2010 April - Installed a Battery Kill Switch

After reading a couple of articles about electrical short circuits and fires, I thought it was time to improve my battery disconnection process.

Previously I had a isolating switch on the battery, but I realized that in the event of a fire, you would  have to pull over the car, get any passengers out, pull up the carpet, pull out the battery access panel in the floor and disconnect the battery via the switch on top of the battery.

Now that could take a bit of time, especially if there was panic involved.

At a DVHCC meeting in February 2010 there was a presentation by Michael Hartman on fitting a Battery Kill Switch inside the cabin.  That's for me I said, and had the job done within 24 hours.

Now, if I need to isolate the battery, I reach down below my knees, and turn off the switch which is located on the lower seat frame, well within my reach, even with a passenger.

Very quick, very simple, and my insurance company loves it, as with key removed from the switch, I have another anti theft device.

When I park or garage the car its now a simple process, turn off the engine, remove the key, turn off the battery switch, remove the key.

The switch I used is the type as below, and is connected on the negative side of the battery.

2010 March - First Run with DVHCC

It was Sunday the 28th March 2010, and after having renewed my friendship with Les Francis, who played a big part in the life of my Chev in the early days, I was introduced by Les to the DVHCC in the form of a rally, which my wife Jan, and I attended as prospective new members.

http://www.dvhcc.com.au/

The weather was slightly overcast but still warm and was perfect for a motoring tour & observation questionnaire. After leaving Berwick we toured sections of the Dandenong Ranges.

Quiet roads led the touring cars through Emerald, Macclesfield, Yellingbo, Launching Place, Don Valley and Healesville finishing up at Maroondah Reservoir Park.

http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/1park_display.cfm?park=140

It was a great first rally with a new club, and a bit of a reality check as the brakes overheated, and started to smoke coming down a hill. When I ran out of brakes I had no choice but to change down to second gear at the fasted ever yet attempted speed. Luckily I was able to get second gear, and avoided a possible unpleasant outcome.

When I arrived home I immediately started work on the brakes, and just as important the rear wooden spoke wheels that had become loose, again.

2010 - February - No More Water Pump Problems

I was never a fan of the original Chev 4 water pump, and even in good running order they are prone to leak, and require regular adjusting, and lubing. Also the grease used to lubricate the pump slowly clogs up the cooling system, even though it is water soluble.

The low rate of leakage would normally not be an issue with most Chev 4 owners, but I run a closed cooling system, with an overflow tank. We are only talking about 2 or 3 psi, but apart from the overflow tank requiring a sealed radiator cap, this enables me to run modern coolant. During the 2009 Chev 4 Tour at Castlemaine, several Chevs were running a modified water pump, using a modern Holden (GM) bearing and shaft, but still running the original Chev impeller and pulley.

I caught up with Ray Hatcher from NSW during the tour, the guy who does the modification. A month later at the Bendigo swap meet I picked up my modernised pump.

The new water pump is excellent and requires no maintenance. The benefits are no lubrication and no coolant leaking or spraying over the engine.

The following pictures show the modified pump.

2010 - February - Renew a Friendship

It was mid February and I went to the Vintage Drivers Club swap meet at the Yarra Glen racecourse. At the same time, in the back of my mind I had been thinking about joining the Dandenong Valley Historical Car Club, but had done nothing about it.

http://www.dvhcc.com.au/

http://www.vintagedriversclub.com.au/

Fate played a hand as during the swap meet, I ran into Les Francis, who I had not seen since the mid 90's. Les had been a good mate since he saw the Chev on a back of a trailer the day I brought the wreck home from Bunyip in 1973. We struck up a good friendship and many a night was spent in his garage, either working on bits for my Chev, his Scripps Booth or his 1928 Chev truck. As things do in those days, work and family life saw us loose contact, and the years rolled by. It was great when I ran into Les again at the swap meet.

Turned out that Les had joined the DVHCC and was right into the activities. With a bit of prompting from Les, and more importantly his seconding my application, I applied to join. So here we are again, involved in vintage cars, except that now I am 58 and Les is retired.

I have covered it briefly in earlier postings, but it a good opportunity to mention again the involvement , and contribution Les played in the restoration and early days of the Chev.

So as February 2010 rolled on, I had re-established an old friendship and was about to join a new car club.

