Le Petite Van Gris.
Part 2
Writing this on a Tuesday evening, the sun is shining and it is week five of our lockdown. I would like to be driving one of the cars or one of my motorcycles but have decided to stay at home and find things to do. I have already had one bike club virtual night and two car club virtual nights. It is much better to be meeting up with people face to face but we can no longer do that. There is a bright side to this in that we can all have a drink which is not normally the case. So far no one I know has come down with this Corona virus but it has not been the cause of other people passing away. Sadly, dear friend, Bill Crosby passed away at the end of March. He was a strength that made things happen envisaging a London Motorcycle Museum and made it a reality. He saw it through to its final breath and left an immense legacy for us all. On another recent death and that was of the Great Stirling Moss. A man who put some sparkle into Motor Racing and as a child I watched many of the Grand Prix’s on a black and white tele.
What have I been doing, well I started to strip a heavy flywheel engine that I want to use in this little van. I was kneeling down for so long I hurt my ankle and couldn’t do much for a week so I did standing up stuff like de-rusting the engine cowel. Once cleaned up I found some 20year old white hammerite that I smothered everywhere. This old stuff really keeps the rust at bay.
After much rubbing down I primed it and top coated with gloss black. Looks OK as it will spend it’s life hidden under the bonnet. More fun with the rear door of the van. Having got it in place using wood screws I needed to replace them with some stainless button head bolts. This is now done but getting the door in the correct position afterwards has been a pain. Fine when I had wood screws but with bolts it just did not sit right. I have got that done now. The mounting brackets for the gas struts also needed the screws replaced and after getting some 50mm bolts this is now done. The lower brackets required longer bolts but all not have had the brackets threaded to take the 6mm bolts so I don’t need to fit nuts.
It all seems to be coming together. I have rubbed down the whole of the glass fibre van body and preparing to give it another coat of paint. This time with a roller instead of a brush. I hope the finish is a bit better. It took me three days to rub the body down and I had to stop because I I had no finger nails left.
Another little project is the Burton gear shift linkage. My brother, Adrian, has made up a new linkage. The rubbers are gone and replaced with a ball end joint and steel block. The Burton gear shift tends to eat the rubbers because of the greater pressure on the levers as a shorter gearbox lever is used. I did a video to see what happens to the linkage when you change gear to get some idea if this would work. I know a longer version works as Citwins make one already.
I’m not able to use this as it is too long for the space available on the Burton. I’ll let you know how this goes.
Although not using the cars and bikes they get regular inspections and start ups just to remind me of what they sound like when you crack open the throttle. One day soon I hope?
No comments:
Post a Comment