Fix It With Steve...
In general something will be going on in the garage every weekend apart from these dates:
Saturday May 10th
Saturday May 31st and Sunday June 1st
Sunday June 22nd

More specifically the plans are:-
The weekend of May 3-4th I intend to start work on reassembling the TR6 after finishing anything left to do on Carols B.
TR6 rebuilding will continue through May.
The underneath needs cleaning & painting in stone chip. The engine & gearbox have to be refitted. The entire interior installed with sound deadening, new carpets & stereo. The instruments have to rebuilt & installed along with a new dashboard. I dream about having it back on the road for the Jo Davies’s tour!! (If not and the weather is cool I’ll take the B GT, if it’s hot then the 1275 GT Mini, its already got A/C!)

The weekend of June 7-8th will see work start on getting a non running 1960 Morris Minor Pick up going again. Once that is done there is a 1961 Mini coming to get a new steering rack and that will be followed by a 1960 Austin Healey Bug Eye Sprite. In July I hope to get some time to fit Air conditioning into the B GT.

Progress Update:
Work continued on the Mullis B over the April 26-27th weekend. Several people dropped in over the weekend & helped out which was great. However things did not go totally to plan.

On Saturday we discovered that 10 thousandths of an inch can be a big deal, even between friends! The issue occurred when trying to put 10 thou undersized connecting rod bearings onto a stock sized crankshaft. Result - lock jaw! I’m not sure if I screwed up the order or what happened but the engine bottom-end rebuild has been halted pending the arrival of some standard sized connecting rod bearings. The good news is all the main bearings have been replaced and the crankshaft rotates smoothly. The tie rod end and clutch slave cylinder also got replaced without incident.

Sunday we tried to bleed the brakes only to find fluid coming out of the pressure failure switch. New ones are not available so the old one will be removed from the system. We couldn’t get a brake pipe ‘Tee’ locally so again, the parts are on order! The clutch bleed seemed to go well, so hopefully that is sorted. The front wheel bearing free play and rear hub oil seal issues were taken car off and the heater box & core replaced. The last was not a pleasant experience.

So the work & tech sessions will carry over to this coming weekend.
Saturday 5/3 - I hope to install the connecting rod bearings, new the oil pump and refit the oil pan. The transmission can then be put on the end of the engine & the pair reinstalled into the car.
I would also like to remove the brake pressure failure switch before the engine goes back in. Hopefully we can get the engine into the car on Saturday afternoon, in time for a beer. We have growlers from Emmett’s Pub.

Sunday 5/4 - will see work on the engine/transmission install finished and the brakes bled. Hopefully we will finish everything off and the car will be completed.

Look Ahead…
The garage will be closed on Saturday 5/10 as I have a 25km race in Grand Rapids.
Sunday 5/11 is a ‘we’ll see how I feel’ day. I’d like to start work on the TR6, but there are plenty of other pulls on my time, so ‘we’ll see’ what actually gets worked on.

For sure something will be worked on, even if it’s just getting the lawn tractor functioning for cutting that green stuff.

Regards,


Editor’s Note:
Now I know you are all visualizing a frigid open-door garage ‘out in the sticks’ with a greasy mechanic in a winter parka bending over a cold bonnet working on a cars’ ailing innards. Well, that couldn’t be farther from the truth (well maybe some of it). Steve is the proud owner of a tandem two-car garage—heated and air conditioned in the Summer—plenty of working room! It even has a full-height four-post lift—and tools to fix mostly everything! Steve is located in Downers Grove, IL southwest of Ogden avenue and Main street.