Practically Classics Forum

Luxobarge wrote:The ingredients of WD40 include some sort of fish-oil based product, which goes sticky and tacky over time..

That, plus a spot of Diesel, some paraffin and loads of marketing, is indeed what makes up everyone's favourite brand of water repellent product. WD40 is, however, excellent for removing chewing gum and biro stains from white clothing. The oily stuff must have some good points though, as fish are usually fairly waterproof.
Long term, for any telescopic aerial, the way to give such things a proper overhaul is to remove the mast, drill out one of the tiny indents that attach the anchor section to the base and remove that base plug, push the upper sections back through the base, clean any solidified grease (and marine life forms) out of the tiny copper collets that lock the sections into each other then lubricate with no more than a tiny amount of light oil, reassemble and punch the tube into the base indent at a new place on the base plug to keep it all together.

can you show some pics of that john? pretty please!

I'll find some illustrations somewhere, the trouble with photographing this task is that you need one hand for the lever on the pillar drill, one hand for the tube you're working on and the other hand for catching escaping collets when the sections separate!

Here you are, shamelessly borrowed from the UKVR boards and drawn by a certain Mr Phelan, whose engineering skills range from scratch building electric clocks to restoring his lovely old Citroens..



In the case of broken tubular sections, a repair can also be effected by replacing the bent tube with a better section from a spare aerial that's bent or broken elsewhere. Mike's repair was carried out for another radio forum member and involved a domestic radio set but all telescopic aerials go together in essentially the same way, though some have screwed in, rather than peened plugs.
I've followed this basic technique many times since 2007, when Mike posted that image, and have had success every time.

thanks mate

Nae bovva chief.

Consider me educated on the properties of proper aerial maintenance. I'll get some different stuff on it that isn't WD40. I'm not pulling the whole thing to bits to do a more thorough job, I'll leave that to the experts. Now, if you are of a nervous disposition I suggest you look away now. The following content contains scenes that may be upsetting to some, which is why I'm posting it after the watershed.

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I've been a busy bee this weekend with the welder and the grinder and playing with sharp bits of metal. My first duty was to get the car level so that the work I was about to undertake would also be level. Jacking the car up with a tiny spirit level on the roof is much easier than trying to sort out the suspension right now.


Then I got the cake tins and the marker pen out, marked up the back panel for the three light buckets I had yet to install and got busy. I forgot to take any photographs of progress. Compared to the first one I installed, these were for the most part quite easy. There's definitely a knack to it. This was yesterday when I didn't have a huge amount of time, just enough to do this stage.


Today, I had much more time so I'd determined I'd get everything welded in, including the back plates to hold the lights. If I had enough time I'd make a start on the number plate recess too. It went remarkably well! But first, here's the one problem I did encounter. I knew where I wanted the number plate to sit in the rear valance and had made a good guess for location for what to cut out on the back panel. What I hadn't banked on was there being a big structural piece behind the outer skin that I have to work with.


It's okay though, I can still locate the number plate close to where I wanted it, just a little lower. Wiring and location for the new number plate light should be quite easy to achieve too, there's good access inside the boot and enough depth to the panel to make that relatively straight forward. I now have to finish my cardboard template for the piece of metal I need to cut, fold and weld to fill the hole. Then there's just lots of trim and bumper holes to fill in to smooth it all out properly. You can imagine I was quite pleased to get to this point tonight.




In the photographs it looks wonky, I know this will get pointed out. You'll have to take my word for it that it isn't and that it's the fisheye effect of the lens on my camera which makes the lights look like they're not lined up or pointing the right way. Because I've used loose bottomed cake tins as my template for the buckets, the back of them has a nice round rolled edge with the light clusters sitting slightly recessed in them and leaving no sharp edges at all in the boot.

The BMW outer lights are rotated 90 degrees, this means that both my running/brake lights are in the top half of the light clusters and the reflectors are to the outer corners which seemed more sensible and the large clear reversing lens is less obvious like this. I'm very excited about getting it all finished off and wired up so I can see the car come to life with its new lights. There's just a few holes to fill that the original bumper and wiring have left behind and the recess for the number plate to weld to finish off all the MoT required welding now.

