520Y - Continued

[EXCEL V8]

You're right Paul - they are all Metalastic bushes as you describe.

Pete

[Lozza74]

Thanks for pointing that out - I had not registered that the bushes were Metalastic.

It looks like I will be taking the front end apart again then. At least its fairly easy to do at the moment

[Lozza74]

Thanks to Pete and Paul for pointing out that my lower wishbone bushes had separated. I'm now most of the way through fighting to replace them with poly bushes.

 

The drivers side bush pushed out easily but left the outer steel tube in the wishbone. A few minutes with a hacksaw split the tube and I could push it out in the vice.

 

The passenger side was another matter. That was firmly attached to the wishbone so in the end I took it to a friend's workshop where the 10T press soon saw it defeated.

 

I am now most of the way through rebuilding the suspension again. Fitting the new poly bushes is fairly easy, but as I always find, once the inner crush tube is inserted into the bushes they end up just that bit too wide to make fitting the large washers easy. However they are in now, so I'm almost back to where I started with the front end. 

[Lozza74]

I reached a big milestone last weekend - the body is now reunited with the chassis!

I have very few pictures for this update, I seem to be doing things that didnt warrant a photo at the time. However for the record, and because pictures are good here is one of the lower wishbone where I had to cut the outer steel tube out. From the look of the wishbone this had been done a couple of times in the past. Im pleased to say that none of the cut marks are mine - I was more careful than that.

 Another little job I did was to replace all 4 jacking points. Well, to be honest I replaced one. The other three were missing completely. I also cleaned up some cracks in the fibreglass above the one remaining jacking point plate. These cracks turned out to only be in the gel coat, but I have now added a couple of layers of new glass fibre over them. This is where I ground out the damaged area.

And here after fixing new plates on all around, and also painting the inner wheel arches with stone chip paint to give them a bit of a clean up from the faded and chipped original black paint.

Finally I dropped the body back onto the chassis. This was surprisingly easy, and as with lifting it off, was done alone.

To do it I aligned the chassis with the body by eye then lowered my scissor lift with the body on it. Once sitting on the chassis I had missed the body mounting holes by a few mm, so I used a trolley jack to lift one corner of the body a cm or 2 and gave the chassis a good kick to move it a bit. Then I tried a bit more science, and used a screwdriver through the mounting holes to 'tweak' the chassis the last few mm. After dropping the body back down the mounting bolts simply pushed back into place.

I put spacers back between the chassis and body in the positions they came out from.

The real test was the rear mounts I had re-made. Amazingly these aligned perfectly and the original spacers fitted back in. To be honest I could have done with about 0.5 to 1 mm thicker spacers, but I wasnt going to try to wrestle for that amount. This is a picture of the (shiney) rear mounting bolt without the spacer in place on the side of the body I did the most work to.

 

Im happy with that.

[Lozza74]

Before I took the engine out of the car last year I drained the gearbox oil, and found that there was a lot of sludge in it, most of which was stuck to the magnetic drain plug. The sludge was quite shiny and metallic, but with no large lumps of metal in it. I thought it didn’t look too bad and considered leaving the gearbox alone, but as I didn’t want to take the engine out again in the future I thought I may as well get it rebuilt.

The sludge looked like this

When the gearbox  came out of the car it looked like this - not very clean, and there was obviously an oil leak around the input shaft.

 

Whilst removing the gearbox it was clear that the bushes around the gear lever had served their time and given up the ghost.

 

Although some people have rebuilt their own gearboxes I decided that it was a step too far for me and I would get someone else to do this work. Reading around on the internet Hardy Engineering Transmissions Ltd seemed to have a good reputation and are not too far from me, so I asked them to rebuild the gearbox - which was no problem. On taking the gearbox to them they have a suitably old fashioned workshop with that deeply ingrained oily smell you only find in places that have been in business for a long time. On a quick walk around there were gears, parts and completed boxes all around. There was also an ambulance up on the lift - obviously in for some work.

 

When I dropped the gearbox off I said I was in no rush as the rest of the car was in bits, and that was perfect as far as they were concerned.

A few weeks later I got a call as they had done an initial inspection. The usual synchro's and bearings could do with being replaced - but also 5th gear had been trying to destroy itself, with several teeth missing bits.

 

I had mentioned the rebuild kit available from the US for these gearboxes, and they asked if I could buy that as their suppliers would not carry parts for this box. They also passed me across an ebay link for a new 5th gear set. So I ended up ordering the parts on eBay and getting them shipped straight to the workshop. I bought 2 parts which both arrived after 2 or 3 weeks:

"Toyota W55 W56 W58 W59 5th Gear Set" from 'cobratrans' on ebay ($190 including shipping and import tax)

"W55 W56 W58 Toyota Transmission Rebuild Kit 5 Speed 1978-91 (BK162WS)" from 'usa.industries' on ebay ($199 including shipping and import tax)

 

Many months later I was getting close to putting the body back on the chassis and called to ask if the gearbox could be ready for Easter. I think the response was 'We'll see what we can do', but that’s also what they said when I asked for the diff back with a few weeks notice, just to have them call up a week later to say it was done.

