My first car by S. Barrett - Actual progress (sort of)

[Barrett]

Yeah, I know that! It utterly refuses to come off even whilst being thoroughly poked. I can see/feel the button depressing ffs! i've shoved loads of WD40 down there, clamped the metal shaft (tee hee) with some pliers, pushed in the button and yanked the living sh!t out of the plastic end it it just will not budge. This is deffo the straw that breaks the camel's back, tomorrow I'm gonna satin black the bastard and wait for the scrap man to arrive

[Vulgalour]

I'm not very good at innuendo, so I'm just going to say FLANGE.

[Barrett]

FLANGE indeed. If my car didn't already have a name that's what it would be called.

More comical attempts and fixing stuff. The last two days have mainly been focused on trying to remove the light switch from the dash so I can have a look at the back of it. A quick peek underneath with me head on the floor seemed to reveal only a couple of connectors where there should be many. This is the chap in question


It's got a little button in the side you depress so that the plastic knob can slide off and you can remove the switch backwards through the dash. Poking the button and pulling the knob (ffs) did nothing, this was my fancy set-up I was using to keep the shaft (ffs) still while I tugged the end (with the hand that is holding the camera)


This didn't work. At all. After much frustration I decided my approach was a little too soft, so I took a blade to the bastard. Which left me with this


Very satisfying. I need a new one of those now I suppose. Anyway, this is what I found


grrr! That's an 8-way connector thingy with only 2 wires connected. Two of those aren't actually needed (unless you've got a Herald estate) but that still leaves 4 unaccounted for connectors. Helpfully they are numbered so I can see what is supposed to go where, and I've already located one errant wire in the rat's nest of electrical shite under the dash. The others might take a bit more finding.

Now, a quick question. I need to attach some spade connectors to the end of these wires but I don't have a super crimping tool like GarethJ. Any tips on how to get a high quality crimp using something else? I'm probably going to go at it with a pair of pliers and see if that does owt, but any actual advice would be welcome.

Also I found out I only have £5 in the world so this is going to have to come to a standstill until I get some money which wont be for a couple of weeks. ANNOYING.

[Richard]

There really is no substitute for a compound action crimp tool. They are a bit pricey but probably worth it, as you're likely to be crimping a lot of wires.

[garethj]

If it's just for crimping then you can be determined with a pair of pliers. The ORSUM wire stripper I had was a bit like this, which for £5 with £2 p+p seems like good value. I've had mine for 15 years and it's done millions of wires by now



I got most of my wires and terminals from here because they're pretty reasonable for small quantities. Plus you can easily see what's available then go shopping for some bits on ebay if you like

[Vulgalour]

Would it not be easier to just unbolt the dashboard? It looks like you're going to have to do that at some point anyway.

[Richard]

Gareth's link looks quite reasonable for crimp tools too. http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu/V ... crimps.php


This is the sort of thing you need.

[Barrett]

Right. I need some advice on the right way to spend my money on TOOLZ.

GRINDA
I need an angle grinder so I can start cleaning up my new bulkhead/floor section which has a fair bit of surface rust on. I think I know which one I'm gonna get, after having spent a few days reading reviews of grinders (surprisingly only the 4th or 5th most boring thing I've ever done) it turns out Argos actually carry what appears to be a pretty decent thing (it has a 3 year guarantee. Hopefully that covers my fingers/ legs etc too).

I just wanna confirm from our grindin' experts - I want a 115mm/ 4.5" grinder, right? Right.

Any advice on the best sort of knotwheels to buy would be appreciated too. I always read about people moaning about cheap grinding discs and I presume the same applies to knotwheels - quality is actually worth paying for.

PRIMA
After I make my new floors all shiny I'm going to have to slap a lick of paint on to stop it rusting again slow the rusting process. There are several sections that will need to be cut out and have some new bits glued in, but I'm not sure when this is going to happen. Should I splash out on some 'weld-through' primer even though it might potentially be sat for a couple of months before any welding actually gets done, or shall I just splash on some regular cheapo primer and then clean it up again before and welding happens?

After the new metal goes in I suppose I'm going to have to paint it in 'proper paint'. I want to get the bulkhead/ screen surround in the actual final colour of the finished car so once everything gets bolted back to it I won't have to worry about it again. No idea how this will happen, hopefully somebody will have a compressor I can borrow. As the floors aren't visible I basically want to slap on the thickest, most protect-y paint I can to stop them turning into holes again. Any tips on what's best for this sort of thing? There seems to be about 2,000,000 options when it comes to this so any nudges in the right direction will be helpful.

Right, I think that's it at the mo. Cheers!

[Jonny69]

I believe in buying good quality tools. I've used cheap grinders and they are uncomfortable or awkward to hold, they're noisy and they vibrate a lot. I'll always say buy a Makita. If you can stretch to battery tools, then an 18V Li Ion with a couple of batteries is 10000% more convenient than mains one and 99% as capable. I love mine.

I use knot wheels from Screwfix and they seem to last plenty of time. Yes, cheap cutting and grinding discs don't last very long, but the Makita ones (or any branded one for that matter) last at least 3-4 times as long, so well worth splashing a bit more on. Also, get the 1mm cutting discs and try to forget that the 3mm ones were even invented. The difference is night and day.

Obligatory J69 safety notice: you should be able to tell by the now serious look on my face. Wear goggles or safety specs and get used to wearing welding gloves when you grind*. People will try to convince you that it's safer without hand protection, but I've lost count over the years of the times a grinder has grabbed or jumped or the wheel has run over a finger or I've slightly misjudged something and brushed against the spinning wheel. I have no scars on my hands from grinder accidents! A pair of those earplugs with the band round the back of your neck is useful too, because grinding can be noisy bidness.

*oooh yeah baaaaaybeh...

[Hirst]

Barrett, if you want to get rid of the rust proper, buy some Bilt-Hamber Deox Gel (or similar, but that's my favourite). Grinding will be extremely good at getting rid of the rust, but grinders/sanding often can't get into the heavily pitted areas and that's where rust will re-form and it'll come back at some point, you need something that can really get into them. Also metal can rust through bare primer (though it seems to vary greatly based on quality), so you'll want some paint over it anyway if it's going to be a while. What I'd do personally is just get those floors somewhere dry and wait until you're close to the stage where somebody can weld it in before doing the work, as otherwise you might just end up having to redo bits of it.