Hi Folks,

Firstly the weekend job to replace the rear crankshaft oil seal on the 1953 TD took way longer than I thought it would and its run over into tonight. That’s despite a lot of help from Kim Tonry whose transmission and floorboard wrestling skills were impressive! One reason the job ran over time was because on a T series the oil pan has to be dropped in order to be able to remove the flywheel, with the transmission already off of course, which makes it interesting in supporting the back of the engine. It took a bit of thinking and fabrication to avoid removing the engine.

The only other glitch was that we found we had to remove the driver’s side floorboard to get enough clearance to remove the transmission and to do that the seats had to come out. Another thing of note was the leak from the seal was not the usual one of oil getting past the rubber lip, but rather it getting past the outside metal support ring of the seal, that despite a lot of RTV sealant. Hopefully the new seal will be better than the old one!

Now on to the Club project. The ‘Parts Appeal’ from last week went well. Thanks to all of you who could help out.

As to be expected things did not go according to plan and some quick tap dancing was required to change tactics. The windshield was out in about 2 minutes, but will be waiting a while before going back in. The nice new rubber from Moss is too large. So large that we didn’t even try fitting it, so it’s going back along with a fan belt that is also oversized. I have reordered the screen rubber from MacGregor in Canada as they have a reputation of getting it right. It seems Moss don’t! 

So we turned our attention to other things. The interior was removed and the inside cleaned. The car smells a whole lot nicer now! Tim Schafer & Bill Kalafut with help from Jim Renkar, did most of the cleaning job, excellent work guys and thanks for braving the outdoors. Then they started the reassembly process which will continue at the next session. The carpet has started to go back in and the under bonnet sound deadening has been glued in place.

Under the bonnet a bracket was fabricated to locate the lower end of the bonnet prop, it was missing, thanks Mark. The radiator was released from its modified mountings and the fan

belt replaced. The brake pressure failure body and switch was removed for later rebuilding.

John Schroeder inspected the oil cooler & pressure gauge hoses and deemed them good. He also removed the trunk lock while Kim Tonry & I worked on the door locks. They are all off and waiting for some touch up paint before the new ones are installed. One of the door locks didn’t cooperate and the nut had to be split with a chisel to get it off. Achieving this without damaging the door skin was a bit of a ‘heart in the mouth’ moment, but we prevailed and the lock was removed without causing any damage.

Seeing that the car was up on the lift we tackled some underneath work. The gas was drained. This was a nice job because the tank had a drain plug in it. Something that got deleted from later cars. We the ripped out the old fuel pump & put in the new electronic one with new hoses, all very nice. The propshaft was flipped & connected so it’s now where it should be. The Differential oil was drained, what there was left to drain that is, and refilled. The gearbox was also filled with oil -- It was empty! So apart from the brakes the underneath of the car is about done. We rebuilt the brake warning valve so that can be reinstalled once the damaged paintwork from its leaking is fixed. The touch up paint is enroute, so that is something we can start on next time. All in all we spent about four hours on it.

  During the next sessions on Saturday 8/29 and Sunday 8/30, we will continue to put the interior back together. We should have everything we need for that. There are also some engine bay jobs to do. Paint the damaged area around the brake warning switch mentioned above for one, others include cleaning out the carbs, check the rocker clearances, and change the engine oil and so on.

Looking forward the garage will be closed again for the Labor day weekend, 9/5-6, I’m out of town again; this time in New Hampshire for a half marathon. “Normal” service will be resumed on September 12 & 13 when I hope we can complete the project.

Famous last words!

-- Steve Skegg