summit john...... as it relates to the the cuffed ends on the fresh air duck hose - is made in california - same place i believe newco gets their from, except they offer the cuffs as a small extra.
I love this thread! Great work. Curious: does this car have the trans with the "backward" shift pattern?
Thank you Ed - This car has the normal shift pattern..... I always wondered - what designated if you got the "backward" shift pattern? My good friend has a Boano and it is backwards as we would know it.
I drove a freinds Boano years ago with a backwards transmission. I thought it was unique to that car. Was it common for that model?
I don't know for sure, but i do not think so..... i guess no right hand drive boano's nor ellena were made?
I was curious only because I had 2 Boanos, and both had the reverse pattern. Never understood the logic.
Another update to stuff - never ends! Previous pictures show the steering column installed - that was just for a quick test fit, alignment and bearing placement analysis. I removed the steering column and installed a new steering bearing, installed the horn contact brass surround and installed the horn contact button. On the horn button, i had upper mounting piece usually made of rubber insulator made from delron so that i can permanently place the horn button in position. Over time with the rubber piece, the button would/could slip downtime shaft and not make contact as required for the grounding. The Delron piece fixes this permanently and should resolve the potential issue. Lastly in installed turn signal cancel thingie......the little bumps on the ring flip the turn signal switch back to center position. Pretty basic operation. Lastly the horn contact at the brass surround, mounts under the dash and rubs the surround as the wheel turns. I had to make a new brass contact, restored the pieces and now ready for install as well. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
ok, not sure where i left off so I'm going to go backwards in my photos to show progress - starting with the interior The car is at the Upholstry shop where we made the seats, foam, patterns and overall fitting. If you recall i had no seats, so we spent a good 1.5 yrs getting measurements from several ellena owners providing access and dimensions of the tubing where we bent the tubes, made the tracks and latches and had the round coils springs made as well. Here are some pics of the seats and onto the interior Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
More progress on the interior Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Luggage straps Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
getting ready to start the motor - these drip trays that i purchased do not fit worth a heck, had to heavily modify and after all the work to make them fit, i did a comparison to my banged up originals and they are substantially different. I decided to restore my originals, paint them black as per period correct pics that i was provided and will use the restored ones when they are ready. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The big issues with the reproductions is that they don't sit flat on the intake manifolds and the gutter on the side is not deep enough to allow the carb to sit flat either. As you can see in the pics, the originals are deeper on the gutter area. One thing i found out is that you cannot install the spark plug wire tubes for an outside plug motor on and inside plug motor - the wires come out at different exit points going to the spark plugs.....so i had a last min find the parts rush, and thanks to Cornelius in Germany - he had a set for me . Thank you C. With the correct tubes i was now ready to install the spark plug wires and move forward with the final assembly.
My inside rear view mirror is finally completed - previously i had to make the mirror housing and install the necessary rear lines to the back of the mirror. Although the lines look like some of the other later period mirrors the 57-58 were unique and had a layered set of rear lines that were angular to the edge of the mirror. With that completed, i then had to make the correct mirror arm, ball and mounting bracket. Here is the completed mirror ready for hanging! PS, i stated with a later mirror and had to remove the day/night lever and hole - one more thing - why not!! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The generator mounting brackets on my car were chromed at some point of its live and when we went to strip them, they virtually fell apart. I believe the chrome and copper was holding them together, so I had my fabricator make 4 sets of these....very difficult and pricey but they turned out EXACT as the originals. Here are the sunvisors getting ready for install - nice stitching per the originals. The grill manufacturing was a real pain.....im still in the process with this waiting for it to come back from being anodized.....getting to vertical and horizontal perfect was very difficult...... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
My helper Antonio and I making templates for the floor insulation prior to sending the car out for upholstry work. templates we were able to reuse and trim to cut and fit the carpet after the underlayment was installed. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Inside the trunk, we did the same with templates and the upholstry shop stitched the material. This is original material used in all the Ellena cars for the trunk. HVL supplied this material. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
In an effort to keep the engine moving along - i took the timing cover and all the inside components to rebuilt and restored them accordingly. The water pump needed some new parts, the fuel pump got a new cam and pin and bearings and the oil pump got reclearanced and a few shims made as well. With this the timing cover was complete for the engine guy to do his thing with assembly, degreeing the cams and making sure everything was timed correctly at the front end. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Related to the interior, one of the rings i learned is that the leather becomes too bulky when you make the welting, using the 1/8 or 3/16 nylon bead. We did not want (at certain places) the welt to be too thick, so to overcome this we sent strips of the leather out to a place in CA where they actually slice the leather down to a thickness of .6MM, or .8MM or 1.0MM or other size you wish. Thanks to john vardarian, he provide me the info (Veteran Company Upholstry) ...se send strips and 1 day turn around! We will use the thinner material on the welting for the door panels and the console shifter boot and ring.
Ill post a video of the motor running, we just got this squared away this past week - we had a few issues, mostly with my selection of spark plugs and wires . Once we changed these out, the issues went away and we now have a smooth running V12. First time this motor has been started since at least 1974. More grill pieces from my previous post. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
looks great all don´t forget to put the rubber caps on the ignition wires both sides, so where they go into the distributor cap and also on the spark plug connectors. I think they have been on original?