Well... tonight a thing happened. I intended to just pop into the unit and tidy up a bit, show my brother what I'd got up to with the rear end. The boot was all cleaned out and tidied up.


A view of the back of the buckets, showing how user friendly and not-sharp they are. Just the wiring and a little bit of metal tidying on the back panel to do here.


Then we sort of got talking about the suspension yet again and my brother asked why I didn't just patch it for now so we could at least move the car around. Worst case scenario is that it wouldn't work. So we repaired the broken hydragas pipe by cutting the broken ends off smooth with a pipe cutter from the pipe fixed to the car, and the spare incomplete pipe, then sleeved it with some suitable rubber hosing and four jubilee clips. THIS IS NOT A PERMANENT FIX.

Anyway, there's no photograph of that. What there is a photograph of is our offering to the patron saint of bodging, Heath Robinson. It turns out the schrader valve connector on my hydragas dalek is broken and I didn't have a replacement. What I did have is a spare air line and a tyre inflating fitting.


It was a little tricky, you have to hold the schrader fitting on at a particular angle and the trigger leaks a bit. You also have to have one of you holding the inflation fitting and the other pumping the pump. I would not recommend this method, it is appalling. The important thing is that it worked and that I'll be getting the pump refurbished so I can do it properly next time.


We took things steady, partly because we had to, partly because we didn't want to risk breaking anything. The main reason for doing things this way is to find out if the new displacer works (it does, yay!) and to make it so the car could be driven around the unit easier. We got it all up to the requisite pressure but couldn't get it to sit level, no matter how much we jiggled the car. Not wanting to risk overloading it we decided to leave it slightly wonky.


A bit disappointed, but still really happy to see the car off its bumpstops for the first time in a long while, I decided to just roll it back and forth to check it would still run and the brakes hadn't got stuck on. Then the wonkiness went away! Because of course you're supposed to do this with the handbrake off and I'd forgotten.




All level It's good enough until I get the pipe replaced and it'll allow me to see whether or not the displacers are any good. So far, no leaks, not even on the pipe bodge. It's a big step closer to getting everything sorted.

Popped into the unit at lunch to fettle a bit with the car, get some fresh air, that sort of thing. I'd got pretty fed up of the knackered tyres constantly deflating so took the Lotus alloys with me which still have air in the tyres even though they've been sat around for a couple of years unused. Topped them all up and they were ready to go. I love how these wheels look on the car, they just fit so well. I've also decided I'm running the suspension at this height rather than factory because it looks 'right' even though it's slightly lower than stock and is a little bit more squidgy. Squidgy is good, we like squidgy in this car.




The tyres on the alloys are nicely meaty for the rear end and visually it needs it to pull everything together. It all just looks 'right' to me.


At the front I figured out what the fitment issue was with the central bar and corrected that with hammers and gentle manipulation of the top return lip. Then I fitted my only good grille and the headlight trims along with the new MG B sidelight/indicator units. I was going to get the headlights in too but I'm missing the bits that the brackets screw into, I can't remember if they were square plastic lugs or metal clips, either way I need to get some fresh fittings to get those in. I love how the front end is looking. I might even leave it on the standard plastic trims rather than fitting the full width hideaway grille.


And here, for those of you that love accidents looking for a place to happen, is the pipe bodge that shouldn't work but does.


The last thing to report is a parts hunt. This is the schrader fitting from my dalek pump that needs replacing. We think it's missing the bit that pushes the pin in on the valve so you can get enough fluid in. It also doesn't lock in place particularly well. I have no idea what that tap bit is about either.




If anyone knows what that part might be called and/or where I can find one, I'd appreciate it.

Buy THIS. You won't find it cheaper anywhere else. Then you can do THIS.

P45.

That's top information! Thank you The LAS site had been pointed out to me on the Princess forum so that's two votes of confidence for them.