2009 - December - Speedo Restoration

During the Chev 4 Tour in October, my speedo broke 3 days into the tour. When I finally got around to repairing it, Xmas was on the door step and it seemed like it would be a simple job to change the inner speedo cable and then back in business.

Wrong. I replaced the inner speedo cable, went for a test drive, no speedo, nothing. The inner cable broke immediately. Ouch, $45 per insert.

I stripped out dash panel again, pulled out speedo which was locked up solid.The worm drive was bent and jammed. The speedo gears are made from "pot metal" which seems like a very soft die cast, and is prone to collapse with age.

Decided to tackle the job in a big way and stripped 4 speedos I had in my spares cupboard, and was able to make 3 good ones, using the following process:

Stripped all speedo wheels back to bare metal.  Applied a coat of acrylic primer and a top coat of acrylic full gloss white. Then used reface kits from Gary Wallace and the Filling station. Worked well and looked great. It's just a matter of getting your eye and hand coordination right. If anyone had second thoughts about trying, I would say give it a go as the end result is great. The trickiest part was refitting the fine spring, which was still attached to the drum, back into the top brass fitting with the wedge. I did this under a magnifying lamp. To recalibrate the completed the speedos I used a laser tacho that I purchased for $18.95 on EBay and my bench drill press.

The Calibration process was:

The formula I planned to use (for USA speedos) was 1000 turns per mile x 35 MPH = 35,000 divided by 60 min = 583.3 RPM as the calibrating speed to set the speedo at 35MPH.

Howver I was only able to set the speed on the drill press at 650 RPM, plus or minus 1 RPM, and had to fit a bigger drive belt on the drill press in a figure of 8 to reverse the direction.

I revised my calculation to 1000 turns per mile x 39 MPH = 39,000 divided by 60 min = 650 RPM as the calibrating speed to set the speedo at 39 MPH.

After a bit of battle I have managed to calibrate the 3 speedos. Rough adjustment was done by moving
the magnet, and then fine tuning with the spring adjustment. I  bench ran for approx 10 Miles.

However, when I installed the reconditioned unit in the car, it was under registering speed by about 15mph. Turned out that the speedo casing affects the magnetic field of the speedo, so out of the dash came the speedo again, and I had to calibrate out of the casing to a higher speed to allow for the magnetic change when reinstalled back into the casing. Took another day and finished with  3 fully reconditioned speedos, with new numbers.

A word of caution, do not misplace the T bolts that hold the instrument panel into the dash, they are  a special thread and are not available.

I finished the job by reconditioning the light switch, oil and amp gauges, polishing the gauge rims back to brass, ad fitting new glass and gaskets.

New speedo has done 1500 miles with no dramas.

Very happy with the result, and have 2 spare reconditioned speedos for future use.

Below are a few photos of the process:

2009 The Chev 4 Tour (The Coming of Age for this Little 28 Chev)

Melbourne to Castlemaine

Its 6am Saturday morning the 3rd October. I am up packed ready to go, and more importantly so is the Chev. I was a little apprehensive, as this was the biggest undertaking the Chev had ever attempted. So in my mind I broke the trip to Castlemaine into manageable distances from home, being:

1. Safely out of the East link tunnel 13k's
2. Coffee break at the road house near Calder Park Raceway 76k's
3. My Friends Gill and Craig's place at Tylden (near Woodend) 131k's
4. Castlemaine. 157k's

I thought to myself that the worse thing that can happen is a breakdown, and if I come home on the back of a tow truck so be it.

Stopped for a coffee at the road house near Calder Park, then again at my friends, Craig and Gills house in Tylden, then on the back road to Kyneton, and back on the Calder Highway to the Castlemaine  turnoff.

Trip up to Castlemaine went well, no problems, no issues, took my time and enjoyed it immensely. I would be driving along and hear a noise, say to myself that I had better keep an ear on that in case it gets a bit worse. Five minutes later I am hearing another  noise, then realize, what happened to the first noise?

I think I rolled into Castlemaine early afternoon, gassed up the car, grabbed some lunch and headed for the caravan park. Only attention the Chev required was a minor adjustment of one rear brake as it was a bit hotter than the other.

