Airconditioned V8.

Thanks for the blow-up, it's nice to see a reference to the the unit. I did e-mail Alpinair (they're still around) when I got the car regarding it but they never got back to me.
I wouldn't scrap the cars obviously, I'm just weighing the options of downsizing the fleet, the constant cost of storage being a factor.
 
Well, I finally made a start on her today. Washed the 1/4" of dust off of her, took all the seats bar the drivers out & removed the N/S sill cover. And I'm very pleasantly surprised at what I found there. Minimal rot confined to the far ends of the sill sections. A little daylight through the front corner of the floor & part of the outer curved section of the rear-well rotspot crumbly, not completely though & easily repairable. Between these points, nary a sign of the tinworm at all. Hopefully the O/S is no worse (touch wood) though one of the MoT failure points was welding needed under the drivers door. We'll find out when I remove the cover, possibly tomorrow. Rear top link mounts are also good. I didn't have my camera but I'll post some pictures presently.
She started almost immediately despite not being touched for two years. As with Unstable load's car, there is also an electric fuel pump. Mounted in the boot, it's a large & fairly noisy affair though I can't remember being too aware of it when I drove her to my place. The brake system will be completely gone over, refurbed rear calipers, the master leaks so a re-rubber will hopefully sort that & I'll take a gander at the front calipers as they were pulling unevenly. Fingers crossed the servo's ok too. A water pump, repair the ignition wiring or replace as I have a new unit in stock, replace the front shocks which I also have & put poor old Poe's flatpleat interior in there to replace the mullered boxpleat's (both bronze) & rotten carpets. Some wiper blades & tyres & she should be ready to be re-presented at the MoT station.
All in all I'm very pleased, lets hope the drivers sill doesn't bring back any memories of the trials of Bruiser's bottom. :mrgreen:
 
A day or two's work and you're sorted then! :wink:

Seriously, good for you...and it does sound as if you've got a decent project there.
 
Some pictures. Nearside sill:

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Offside sill. Erm....!:

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Rear wells. Nearside:

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Offside:

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Jolly hockey sticks:

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Bulkhead:

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Not too bad actually as the jacking points & B posts are good. It's mostly flat sections to be fabricated & hopefully the repairs should only take a weekend to knock out. I'll prepare everything & engage my brother to come & do the welding (I really must learn). None of those little repairs to do so far, holes in the bulkheads, hockey sticks, underbonnet rain gullys, you know the sort of thing. I think she's survived pretty well. The wings are good (I'll whip the rears off too), doors are a bit scabby along the bottoms but I'm not too worried as she should be good for a daily driver & scrubs up pretty well.

And another of the aircon unit:

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I need to investigate further but I think the main refrigerant hoses are holding the unit forward on the passenger side which looks unsightly, but also prevents the heater temp/direction controls from protruding enough to accomodate fitment of the knobs, which is unacceptable in my books & something that definitely needs rectifying.
 
Actually there was an Andrew Lloyd Webber cassette in the machine which started playing when I switched it on. :shock:
Steeling myself against the unholy cacaphony I instantly ejected it & threw it as far away from the car as possible before it could invade the cool of the wife's new steed any further & as I did, I thought I caught a glimpse of Fay visibly relax after carrying that terrible burden for so long.
So luckily the most important job to be carried out on her was a quick & easy fix.
 
I took the facia off the unit today. As you can see it's a bit of a bodge fitting, note the wooden block. I suspect that rather than Alpinair fitting it, the garage owner I bought her from purchased the unit & had it done at his own place. I would hope so anyway as I wouldn't have been happy with the fitting had it been returned to me like that from the manufacturers:

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It will fit better if the loom is moved up to the top behind it, I may have to lengthen some of the wiring:

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It mimics the original centre unit quite well:

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Plenty of scope for improvement, not least the wiring. Disposal of all the nasty blue bits & replacement with soldered joints is the order of the day methinks.
 
The Rovering Member said:
Actually there was an Andrew Lloyd Webber cassette in the machine which started playing when I switched it on. :shock:
Steeling myself against the unholy cacaphony I instantly ejected it & threw it as far away from the car as possible before it could invade the cool of the wife's new steed any further & as I did, I thought I caught a glimpse of Fay visibly relax after carrying that terrible burden for so long.
So luckily the most important job to be carried out on her was a quick & easy fix.
Click to expand...

Thank God for that. :)
 
My car had dealer fitted (I think) aircon here in Australia, was that normal for Aussie 3500's?

It doesn't show much, but its buried in here somewhere:

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I took some more photos, I got the writing confused when I said it was a Uniden unit inside the car:

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It actually is a "unicla" unit or something like that.
 
Returning to the matter of the engine tie-bar, I would imagine that it's supposed to be attached in-between the two large brackets you can see in the picture, the one on the right being bolted to the inner wing:

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The red refrigerant hose is in the way which probably accounts for it's absence, so I'll see if I can do something about it. I've got a couple of spare 2000 bars about somewhere.

So far I've cleaned & re-sealed the front calipers, fitted new pads a new pair of shocks & generally cleaned & tidied the front wheel arches. Poe has sacrificed her ignition switch to replace Fays 'missing in action' item when someone tried to have it away with her (though not in the biblical sense) before I bought her.
More of that to follow.
 
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