Saturday cruising

Today we went on our first official outing in the Corona.

Fittingly it was down to Supacheap to buy a small socket/spanner set to keep in the boot. We also detoured past the friend's place again.

The car ran beautifully, smooth, responsive - well, as responsive as a 45 year old 1.5L 2 speed auto can manage, which isn't much, and rode pretty quietly.

Upon returning home I noticed a small coolant leak due to a lack of sealant around an outlet from the water pump (it's a screw  in attachment), which has been fixed.

One of the trans lines was oozing near the radiator, which I since sealed and added a new clamp.

And then the contact points closed on me so it took a good 20 minutes to locate why it wouldn't start. Reset them and we're good again!

Exhausted after a trip around the block

Finally we're ready for some cruising!

Clean, running, interior in, lets go.

Did a few trips around the block, up to a friends house not far away home again, and then to get fuel and then the exhaust blew. Not surprising really given I suspect it's actually the original exhaust from the factory. Whenever I started it in the shed, a shovel full of rust and crap would blow out of the pipes.


Shortly after the exhaust let go. Looks great, sounds awful, runs a bit rough.


Today it went for it's longest trip, running a little rough, down to the exhaust joint near my work.



I knew there was still some fuel issue as when you plant the foot it hesitates and sometimes bogs down, but after some discussion with the exhaust bloke we agreed it's probably the ancient fuel in the tank. I topped it up with a jerry can some months back, but the fuel in the tank is probably 10 years old (last registered in 2006) and the fuel in the jerry can is probably at least that old if not more! I added $20 worth of fuel the other week, but obviously not enough to dilute the gunk.

Anyway, on the way home I filled it totally - to overflowing actually which unfortunately softened the paint under the filler pipe. However within about 5 minutes of driving it was suddenly running smooth! 

More Interior

After the carpet was installed, it really showed how awful the headlining was looking. Initially I didn't think it was too bad, but I gave it a thorough scrub and it was clearly evident that it had significant sun damage. Some of the vinyl had even cracked and come apart on the passenger A pillar. I glued in a patch of vinyl to cover the cracks and then sprayed the A pillar with dull-white vinyl spray. It suddenly looked a million times better and I knew I had to do the whole thing.

Being mid-Winter it was risky, but we were having a sunny day so I bit the bullet and careful masked the whole interior and then gave it many light coats, using two full cans in the end. There was two runs which I managed to spot early enough to clean up and recover with paint. I was pretty happy with the result, vinyl spray can really be hit and miss, but this turned out awesome. To the casual observer they wouldn't be able to notice.

The crashpad in these things are notorious for self-destructing from the Aussie summers. I don;t think I've ever seen a non-restored one in one piece. This one had a huge crack right through the middle about an inch wide where you could see the metal below. It had curled and peeled and was a write off. I have no idea how they repair them. I had started cutting off the worst bits and was going to bog it until I read online about a guy making a new one out of foam and vinyl. They are dead straight with no contours or many curves so I thought I should give it a crack. It was pretty easy actually, make a template from newspaper, cut foam to suit, test, then glue on vinyl, then fit. Although the corners that fold down into the sides of the dash don't quite look right, the rest looks very neat.

 

 
 

Carpet install

Every recent post seems to be 'a couple more things and we'll be done', which never ends up being the case.

The carpet arrived, here's a review.

Rear: The rear was pretty much a perfect fit. The moulding lined up exactly with the tunnel and finished an inch in front of the seam between the front and rear floor. Just enough overhang to provide a clean fit along the sides, I trimmed about 2 inches off each side. 9.5/10 for fit

Front: Front was a reasonably good fit, I've done maybe 5 carpets before from various manufacturers and not one has ever been a snug perfect fit over the trans hump area.It'll settle down a bit and it is cold out in the shed these evenings, so with some good warmth I think it'll be a little more pliable and fit a little more snugly. A fair amount needs to be trimmed from the sides, about 3 inches. Some issues with lining up the dips to clear the steering column. This doesn't line up exactly, but it's pretty close. The carpet doesn't quite reach the factory velcro on the firewall so I'll have to remove that, but it does covers all of the factory underfelt. It did foul on the air box in the centre and has no provision for the accelerator mount like the factory one did. I just unbolted the accelerator mount and rebolted it over the top. Probably about a 7/10 for fit for the front section.

Issues: I ordered loop charcoal, but it's several shades lighter than the factory charcoal. However nowhere as bright as the photos show, that's just poor camera lighting causing that.

There's simply not enough offcuts large enough to cover the outer seat mounts as shown in the last picture. I'm not sure if earlier models have them but they have strips of carpet glued directly to them. I'll have to clean these as well as possible. The only part of those visible is between the seat edge and the doorjam. 

There is, of course, no press studs in the carpet that would attach to the ones in the floor, but I didn't really expect that.

The fouling on the airbox and the not quite right lining up under the dash, was slightly irksome, but I wonder if that's from changes of the models over the years. Perhaps the original mould was taken from a '65 and the '70 has some differences? Not sure...
All up maybe 7.5/10

Final bits...

Not much left to do on the Corona now. Yesterday I gave it a thorough scrub inside, it hasn't been cleaned in years and there's a fair bit of ingrained dirt in the vinyl. Alas the hood lining has been sun damaged quite a lot, I may do a vinyl spray repaint. Awaiting new carpet to arrive from Knox Carpets, I had expected it today, but it didn't show.

The small stitching split in the passenger seat has totally let go now and the drivers side is starting to go, so they will both need to come out and go to the trimmer for repairs.

Still once that's all done and a wheel alignment, I reckon we'll be in a good place.

And driving!

Today I finished readjusting the brakes, topped up the gearbox and decided to do a few laps of the driveway! I was smiling all afternoon. It's been 5 years to get to this stage (yes I know much of that was procrastination) but we're not far from going on the road now!

I ordered new rego plates many weeks ago, not realising you can't collect them from Service SA if the vehicle is unregistered, so it still has no plates. I might do a quickie repaint of the old plates to keep me going until I get around to collecting the new ones.


I love registering on the internet. It's been off the road for 9 years, unregistered for maybe 4 but you just enter the details on the net and bam, registered vehicle. Just insured it on the phone and we might go for a bit of a drive around the suburb later on to iron out any bugs. I do anticipate it'll need a thorough wheel alignment given nearly every steering and suspension component is new.

As the original plates were R issued series (RFR-299) I assumed they'd be non-slogan replicas, however I since found as I wasn't actually signing up for new issues R plates and just replacing mine, they come with the 'South Australia' slogan at the bottom. 

Carby rebuild

Poor photo of the rebuilt carb

 In the previous post I mentioned that the carby was being difficult. I've rebuilt carbs in the past, but generally only simple things like Holden Strombergs and not something like the complicated Aisans found in these vehicles. Also it's almost impossible to find a kit for it. I ended up biting the bullet and taking it to Adelaide Carb Services. They rebuilt it (also noticing it was missing a couple of bits and replacing them) for a reasonable $280. Plonked it on and the car started and idled immediately! Well worth it. 

The gearbox wasn't selecting either, which was concerning given I'd had it completely reconditioned. Rookie mistake, seems I'd simply forgotten to finish filling it up! It only had about 2L of fluid and requires 4.5L from dead empty. Filled it and we're back in business.

Last weekend I managed to potter up and down the driveway a few times, noticing that it still needed a little more gearbox fluid and the brakes needed re-adjusting. I had almost no brakes it reverse, which was slightly concerning when backing down my steep driveway.