I've done a little work on her, but have some niggles/queries that I'm hoping more experienced forum members can help me with.
Work done so far
- Adjusting the idle speed, which solved my problem of stalling at junctions (thanks to all who gave advice on this)
- Wiring in a pair of 12v sockets for iPod and portable speaker (again, thanks for help here)
- Cutting out some rusty patches around the passenger headlight, treating with anti-rust, filling with fibreglass and smoothing with filler, then priming and painting (I'm hoping to take a closer look at the front wings and ideally sort them properly when the weather improves)
- Installing rear seat belts. Smooth job apart from one captive nut with a slightly dinged thread at the tip. Filing the bolt tip by minute amounts until it caught the thread lower down and brought the rest along with it worked nicely - saved having to cut a new thread.
- Ordering a new weatherstrip and fixings for the passenger side window (bit missing on the current one)
- Ordering a new driver's side seatbelt stalk to sort the seatbelt warning light problem (loose connection somewhere in the current stalk)
- Giving the front seats and all door vinyls a deep clean - came up nicely
- Buying a 99p aerial key off eBay so I didn't have to use a spanner
- Fixing the temperature gauge wire when it worked loose
Plans for when I have a few quid spare/more time
- New carpet in the same or similar brown (bit threadbare at the moment)
- Wiring in the two front spotlights
- Fixing a couple of chips in the windscreen, or even sourcing a new windscreen
- Finding one of those FM converters for the radio, assuming I can find one at sensible prices (the old ones seem to be more popular in the US). Or failing that, finding a way to boost the FM reception on the iPod nano, or sourcing an FM/MW radio for the 70s (though I quite like the idea of keeping LW).
Stuff that's perplexing me right now
- She has a rattle that sounds like it's coming from the dash when she's idling, though I'm pretty sure it isn't. I think it must be the engine, but I can't hear the noise coming from the engine itself.
- The steering judders and seems to rattle somewhere down the base of the column, particularly if I shift into 3rd or 4th at slightly lower revs than I should. Could this be the lower bush? (Have yet to investigate, but it seems to be getting more frequent and noticeable).
- The steering is slightly off 'true'. To go dead ahead, you need to have the wheel about 15 degrees anticlockwise from straight. This also means indicators are more likely to turn off automatically when you turn one way, rather than the other (trying to remember which way - will have to remind myself tomorrow)
Any help / thoughts you might have on the rattling and steering issues will be much appreciated. In return I'll take pics when I fix them
Cheers,
Ben
