Well today has been a VERY good day – First Drive (After Seat Install & Other Bits) has been realized!
The efforts started off with something simple given I haven’t been having much luck with the driver’s seat. I did have another go a week or so back but still couldn’t get it to line up and slide correctly. I had tested to see that a new fuel tank sending unit would solve the gas gauge not operating and it did.
Fuel Tank Sending Unit
It turned out to be fairly easy to remove this and I didn’t even have to jack up the car as there was so little fuel in the tank. In the end I managed this quite quickly really. Simply tapped the retaining ring out and then removed the sending unit once I pried it away from the rubber gasket ring. I then got the rubber ring off using a screw driver to remove it slowly moving around the hole.
It became clear what the problem was – the float was pretty much ¾ full of gas and the arm movement was fairly stiff as well. I had a whole new unit and decided to replace everything including the rubber gasket and holding ring.
Putting the new unit in was straight forward although getting the unit to sit flush on the new rubber gasket took some fiddling. The new locking ring worked well and again with just some initial fiddling to line it up right and get it into the locking mechanism it was easy to hand tighten. Then just a few taps to get it nicely secured and all was well. Added some gas and sure enough the gas gauge started to register – sweet!
Driver’s Seat Install
Well I’ve gone a couple of rounds with this already (one documented the other not). After my second attempt I decided to bolt down the wooden spacers and the lower rail to try and get a mark/dent into the new carpet to make lining things up easier. This seems to have done the trick – I managed to beat the seat into submission on this third attempt.
I did have some trouble getting the seat to stay on the rails and had to pull these out and reinsert them again on both sides of the seats. The compression of the carpet area with the wooden rail helped and made it possible to get the really tricky front bolts to bite. The rear bolts were also easier and I switch to the original shorter bolts given the carpet had compressed so well. It seems to be sliding quite well but the adjuster mechanism seemed to be too low – it wasn’t locking into the adjusting slots of the rail. This was resolve the old fashioned way – I just bent the locking arm up enough to get it to start locking into the adjusting holes. Finally I get to sit on the seat!!
Gear Shifter
With the seat in place the chance of a first drive was in sight if I also took care of the shifter. The special bolts I now had having brought back the rest of the OD gearbox from UK recently and also the special spring loaded washers/spacers. I used new washers/spacer since I had them and gave the shifter a good greasing as Jack (twigworker) had mentioned in a post I had made. This was straight forward and again as advised by Jack I had the securing plate in the right place with the high side next to the driver. It’s working great and shifted smoothly. Even reverse, which had been sticky was OK. Not sure if this was just the securing plate helping or whether a few shifts eased the reversing inhibitor switch on the tranny somewhat after not much use for a looong time.
First Drive
So now I am actually ready for a drive – wooooo hoooo! I just decided to try things around the streets in my sub-division but boy I am pleased. Everything seemed to be fine and I now know that the speedo works.
I did a few laps and even got my wife to sit on the floor in the passenger side for a couple of them. Some nice photos and some OK video with the camera – just something to remember the event by – it’ll be worth remembering! YouTube seems to make them even worse quality wise but I have linked to them anyway – even managed a little tire squeal and I can really tell the difference the twin carbs makes compared to my single ZS on the 77.
This was a really good progress day – re-enthused again and ready to keep pushing ahead. Still plenty to do but a major milestone passed.
Various videos are embedded below.
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