 

This time I got a call just before Easter to say the gearbox would take a little longer. It turns out the input shaft had been sleeved at some point in the past, and the sleeve was cracked. It would need replacing.

However a couple of weeks later I got a call saying the box was ready for collection. It looks significantly smarter - and cleaner than it was.

 

While the box was away I had been on a bit of a shopping spree for bushes and bits for the gear lever.

The manky mess in the pictures in my last post is the remains of the 'seat sub-assembly' part number 33505-35020. Also needed is the bush that presses onto the end of the gearstick. This is simply the 'bush' - part number 33548-31010.

I also needed the rubber boot that covers the top of the gearbox - part 33555-22050.

I got all these parts from megazip.com - and for a very reasonable price.

I also needed the gasket that goes under the gear lever retaining cover - but to be honest I cant remember where I bought that from - however it turns out it was also included in the gearbox rebuild kit.

 

As well as ordering those parts I did some googling and found some references on Celica and Supra forums to the fact that the socket the gear stick bush fits into also wears. A solution to this has been created by a guy in the states who sells inserts that fit into the socket - from his website - http://www.w58bushings.com/. I placed an order for that kit as well, which arrived a week or so later.  The kit came in a small brown box and contains 3 items. A new 'seat sub assembly', a new gearstick bush, and a bronze bush to replace part of the socket.

The web site has good instructions for fitting the bush, and a trial fit showed just how much slop there was between my new gearstick bush and the original socket - its definitely worth removing this slop.

Since my gearbox was on the floor I removed the top cover for the gearlever mount, took out the rubber gasket and then used an old cloth to stop any debris from getting into the box itself. Then it’s a case of attacking the metalastic bush that is the actual socket with a screwdriver to remove the inner metal ring and the rubber joint.

 

Once that is done and cleaned up the bronze bush gets glued in with JB-Weld, which I need to buy, so have paused for the moment.

[Lozza74]

I've now glued the bronze bush into the gear selector knuckle.

[Lozza74]

To finish off the gearbox before fitting it I needed to replace the rubber mount. These are still available from lotusbits, SJ Sports cars and I'm sure a few other suspects, however the £120 wanted felt a lot to me. As with the rest of the gearbox the mount is a standard part. It is 'Toyota 12371-34020 - insulator, engine mount, rear.

Looking online rockauto in the states have pattern parts for about £5, but I kept looking for a genuine part. Amayama.com claimed to have several available so I gave them a try. The part was £22, but shipping and import taxes were another £40 (from Japan). There was a cheaper but slower option that I didn't use.

10 days later the new gearbox mount arrived. £60 Isn't cheap, but it's a lot better than £120!

From this picture you can see why I needed a new mount.

[Lozza74]

Its time for another update to this thread, and once again this is going to cover work that took place over an extended period. This time mostly whilst the engine was out of the car.

As part of stripping down the car to remove the engine and then lifting the body off the chassis I drained the brake system. The fluid that came out was fairly clean indicating that it had been changed recently, but it was also full of bits of dirt and rust particles. This made me decide to replace most of the parts of the system that had not already been replaced.

The external state of the servo and master cylinder made it clear that both of those would benefit from replacement. Looking at the usual sources both the servo and master cylinder are pretty expensive - the Lotus tax again. However several forum posts suggest that Land Rover parts can be used, and may even be direct replacements. I decided that for the £30 for  master cylinder, and £60 for a servo it was worth finding out for myself, so I duly ordered a Master cylinder (part NRC8690) and Servo (STC1816)

The master cylinder swap is quite well documented, and the only real change is that the Land Rover item has different sized ports front and rear - since I wanted to renew the brake pipes that wasn’t a problem.

The servo swap is less well documented

As can be seen in the pictures my original servo was very rusty. What can also be seen is that the pushrod that attaches to the brake pedal is very different. However less obvious is that the mounting studs are exactly the same length and separation, meaning no modifications to the Excel body are needed.

After buying the servo I kept looking at it for several months trying to work out how best to modify it. The push rod on the LR servo is shorter than the Lotus servo, and is obviously a different end so the clevis would not fit. I have seen some people simply bolt plates either side of the 'loop' to make a new clevis, but I didn’t like that as there is a possibility of movement.

I decided to cut the loop off and extend the rod itself - and to do that by cutting a thread into the push rod and using an extension piece.

To cut the thread I had to remove the push rod from the servo, which luckily cam apart very easily with just a bit of wiggling (Im actually worried it was too easy). Since my original servo was very dead I decided to see what the original pushrod was like. Getting that out required a fair degree of brute force, but let me compare the two.

 

The Land Rover pushrod is perfect for an M10 thread, so that was easy to cut. I started off using an M10 to M8 adapter - as shown, but that was a little too short.

The final version uses an M10 to M8 internally threaded bar, and a length of M8 rod to go into the clevis, with a lock nut. I was happier with this as the length was better, and the threads were a tighter fit.

