DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Fitted the passenger door, fairly straight forward



Fitted the rear bumper, with shiny new number plate



Building up my light assemblies



Undersealing all the front arches



Sanded down the bonnet & installed




Wing installed... you can probably guess how miffed off I was when I found out that you cant install the wings with the doors on...



All is coming along well

I'm curious to understand why can't you install the wings with the doors on? I thought 69 wings were same as up to 73, with 2 bolts into the curved sides of the scuttle panel? Admittedly, one of them is a little tricky to get to if you cannot open the doors fully. In that case, I find that levering out the sill end of the wing out makes enough gap at the top for a 1/4" extension to fit through to nip up that bolt (with masking tape on the paint both sides).

I think you need the doors on and ideally positioned so that you can fine-tune the position of the front wings.

In my humble opinion of course

Love this thread!

Out of interest, did you buy new seals for the front indicator assemblies. I did, and they are a ridiculously chunky, and a terrible fit. I've had them for so long, I dont even remember exactly where I got them or if they are OEM.... perhaps new ones are closer to the original shape...?

deano wrote:I'm curious to understand why can't you install the wings with the doors on? I thought 69 wings were same as up to 73, with 2 bolts into the curved sides of the scuttle panel? Admittedly, one of them is a little tricky to get to if you cannot open the doors fully. In that case, I find that levering out the sill end of the wing out makes enough gap at the top for a 1/4" extension to fit through to nip up that bolt (with masking tape on the paint both sides).

I think you need the doors on and ideally positioned so that you can fine-tune the position of the front wings.

In my humble opinion of course

Love this thread!

I couldnt open the doors enough to access the scuttle bolts and with the panels all but stuck together on contact by all the butyl tape there was no levering out the panel!

Can be done, but you do need to make a long small dia shaft that will 'just' pass thought he 'slot' to get to those pesky scuttle screws but they are a real pain.
I used a long screwdriver, about 4mm dia and welded the right size 1/4 drive socket on the end.
Beware of the paint!

knapmann wrote:
I couldnt open the doors enough to access the scuttle bolts and with the panels all but stuck together on contact by all the butyl tape there was no levering out the panel!

Ah, yes, I wasn't considering final fitment of the wing including sealant tape! Not there yet, so hadn't considered until now!

Does that mean there are multiple steps needed here? Perhaps, final fitting of the wing with tape and minus the pesky skuttle bolts, then removing the door just to fit and tighten do up the skuttle bolts?

I still think that the wings need to be final-positioned with the doors on, perhaps with some short sections of covered sealant tape (or Blutac or suitable alternative that emulates the thinkness of squished sealant tape), marked or self-tapped so the same position can be found easily without the doors in place....

??

PS. I have considered, several times, fitting a captive nut behind to the second skuttle hole down on the wing, so that it can be bolted up from the under the bonnet...

deano wrote:

knapmann wrote:
I couldnt open the doors enough to access the scuttle bolts and with the panels all but stuck together on contact by all the butyl tape there was no levering out the panel!

Ah, yes, I wasn't considering final fitment of the wing including sealant tape! Not there yet, so hadn't considered until now!

Does that mean there are multiple steps needed here? Perhaps, final fitting of the wing with tape and minus the pesky skuttle bolts, then removing the door just to fit and tighten do up the skuttle bolts?

I still think that the wings need to be final-positioned with the doors on, perhaps with some short sections of covered sealant tape (or Blutac or suitable alternative that emulates the thinkness of squished sealant tape), marked or self-tapped so the same position can be found easily without the doors in place....

??

PS. I have considered, several times, fitting a captive nut behind to the second scuttle hole down on the wing, so that it can be bolted up from the under the bonnet...

I think you need the scuttle bolts to pull the wing in at the top otherwise it will hit/contact the top of the door (the clearances are very tight), you can probably install the wing with the door fuly open, but don't shut the door until it is relatively well screwed down in the scuttle area, otherwise when you close the door it will scrape the wing, ask me how I know!

