330GT 2+2 Series I Parts WANTED

Each day before and after work I try and spend at least a couple of hours on one part or another of my car. Today I got back the tiny handle for the rear ashtray that sits between the rear seats in the arm rest from the Chrome platers.
The face of the ashtray however is Stainless Steel, not chrome. Today I sanded and polished out the Scratches by hand (particularly bad in the top right corner)



You could of course use a polishing wheel, but that’s a luxury I don’t have.



All that was left to do was re-assemble



Slowly but surely I’m finding trim parts from across the globe and straightening and polishing them ready to go back on the car. I’ve literally spent 100’s of hours on these bits so far, but it will be a real joy to put them on my car when the shell is ready. For now though they are collecting nicely in my shed.





In the meantime I’m on the hunt for a rear arm rest that the ashtray sits in, the bezels that fit around the door handles inside the car, the window crank levers and the quarterlight catches if anyone has any of the above please let me know.

 

I finished re-building the vent levers today and applied the coloured dots. I have a few left over if anyone is missing any.

 

PM sent Mark.

Today I started on the Rear number plate lights I’d acquired.
Like most parts I have located they really are in an awful state.





So starting with the hardest most corroded things first I used a little trick that I can share with you. A product called “Wonder Wheels” a 5 minute soak in an upturned rattle can lid and the intricate Bulb holders are free from corrosion.
For fun I even dipped the corroded bulbs in too!

 

Thanks for the kind words Ed.

Pm sent Sean.

This evening I spent a couple of hours working on cleaning up the lamp holder parts.

 

I got the number plate lamp tops back from the chrome platers, and they look perfect!
It was a tough job cleaning the chrome plate out of the threads, but I managed to get a Die down them with a little patience. I made a couple of gaskets from rubber sheet. The clear lenses polished up ok and most of the fogging was gone. A day well spent in my shed!



The assembled lamps.





Does anyone have a set of front bumper irons and the chrome tube finishers that go over them (I have found some for the rear) even heavily corroded ones will be fine?

 

Thanks Kerry that is good advice.

I did tape/bind up the threads but as you say the plater hung the lamp tops by one of the studs, in fact it just happenned to be one of the new studs I'd made from stainless and the electrical current used in the plating process actually erroded part of the thread at its pointed end where the hanging wire was wound, which was annoying.
It does go to show how important it is to understand the process before you hand stuff over.

 

Today I started work on some check straps I got off ebay for £3



The straps have obviously had a hard life with a really badly welded end on one and a cracked end on the other where the metal just fell off when I tried to clean it up with a wire brush.



Both failures are where the pin holds it into the body by the door hinges.
Since I have no other straps and little money, my only option is to repair/remake them.
However I have a question……..

The shape of both arms is different, one is slightly more curved than the other?
I suspect that the curved one is correct and the slightly straighter one has got that way through a hard life of being tugged as the door flies open, or its off the drivers door where its had far more use.



Is this right?
Can someone take a look at theirs and let me know the correct shape please, before I make new ones.

I have started by drilling out the spot weld and cleaning up one arm to see how the radius restraining lump has been added. It looks to be brazed on. I had to cut the end off with a hacksaw to separate the parts, but now know how its made so can easily make a new pair.




The interesting thing is that when drilling out the spot weld and hacksawing it; I discovered it really is VERY poor grade steel and very soft, so its no wonder the pins pull out the ends and the arms bend easy!

 

Good to meet you yesterday at Goodwood Sean (Buster Bram). Your car looked fantastic!

This afternoon I got some 3mm stainless steel plate I had left over from making some other brackets and roughed out two new check strap arms with my hacksaw. I opted for the more curved shape.



After a couple of hours filing and drilling, the finished shape was gained.



After cleaning up the two old ends of the ebay damaged checkstraps that I’d drilled the spot welds from previously; I then welded them onto the two new arms I’d made.



Now for the hard bit.

