23) Finishing the wheel and other little bits
- Chris Stanley
- Dec 19, 2019
- 3 min read
Today the Morris gains a nice new boot carpet.
December 18th 2019
Today a large box arrived on my doorstep, it was like Christmas had come early... Well, for the car at least.
Inside the box was a brand new tailored boot carpet and an envelope containing a nice new braided fuel hose to connect the fuel pump to the carburettor. The existing pipe is is a clear plastic one which has become very brittle and yellowed over the years and I struggle to believe it's an original fitment. I'm guessing the original pipe would have been made from rubber but I stand to be corrected.
Before I get to those jobs however, in my last post I promised to update you all on the progress of my spare wheel refurbishment so here it is...
After much more sanding, the wheel was about as good as it needed to be for painting. I'm still a little concerned about the pitting around the part where the tyre bead sits but I'm hoping the paint will partially fill that.
For paint, I used smooth black Hammerite which is suitable for painting directly onto rust. I gave both sides of the wheel a nice thick coat and may return to it with a second coat in a few days if I think it needs one. It looks like the paint has gone some way towards filling those pits around the rim so things are looking good!
After setting the wheel aside to dry, I unrolled my new carpet and installed it into the boot. A perfect fit.
Now comes the time to tackle the fuel line. I thought I'd be clever here (always a prelude to disaster) and attempt to film this so I could embed a little video into my blog. Now there's a reason I don't normally make videos, it's because I'm extremely bad at it and I have a basic camera which isn't really up to the job. Sure enough, after a lot of messing around I finally finished the work and had it all on video...Or so I thought. When I played it back, only a small part worked and the rest was corrupted. Well that was a waste of time!
So apologies for the lack of detailed photos but I didn't take many, thinking I had everything on video. I have taken a couple of screenshots from the part of the video which did work which is why the quality is lower.
I put an old rag into the engine bay, below the carb to catch any drips of fuel before undoing the banjo bolt and then the bolt that connects the old pipe to the pump.
Once this was removed it was a simple case of fitting the new braided line, starting at the fuel pump side which has an internal 'O' ring seal. Once that was secure I routed the line through to the carb and tightened the banjo bolt, using two new fibre washers. I then turned on the ignition so that the pump pressurised the system and looked for leaks. There were a couple of minor drips which disappeared after tightening the bolts a little more.
The last thing to arrive in the post was a tube of windscreen sealant. This should hopefully plug the two small leaks I have without having to replace the windscreen rubber. A job for another day I think!
I know the feeling unfortunately, I've had my share of poor quality parts over the years. This one from ESM Minors looks to be very good quality though so I'm hoping it holds up well as I intend to use this car a lot in 2020!
Another couple of jobs ticked off then. Well one.
Not long after getting my '62 salloon I got equally giddy when my braided petrol pipe arrived....but not for long!
To be fair, mine is a slightly different set-up from yours, methinks. It has no banjo fittings as it just pushes straight on to metal stubby pipes at each end (pump and carb) and the crimped ends are made tight by jubilee clips. Trouble is, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't make either end secure and tight. The rubber inner pipe was really squashy and It was always very easy to pull the pipe off. Even worse, it actually once worked its way off whilst driving!
Needless to…