Have you fitted butyl bonded wings before? Personally I find the whole idea of "adjustment" a bit of a myth. Without the tape people think you can move it around quite easily and make all kinds of 2-4mm adjustments to get the wings to line up. My experience on my 3 different cars to date has been the same

1) eye up the panels and vaguely press them together
2) struggle like f*** to get the screw holes to line up in anyway at all so they all thread and bite (as the screws are not massively long the panels are now properly pressed together in the butyl tape)
3) even though the screws are not torqued, the panel is now basically not going to move anywhere other than in the direction the screws are clamping together
4) accept that this is the best you will achieve and torque them down
5) adjust the bonnet and the door to match the impossible to adjust wings.

the above process actually works pretty well if you have good doors wings and bonnet, if they are repros or repaired panels it can often not work out that well. Im fortunate that I have good panels.

but maybe im just cynical!

Its a difficult compromise for sure, especially with new wings!

I'm not quite at the point of adding tape to the wings - working further back now before coming back to the wings and leading....

All these tips and opinions are helpful insight

Lots of bits and pieces of in progress thing going on at the moment.

Polishing, sealing and fitting my front bumper. I had a front bumper number plate bracket that hel the plate vertical and right under the rubber bumper trim, it looked way to proud and intrusive for my liking, it ruins the lines, I considered a number plate sticker but Idont like those either si I just fitted it against the bumper underside at an angle.







Fitted a headlight and indicator. As these are kind of wired together and I dont have a solid front right indicator housing, I cant fit the other side at the moment. Oh and how shite are the headlight to body seals, I had a few, but two of them just pulled apart where they are glued together to make a circle as soon as any stretch was applied..



Fitted my rear lights, what a b'stard these were to install. The hardest part was getting the 6 pin electrical plug to press through the body cut out into the engine bay, what a f'ing b'stard of a task with the whole light housing just dangling by wires trying to pull itself straight back out again! With the wiring fitted you soon find out that half the threads for screwing in your lenses are stripped, so they will never screw down in a million years, its not helped by the fact that, of the 20mm of thread in the housing the lense screws only use about 5mm because they are way too short. All of these obstacles are being over come though.



Steering Wheel

For a while I thought this wheel was not worth trying to resurrect, but I think I will give it a go. The leather rim needs a lot of work. Its tired, worn and covered in paint over spray but is still holding together. The spokes are terrible too but can be repainted. The spokes have turned out well we shall have to see what we can do with the leather rim.








Fitted some nice new stainless goodridge brake hoses as no idea how old the old rubber ones are, must be at least 20 years old, probably 30+...






Burning off springplate bushes... I love the smell of napalm in the morning

Good going.
Do you find the re-assembly better (in terms of less frustration) if you do a variety of parts?

Understand ALL those bloody light issues, and all of my headlamp ring seals split after about a month having been assured they wouldn't by the reputable supplier..superglue again.

I bought a mixed metric pan head screw pack off ebay for £6 and that has been a god send, M5mm and down to M3 and a fresh set of junior hacksaw blades to cut the long ones down.

I recon the light fitting job was reserved for the 'naughty step' in the factory for workers who needed a bit of punishment.

I also sprayed a thick 'waxoil' coating over all the exposed threads inside the wings, front and back.

Looking forward to you applying your skills to get the leather back.

911hillclimber wrote:Good going.
Do you find the re-assembly better (in terms of less frustration) if you do a variety of parts?

Understand ALL those bloody light issues, and all of my headlamp ring seals split after about a month having been assured they wouldn't by the reputable supplier..superglue again.

I bought a mixed metric pan head screw pack off ebay for £6 and that has been a god send, M5mm and down to M3 and a fresh set of junior hacksaw blades to cut the long ones down.

I recon the light fitting job was reserved for the 'naughty step' in the factory for workers who needed a bit of punishment.