The original check straps have two semi circular bulges to act as restraints just before the door is wide open. After filing these off an old arm to see how they were made I found that the arm was originally pressed on one side and then an insert brazed into the other.
I got 3 sections of 5mm plate off cut and made a perfect profile semi circle that fitted the remaining original arm section. This was used on the centre plate and the two outside plates I left flat. The sandwich of 3 plates was welded together and then the surface filed flat and smooth to leave a perfect indentation (concave) so that I could stamp the new arms. I then made a short convex stamp out of some more scrap plate and had the perfect tools to make the correct profile. I cut and marked the sandwich section so that when the new arm sat on it, the bulge would be in the correct place.
I then gently heated the new arms to cherry red with my plumbers canister blow torch and stamped the new arms.
The stamp concave and convex is shown below along with the old checkstraps showing the same orientation as new. If you look carefully you can just see the remains of the old braze (gold colour) in the Left hand old checkstrap.



(You can click on the images to magnify, it will show more detail)

I ran out of time today, but tomorrow I’ll make the small insert bulges for the reverse of the stamped one and braze them in.

 

Thanks Simon. I'm hoping that once the car is done it will ooooozzzzzzzz ridgydidgy (whatever that is)

Yesterday I made the raised restraint lumps for the reverse of the pressed lump from some off cuts of stainless





These were then silver brazed in place





Today I finished cleaning off the flux and tidying up the silver brazed restraint lumps.
The new arms are Stainless so there’s no plating to rub through on the moving parts. However I did re-use the circular ends so I treated them to some silver zinc paint where I’d drilled and spot welded.



They are shown above with the “pressed” lump upper most. In comparison below where after cleaning up the old rubber bushes and fittings you can see my brazed in lumps upper most.



If you have ANY 330 parts particularly interior or chrome wear I’d be grateful if you could let me know.
Many thanks

 

Thanks Ed!

Here’s a few parts I managed to buy cheaply due to condition. I was very lucky to get bonnet (hood) hinges, bonnet spring restraints, rear bumper irons and the brackets that hold the interior door levers. I’d been searching over a year now for the hinges so I was really pleased to eventually find some.
Here’s how they arrived.



I first started on the most complex of the items, the bonnet spring retainers. These were stripped and wire brushed within an inch of there lives, then sanded to remove most of the corrosion pitting. The assemblies have a cross head screw and washer that holds on the coil spring. After a bit of coaxing they came out, but needed replacing. One of my pet hates is cheap fixings from China that seem to have flooded the market. Especially cheap thin washers. So I made some nice thick 15mm diameter stainless washers to match the originals perfectly on my lathe this evening.



After a good clean and paint I re-assembled the parts.



Next the pivots were oiled and the whole things wrapped in bubble wrap for storage.

 

Hi Simon,

Yes I'd love a small sand blaster and a polishing wheel at the moment, my fingers are raw and literally bleeding from handling wet & dry and emery paper. Like my lathe I could only have one if someone donated it. (My lathe was being thrown out from a school) I couldn't even afford to collect it, so owed a lot of favours to a neighbour with a van.
Money is very tight, so a sand blaster is out of reach. I earn under £9 hr in my job so with bills to pay I have about £25-£30 a week spare to buy parts and restore my 330. As winter is coming thats going to reduce so I can spend on heating. Fortunately I already have a box of parts to restore over the winter so I wont need to spend much.

 

Tonight I spent 5 ½ hours working on the first of the rear bumper irons. The car they came off must have had a rear collision as both irons were bent out of shape. I spent a while straightening it and sorting out the threaded hole before filing down all the surface rust then progressive emery paper to 400 grit wet & dry to get a flat rust free surface. Last of all I wire brushed out all the welds. It actually came up quite well compared to the original picture earlier in this thread.





I think a few more hours sanding tomorrow and it’ll be ready to paint, then I can start on the other one.

 

Thanks Simon,

If it were only that easy! How would I pay for the flights, where would I stay, how would I eat, who would pay my mortgage and utility bills back home?
I doubt either that they would allow me into any country to work as I'm an Invalided Gulf War Veteran with no income and medical needs.
Thanks anyway Simon. I just wish I could get a break closer to home. Many people promised to offer a job, but never come through, some promise to call but if they were genuine they'd just get on and do it, instead of empty promises and numerous letters saying "sorry we currently have no vacancies that match your skills". Why dont they just say sorry we dont want to employ an invalid.
So I have to do what I do to get by, even if that means like today I have to spend 8 hours cleaning up other peoples s**t.