I wont bore you with all the details unless you ask me, but as an overview the days went like this:

Day 1 Melbourne to Castlemaine - 157k's                                         
Day 2 Welcome Dinner - 30k's                                           
Day 3 Display, show and shine in Castlemaine - 25k's                                              
Day 4 Ballarat and return - 160k's                                            
Day 5 Bendigo and return - 88k's                                            
Day 6 Daylesford and return - 96k's                                               
Day 7 Maldon and return - 36k's                                            
Day 8 Homeward bound - 157k's                                            

749k's in 8 days at a highway cruising speed of 45 to 50 mph, with no problems, well done little Chev.

In summary I had a ball. The Chev performed perfectly, except for a speedo that went to god on the way to Bendigo, so I just drove for the rest of the tour by engine revs and the noise level.

The only maintenance I did for the whole week was:

Cleaned the plugs
Checked the points
Checked and topped up the oil
Checked the water, did not use any
Refilled the overhead oil pad and lubed rocker arms
Checked the fan belt        

I drove it pretty hard, kept up with all the other Chevs on the open road and especially the hills.
No breakdowns, nothing that indicated the car could not run all day every day. The most enjoyable run or series of runs that I have ever done in the car, and a perfect confidence builder. I also think it bedded in the new drive train parts that were installed during the 2007 wedding restoration.

By the time I returned to Melbourne I was completely at ease with any noise that the car could throw at me.

Foot note - I did not go on the 2010 Chev Tour as I was out of work. The 2011 Tour is in the Snowy Mountains, a two day trip to get there, so I am not likely to attend this year either.But I will be making sure 2009 will not be the one that I participate in.
                                                                                
                                               

Coffee Break at Tylden 

Cruising to Ballarat at a highway speed of 45 to 50mph

At the Central Debra Gold Mine and Vintage Tram depot at Ballarat

Outside the Chinese Museum at Ballarat

Removing the Head on a 27 Chev at the Chocolate Factory in Mt Franklin

This 27 had a suspected blown head gasket, which turned out to be sticking valves. The car was stripped, valves freed up, and on its way while the rest of us had a coffee. Word of warning, if you install bronze valve guides, allow plenty of clearance.

A Tour of the British Mine at Maldon

Another shot at the British Mine

And Again

Outside the Red Hill Hotel at Chewton

And Again

And Again

On Parade at Castlemaine

And Again

Lining up for the Group Photo at Rod Hadfields Hot Rods

And Again

And Again

Looking down from the tower at the Debra Mine in Ballarat

2009 Preperation for the Chev Tour

Around April 2009 I saw an advertisement for the 2009 Chev 4 Tour, a 6 day event to be run at Castlemaine, approximately 157 kilometers from Melbourne.
http://www.castlemaine.org/

This caught my eye immediately as I had not done any rallies for well over 20 years, and never a long event such as this.

The tour appealed to me as it was only for Chev 4's, produced between 1916 and 1928, and with an expected turn out of 30 cars, this would be a great chance to see a large number of similar cars to mine, not to mention the networking opportunities.

After a lot of deliberating and negotiation with my wife, and encouragement and support from my then employer Paul Grant from Baldwin Medical to attend, I made the move, signed up, and all is underway. Its now May, and the tour starts the 4th October through till the 9th.

I booked a cabin in the caravan park in the middle of town, and also went for a drive to Castlemaine in the modern car a few Sundays before the tour to get a lay of the land.

Nothing major needed to be done to the Chev, being less than 2 years since the wedding restoration, but I still found a lot to keep me busy, including a weeks leave prior to the event. Knowing that there would be a lot of Chev experts at the rally, it was a good time to get all those little jobs done that may detract from the overall appearance.

The biggest jobs were pulling out the radiator to replace my home made insert with an authentic  reproduction, and repainting the bonnet sides after treating several areas of rust. Other jobs completed were repairing all 8 door hinges, replacing door rubbers, rehanging the doors, repainting all interior door posts, replacing all door post screws, polishing all door fittings and latches. As the body lines changed from rehanging the doors, I asked my friend Warren Hedges to replace some of the the pin striping. For the first time in many years the doors now closed a lot better.

There are probably a few more jobs that were done, but they have faded from memory.

The morning of the 3rd of October, the car was packed with spares, clothes and numerous other bits and pieces, washed, polished and put to bed ready to go in the morning.

Little did I know the following week would change my life and my opinion of the Chev.