348 DIY "Restoration"

[irarref]

After all the mechanic-ing I felt like taking care of a small cosmetic job ie my pockmarked black fake grill.





Rubbed it down with some wet and dry used dry just to smooth it down.




All masked off with tape and sheet.







And after spraying with my trusty Halfords black satin bumper paint. NOTE! The overpaint was already there - I did mask it up properly honest :-)




And with the grill back on - looks a lot better now and will do until the day when the whole bumper gets stone chipped enough to be repainted.

[irarref]

Just back to the suspension job...

Really pleased with it - I don't know whether there was something loose or not but car is a lot less rattley and steers and round very smooth so after all the effort I'm really glad I did it.

Although weather was atrocious I took the car for a good run out today (and met up with a previous owner). So far no squeaks from the brakes which I always used to feel embarrassed about.

[ronrob]

Just back to the suspension job...

Really pleased with it - I don't know whether there was something loose or not but car is a lot less rattley and steers and round very smooth so after all the effort I'm really glad I did it.

Although weather was atrocious I took the car for a good run out today (and met up with a previous owner). So far no squeaks from the brakes which I always used to feel embarrassed about.

Well Jeff, you deserve the pleasure after your painstaking efforts. Great job.

[irarref]

Thanks Ron :-)

There's nothing quite like going for a long run when you've not driven the car for a bit! You get back the original excitement - di around 70 miles yesterday and loved every minute :-)

[irarref]

Had a strange problem with my low fuel warning light this last couple of weeks. Whilst driving along its constantly flickering on and off, however the fuel gauge appears to be working normally (and accurately) so even with it showing 1/2 full etc the low fuel light flickers. After doing a bit of reading I decided to check it out.

My stone protection guard is not on the car at the moment so I didn't have to have the car jacked up too high to access the plug that connects the fuel gauge/light to the sender.




Here's the petrol tank and the near "ring" is the fuel sender but there is no obvious connection at first




If you look carefully the plug is sneakily behind the support so if you pull it towards you all will be revealed.







I sprayed a bit of contact cleaner on it to wetten it up as its quite a tight fit to pull apart - there's no little retaining clips or anything you have to depress - its just tight!!




The contacts looked a little bit green so glued some sandpaper to a peg in order to make an emery board to clean the contacts. After doing this I plugged it together and tested it but no change I'm afraid. At least I ruled it out.

[irarref]

So time to do a bit of testing to make sure the gauge size of the electrics are fine.

First of all I made a lead with 2 plugs on and tested it to make sure I don't introduce a new fault!




Just for reference the wiring is:

Black Sender connects to Black Gauge

Red Sender connects to Pink/Black Stripe (Low Fuel Warning)



Yellow Sender connects to Purple (Fuel Gauge)




So if you short the black gauge to the purple gauge side the fuel light should register full but the low level warning light will not light even at staup










But if you short the black gauge side to pink/black gauge side the fuel gauge registers empty but the low level lamp is illuminated.

[irarref]

I'm concluding from this (rightly or wrongly) that the gauge/lamp side of the wiring is fine and the fault must lie on the sender side.

Senders are no longer available or an extortionate price on eBay, however, there is an alternative available which is a reed sensor. Still expensive though - ouch!

So rather than just replacing it I'm going to see if I can repair it first but I am short of the tool to loosen off the ring holding the sensor in place. Does anyone have one I can beg, borrow or steal??? I see Hills do a socket but its nearly £90 or alternatively there are adjustable pin wrenches

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Laser-5281-...cx_mr_hp_atf_m

Hills socket:

https://www.hillengineering.co.uk/95...=fuel%20sender

This is the ring I am trying to undo:



BTW If anyone has some good pictures of the sender being removed or sizes, measurements etc that would be handy!

[irarref]

After my playing about with it the low level warning light stopped coming on at all :-(




Decided to have a look under the plastic cap covering the fuel sender which is held on with a very tiny plastic slotted screw





Once the screw is off it just requires some very gentle prizing with a screw driver etc to make it come out.




I was expecting to find a rusty mess or broken wire but all looks good (to the naked eye anyway).




Whilst I was fiddling about the low warning light started working again - although I must admit it's nowhere near as bright as when I was deliberately shorting it on the gauge side. I suspect I have a break in the wire maybe but not sure where??!!! I think I'm just going to have to persevere until I find it - what a pain!!! Once suspect is that I cable tied the wire to the gear change cables so it didn't hang down. Nate electrics - much prefer mechanical things as you can see what's broken!!!

[irarref]

Slightly off topic but my ATE caliper seals arrived (after about a 3 month wait!!!)

Will report back once I try them

[irarref]

Took care of another little job I've been meaning to do for quite some time - my scuttle and front wing drain channels have always looked pretty awful and particularly after seeing a restored car where it all looked like new I decided to do something about it.

Here's some of the before shots showing the grottiness...
















As you may be able to guess I used the Halfords black plastic bumper paint. I gave the scuttle a bit of a gentle rub with 600 grit wet and dry and then taped everything off as best as I could took forever!!!! Initial coat always looks scary as it looks like gloss.




Doesn't take long to dry though and then goes to a nice satin look.




Its fun peeling off all the masking tape :-)










Emboldened by my success I decided to do the wiper arms too. A bit messy to do and did it in sections because of the rubber pipe/sliders etc.