 

This was fitted to the car with a new gasket, along with the new master cylinder

(and for some reason I cant rotate that picture)

 

This all took several months, and during the time the brake system was empty the rear bias valve - or 'G' valve completely seized up. It got to the stage where it was not letting any air, let alone fluid pass in either direction through it. I can only assume that the old brake fluid had lots of water and rust in is, and the internals of the g valve rusted solid.

I bought a replacement part, and being me took it apart to see just what they are. For some reason I don’t appear to have taken any photos which is a bit of an oversight. However I can confirm that just inside the end cap is a rubber seal (square profile). The valve itself is a cylinder inside which a piston is free to slide up and down. The cylinder has about 3 more seals around it, but a small hole through the middle. Behind the piston is a large, heavy ball bearing and a weak spring. The spring pushes the ball against the piston. The angle the valve is mounted in the car mean that under heavy breaking the ball will push forwards against the piston - and I presume stop the flow of fluid to the rear brakes. Without the heavy braking the ball falls away from the piston and fluid can flow freely in either direction.

So these really are simple devices, and the only challenge to rebuild them would be to find the correct size seals. However in my original there was no way the piston was coming out of the cylinder, hence it now being in the bin.

[Lozza74]

For a while I was waiting for the engine to be rebuilt, so I ended up deciding to tackle some of the interior. I had originally planned to put as much of the car back together before starting on the interior, because the garage was getting to the stage where there were more car parts on the floor than attached to the car.

However I had a few spare weekends, and the offer of some help with the sewing, so went ahead with trying to replace the headlining.

Removing the old headlining was fairly easy, most of it was pretty robust material that I could just peel off the panels. Scraping the foam backing off the roof was a bit of a pain but didn’t take long. However I found it impossible to scrape the foam from the front part of the roof without also removing the foil insulation/electrical insulator - so it all came off.

 

I cleaned up the trim panels with solvent to remove the old glue residue.

 

I had some foil backed dynamat left from a previous project (and under the bonnet), so stuck a layer of that to the front part of the roof. I also put some copper tape over the arial cable to replace what was there originally. Unfortunately I could not remove all the creases from the dynamat and it was only after I had stuck the new material over it I realised these creases were visible.

Only 4 seams need to be sewn for the bulk of the headlining, and getting someone who knew what they were doing to do that for me saved a lot of hassle.

The sun visors also need some sewing. These are made as 'pockets' with three sides sewn together inside out. The top edge is left open.

The visors themselves are pretty simple, a bar across the top, and a wire around the edge. The interior of mine were decayed beyond re-use, so I striped everything off and glued 2 bits of closed cell foam (camping mat) to the bar/wire. I then wrapped some 4mm scrim foam around this to allow it to 'give' a bit.

This was then inserted into the sewn pocket. I then had to sew up the top edge of the material by hand - a curved needle made that easier than it would have been, but Im not the best with a needle and thread (my willing helper had left by this point).

Luckily the top edge isnt really visible when its all back in the car.

 

My A-pillar trim was in a bad way. The sun/water had got to it and the bottom of the posts were all curled up away from the dashboard. I removed the material from these and realised that in true lotus style they are very simple - a layer of closed cell foam glued to one side of the a-pillar, and then material glued around all sides (including between the windscreen and the a-pillar).

 

I managed to glue the original foam back to the pillar and left it a few days.

I then used some leather to match the new dashboard to cover the pillar and foam - simply gluing it to the body. I obviously couldn’t get it all the way between the windscreen and a-pillar, but did manage to feed it a long way in, so the edge of the new leather isnt visible.

 

With that done I put all the trim pieces back in the car, and of course the rest of the interior now looks horrible.

[Lozza74]

Back in August 2021 I asked if anyone could recommend an engine rebuilder. I didn’t get a lot of response but decided to use a local Lotus specialist. Towards the end of the year I took the engine over to him so he could rebuild it as winter work.

That turned out to be a bit of a mistake as some 5 months later he finally admitted he would not be able to do the rebuild for a few reasons. However he did help arrange with a different but still fairly local specialist to do the work instead, and even took the engine over to the new person.

As it happens a friend had already recommended the second specialist, so I didn’t have any real concerns, and had just lost a bit of time but nothing more.

Talking to the rebuilder we agreed just to rebuild the engine to the standard LC spec. upgrading to HC spec seems to involve replacing lot of parts at pretty significant cost and effort - many of which were unlikely to need replacement due to wear.

In the end we found that the interior of the engine was absolutely filthy, which corresponded to it sitting for many years before the previous owner recommissioned the car. We also found that 2 of the liners were pitted beyond use, probably from having water sitting in them - so all 4 were replaced. However the crank was OK as were the pistons, so new rings and crank bearings were all that was needed.

I collected the engine in about June, and put it back into the car over the hottest weekend of the year in the middle of July. It must have been in the low 30's in the garage which mad for hard work.

 

The bearings in the alternator were pretty grumbly, and since the resin from the regulator was also leaking out I decided to get a replacement. That also looked a lot nicer with the now clean engine.

A question though - can anyone tell me how the new alternator needs connecting up? The terminals are labelled differently to the original

 

Thanks!