I also sprayed a thick 'waxoil' coating over all the exposed threads inside the wings, front and back.

Looking forward to you applying your skills to get the leather back.

Yes variety is the spice of life. But I also have a few things on the go at once, because often you are waiting on things, like paint to dry so I just juggle stuff to keep the balls in the air.

Steering wheel worth persevering with. It will have a great patina even if not perfect. Great work.

Regards
Mike

If there's one thing my dad taught me, its how to make do and improvise with basic tools to do difficult tasks. There was nothing he couldn't do with a hammer a screwdriver and the smallest vice in the world. Today was a day for this when tackling the trailing arm inner bushes and rear wheel bearings.

Taking trailing arms in and out is not a task I like doing so when I put these back in I want to make every effort to be sure they will be good from day 1 that means new bushing and new wheel bearings. If this means I dont have the money for some trim pieces at the moment to get my car looking complete thats fine, I can fit ashtrays and the like at my leisure later.

I started with the bushes. After much prising with big screw drivers I managed to get one side out. The other side came out most of the way with a big socket and a G-clamp, but still needed some prising to get it out. The bushes definitely seem worse for wear, im pretty sure they must be originals.

Getting the new bushes in was another matter, especially as they were clearly wider than the originals. LOTS of trying to force one side in with the G-clamp and a big thick washer eventually heralded success but not before it popped out and the whole setup of bush, washer and clamp went flying to the floor 20 times first. Eventually I managed to get the other side in too. Pressing the metal sleeve in was simple enough in the vice but it resulted in an obvious problem. The bushes bulged out the the housing significantly. Now you might think this is because there is a gap between the bushes inside the housing made when I pressed in the sleeve, but if you drove one bush in, the other popped out further. The bushes were pressing against each other inside the housing. The simple fact was that the bushings do not fit correctly, the OD is too large and although you can force the bushings in without the sleeve, once you press the sleeve in the only place for the excess material to now go is to splurge out the sides. So the only way to fix this is to either reduce the OD of the bushings somehow or cut 2mm from the end of the bushing so there is a gap between them inside for the material to press into when the sleeve is pressed in rather than the bushing squeezing out the end. This means extracting the bushes I just spent an hour putting in to start all over again! All because Powerflex cant make the simplest of bushings correctly.






No way this will fit


Bushing too wide


Cut it down and I got there in the end



So with that marathon out of the way. I moved onto the wheel bearing. Now my mistake here was that I should have thought this through before removing the trailing arm as I had 2 big issues. 1) getting the castle nut off without any good way to hold the arm steady and stop the stub axle turning at the same time.. and 2) pulling the wheel hub out without anything for my 3 legged puller to push against (the stub axle just presses out and the hub goes nowhere)

So the first issue was solved by putting the arm on the floor, bracing it with a crowbar (my 1/2" drive breaker bar was bending like a twig such was the force needed to undo this thing so went for the inch thick crowbar). Standing on the arm whilst pulling on a scaffold tube breaker-bar assembly.



With the nut off, the stub axle came out with just a few hammer taps.

Now issue 2 was much harder to solve, how to get the hub out. I needed to hold the arm and at the same time have something behind the wheel bearing to press against. After trying loads of things for about an hour, here was my solution. I got it in the vice just about, using the shock mounting point, in a position where the vice itself was behind the bearing. I was able to put a stack of sockets down inside the spline to push against using the puller and success was sweet!



The next issue was how to press the bearing out in the vice without a super huge socket to or the like to press it into. Here was my solution. 2x M8 bolts with a whole load of nuts on them witha 46mm socket behind.




All thats left to do is cut the race off the hub and press in the new bearing!





now to do the other side!

