as not to burn out the motor.

I found my handy Maplin box of assorted springs - and there was a compression spring of round about the right size, so I put it in, cleaned up the commutator with some emery cloth, put it all back to togther, and hey presto!

I have made the fucker even worse, now it won't turn without assistance.

Oh well.

[AMCrebel]

This really is one of those "rare as rocking horse shit" things - no-one on the AMC forum knows much about the leccy windaz as they were only factory fit for the convertibles (and not all of them). They don't appear to interchange with any common stuff like Ford or GM - the gearbox casing says "patent applied for" but not by whom.

One other thing that struck me was that there was a fucking big spring that was under a load of tension in the winder mechanism - I nearly sliced my finger off when I released it (not realising) - I reckon that has to be to assist the window upwards - and I am not sure if the previous hacker had applied the proper spring tension.