Rear wheel bearings is one of those jobs that is such a pita , even on the car and with a decent homemade bearing puller

Oh, such memories, evil job all round.
Did mine back in '96 when I went to alloy arms but burnt my bushes out with an Oxy axe and the bushes came from Automotion in the USA, just popped in and they are still in there today, 70K miles later.
As to the bearings, had just the same fight but drilled the castle nut along it's length to relive the stress and it simply screwed off. New nuts were super cheap from the OPC of all places.

All good fun and will keep you honest!
Weren't you tempted to fit split later steel spring arns for easier suspension adjustment?

Well heres what 10 doses of black leather restorer can do for you, I'm well impressed how my steering wheel has turned out given its starting point




this was 50% cleared! you can see the amount of shite in there, it was twice as bad when I started, you certainly couldnt see the metal at the bottom/centre



Dropped my front torsion bar assembly and steering rack




Splashed out on some ER polybronze bushings. The product itself seems good but installation was a total nightmare, I cannot understate how bad it is/was they were borderline uninstallable. The instructions have a massive oversight, they basically say "grind down any high spots and then press the bushings in", and "if they are loose to use urathane glue to glue/seal them in place". I had to do this for all 4 bushings. It then says "fit the spring arm and bolt the cover plate on to check the spacing..." well guess what, with the bushing now glued in to both the car frame and the cover plate I went to bolt the cover plate on and the hole alignment was way out, i mean miles out like 3mm. Now you might think that the bushing must be way out of line, but all I can say is that to the eye it looked good. Nowhere in the instructions does it say "its super critical to get the bushings spot on position so the cover plate aligns correctly" or "check the alignment when the glue is wet" etc etc it simply says "grind down high spots and press in" and nothing else. So now i have two glued in bushes that result in the nigh on impossibility of getting the cover plate to bolt up and Ive paid actual serious money for this product. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Well the answer was to struggle like f*** for literally hours to lever the plate into position using every jack and massive lever bar imaginable. it was a a total nightmare. All because ER make no mention of this issue in their instructions. The alignment of the bushing that goes into the body is critical... not that they bother to tell you this even if gluing the bushing into place...

If anyone is thinking of installing these themselves with the glue, make sure to glue the bushings in and whilst the glue is still wet fit the spring arm and bolt the cover plate and spring arm to the car so the glue can set with the assembly in alignment...this is what the ER instructions should say but dont.





With this total nightmare defeated on one side, I had to tackle the same issue on the other. But this side had even more in store for me, as always... just when I thought i had it sussed. So after 2 hours for struggling to get the 4x cover plate bolts to align I could finally torque it down to pull everything together... this is strange, im torquing the bolts but the plate isnt seating... yes, its just bending like f***, its as if this torsion bar which I assumed would just press in with the torquing of the cover plate is instead just being a b***ard and going nowhere. another 2 or 3 attempts without success and I realise the issue. Now this is new to me but may be well known... There was a load of super compacted rusty shitty greasy shite at the end of the torsion bar inner spline in the tube. So the torsion bar wouldnt bottom out as it should. Now this was SUPER compacted and 10mm thick at least, after I had 3 attempts of torquing down the cover plate which was taking 40 mins just to get on in the first place each time. What the hell can I do about this.. I tried rodding it with a million things bit it was going nowhere, access is basically impossible, its doomsday scenario. I was tearing my hairout, how the hell do you clean out a spline buried two feet down a tube.... well I had to put all of my improvisation skills to the task. I found a file that was the perfect width to occupy the full diameter of the spline, but it wasnt long enough to push down the tube so I hammered a socket on the end, plus an extension bar, shove it down the tube and with a ratchet, turn it to "drill" out all the shite! then with all the rusty shite broken up and loose, use a magnet rod thing to pull it all out. and finally I managed to get the bar in and the cover plate on.

This was 50% cleared of shite, it was much worse when I started, you certainly couldnt see the metal at the bottom /centre it was just solid crud



this "tool" was a life saver


must have been 30 lots of this


With this done the process of fitting the trailing arms, shocks, hand brake assemblies etc seemed like a relative doddle (it was not)